Episode 14: Vanessa and Xander Marin on What It’s Like to Work with Your Partner and Their Breakthrough Year

Vanessa and Xander Marin of Vanessa Marin Therapy join us for this incredibly candid interview. 

Vanessa is a psychotherapist that specilizes in sex therapy. Xander is a regular dude that has been married to a sex therapist for over 10 years. After a few years owning her business- they decided that Xander would help her! He started behind the scenes, but now is a full fledged face of the business. We chat with them about what that transition looked like and what it’s like to work with your partner.

We also dive into questions about their fast growing business. They’ve had a remarkable year growth wise and we dive into what has been working. They left SO much tangible insight and we’re excited for our listeners and their fans to get a peek at this side of their relationship. 

Buckle up for one great conversation!

• Transcript for this episode

  The concept of the big break, I think, is one of those stereotypes that we get from movies and TV shows and books. But I kind of wonder if there's really no such thing as the big break. You're never gonna be on a podcast or do a collab where all of a sudden, you can bring in like a million followers and you never have to work again. It's just like a series of little breaks that you know, build and build and build until one day you look back and you're like, oh my god, you know, my Instagram account has grown 10 times or like, I just hit that revenue goal that I was dreaming of.

  This is not your average business podcast. Because here we are going to discuss how you hit your goals without losing yourself, your values or your relationships along the way.

  We believe in the whole person versus the long term hustle approach and demonstrating to our children with living a life full of purpose is truly about. We're here for the woman who is an aspiring entrepreneur, developing her personal brand, and staying open to the opportunities that come before her.

  We're here for the woman yearning to find businesses that align with her her core being so she can feel in alignment with her life. Come on this journey with us as we navigate this very full season and pursue a life

  we love. Are you feeling stuck? Are you searching for a greater purpose? Are you craving connection? Perfect, you're in the right place, and we're excited to get you one step further than you are today. Today, Kat and I are going to interview Vanessa and Xander Morin of Vanessa MYRIN sex therapy. Vanessa and Xander have been married since 2011. And have been working together since 2015. In this interview, we really want to dive into the behind the scenes of what it's like to work with your partner. And we also want to get into some of the behind the scenes of their thriving business. I love how open and honest these two are. So I know that you guys are gonna love them. First of all, I would love if you took the opportunity to introduce yourself for our audience and tell us a little bit about your business.

  All right, we're Vanessa and Xander Myrin. And I'm a licensed sex therapist and Xander lately has been referring to himself as a licensed cool guy. We are married and we run a business together where we help couples take their relationships and sex lives from ordinary to extraordinary. And we do that through podcast, YouTube videos, social media, and lots of online courses with really specific like how to advice about making sex and relationships simple.

  I love this full circle moment of being here with both of you because Amy and I had the pleasure of meeting you to through a mastermind that we were all part of. And at the time Xander was starting to step into your business full time and taking more of a front and camera approach which was totally new for him. And so I would love to hear some of the behind the scenes of this part of the business journey when Xander was joining full time. Did you have any conversations about any ground rules as to how to keep your relationship inside and outside of work healthy and thriving.

  So we actually didn't have an initial conversation. And that's because I like to joke around and tell him he weaseled his way into the business. But we initially started working together it really it was me just asking Him for help with an Excel spreadsheet. So I was getting my business off the ground and really struggling with all the like ins and outs and bits and pieces of having an online business and Zander's past life was as an HR analyst at Google. And so he can do things in Excel that you would never believe in

  your mind, Google Spreadsheets. There was no Excel.

  So I needed help with I pretty sure it was actually like just a basic spreadsheet tracking client sessions and expenses and stuff like that. And so he helped put it together for me. And we just realized, like, you know, I started asking him for help with more things. Oh, can you help me out with this. So I need a little bit of help with this project. And especially as the business started to grow, so he started helping out more and more. And so there was never really this like official start date of like, all of a sudden now you are an official employee, we are coworkers. So I think for us, it's really been more of like an evolving conversation, many, many conversations that we've had about like, what's working, what's not working, what adjustments do we need to make? And I think that that's honestly, some of the most important advice that I would give to couples working together is that like, you can't just have one conversation about this. It has to be many conversations like as things continue to unfold. Yeah, it

  definitely was a challenge at times, because we never kind of had that initial call conversation and and I think there were definitely times where we bought it has and we struggled a bit. And maybe that prevented us from working more together quickly. But also working through all those things. By the time that we were really, truly working together full time, I feel like we kind of built up a, you know, an experience of really how to work together effectively.

  It's almost like you were dating again, in a different capacity. No, it really was. Yeah, like, you kind of got into it not sure. Are we going to get married, but like, you know, and there's all the communication, uphill battles and things. And then you get to this good place where like, All right, we could take this to the next level.

  Yeah, and there's so many things that you just you can't really get a sense for until you're in the middle of them. And I think the same thing is true with dating too. Like you can sort of have, you know, boundaries or guidelines for yourself or things that you're looking for. But it's like not until you're in the moment, and like having a miscommunication or realizing that you're on different pages, but then it's like, oh, yeah, okay, how do we figure it out? Like right here? How do we dig ourselves out of this particular challenge?

  Yeah, 100% and Xander just like me, you were used to playing kind of this behind the scenes role. You're the spreadsheet guy in the business. And now you've kind of taken a different role in the business, you're in front of the camera, you're more of a face of this business. So I would just love to know for you How did that kind of feel coming out from behind the curtains? Was there any like hesitations or fear?

  Oh, yeah, there were a lot of hesitations and a lot of fear. Because yeah, like you said, I really was used to playing this behind the scenes role. I, previously I was a consultant. And then I worked for Google. And those are all kind of behind the scenes roles, like you're solving problems for people, but you're not the face of anything. And I really struggled early on with feeling like I had anything to offer. I didn't have any qualifications. Like Vanessa did, I felt this sort of imposter syndrome. Even though Vanessa was asking me like, will you play more of a role? Will you show up on this story with me? Will you do this coaching call with me? I just felt like what do I really have to offer? Because, you know, I've, you know, in the last 10 years of our marriage, I've seen Vanessa, go through grad school, get her hours for licensing get licensed as a psychotherapist build up a private practice. And there's this part of me that was like, you know, what, what do I really have to offer? But, you know, when it comes down to it, I think that people really do value kind of having a regular person's perspective, along with a professional license. Cool, Dan. Yeah, I'm, you know, I'm just a licensed cool, dude. Um, but no, I mean, just yeah, getting that regular person's perspective. And it took me a long time of just like, slowly getting more involved in seeing like, that there was good feedback, that it seemed like, the more I got involved, the more successful the business was, because the more relatable we felt to people. And that

  makes perfect sense to me, because you guys are covering sex, and Vanessa could get on there. And not that this is her teaching style, but she could preach about what it takes to have good sex and relationship and people don't connect because they're only hearing one side, I get the same thing with Drew when I'm sharing our relationship. I do like to share his side because it takes two in these situations to make it work. And I think it's just so valuable. It makes you guys so relatable. You guys also do a great job of not acting like you have this perfect thriving sex and relationship life all the time. But you're both willing to put work into it and show that. Yeah, I

  think that's one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about sex is we're taught to believe that it should all just happen naturally and effortlessly. And I think that there's definitely you know, a temptation that people see like, oh, you know, she's a sex therapist, she must have this smokin hot sex life. And like, we just see so much value in being really vulnerable and open and honest about the fact that like, we're a normal couple, we have, you know, miscommunications, we have fights, we have days where we get annoyed by each other, we have mediocre sex, like, we're just like any other couple. And that's why I'm so grateful that Xander did get over his imposter syndrome and his fear and decided to start having these conversations with me because it you know, it helps us be vulnerable as a couple and talk about it together. And I think also, a lot of people relate to him not having any, you know, quote, unquote, experience or qualifications because, you know, the 99.999% of our audience is not a licensed sex therapist, who's also a psychotherapist, you know, so people are like, Yeah, I want to know that a regular person who hasn't gone to graduate school can do some of this stuff, too. Yeah,

  it totally lets you guys run it through the filter of okay, is this realistic for couples? And here? Yeah, I just I love the business model of having Xander come out from behind the scenes. So Kat and I know a few couples that decided to go into business together in a full time capacity. And like Sandra said before, maybe you guys didn't have this specific start date. But I'm imagining that he had to have a specific end date to the job that he was in before this. So one question we have is, do you guys now have formal titles and clear roles in your business? It seems like what you have going on is very collaborative. But I would love a behind the scenes peek of how it's set up. And if you didn't have it initially, do you have it now?

  Well, technically speaking, we do have formal titles. In reality, I think there is a lot of overlap to what we do. Vanessa is the president and CEO, and I am the CEO, and CFO. So I think that we kind of look at it, like, when it comes to operational stuff, and financial stuff that kind of like I have the final say, or I have like the ultimate accountability. And when it comes to like, the pure, like visionary and leadership stuff, perhaps the content stuff, and NASA kind of has the, you know, the final say, or the ultimate accountability, how it

  really helped us was this book traction, which really lays out like a specific framework for operating businesses. And they have this whole thing about the visionary versus the integrator, or the visionary. His job is really kind of like that content creation, like being super creative, having the bigger picture, the values, you know, all that kind of stuff. And the integrator is the person whose job it is to take all those big picture, you know, dreams and boil them down into like practical day to day tasks. And so when we first read that book, we were like, Okay, great. Vanessa is going to be the visionaries, and there's going to be the integrator. And I think we did that for a little while and just getting more and more clarity about those specific roles, like learning more about them. Xander was like, actually, I don't think I love being the integrator and and so that was really useful for us to like to get that clarity. So now we're both like CO visionaries in the business too. Yeah. But

  I think the I think the distinction perhaps is like our integrator now, when she has kind of like, a big picture, operational question, or operational issue, or financial question or financial issue, she comes to me, and when she kind of has like a big picture, content issue, she goes to Vanessa, but for the most part, Vanessa and I are really co visionaries we make most of these decisions together,

  I think a really useful tip for couples that are working together is to find a way to figure out like, who gets the ultimate authority on each specific kind of decision. So as Andrew was saying, you know, for us, like, I'm really the content person, and he's more of the operational person. And so if there are ever any disagreements about like, what we should do, we default to the person who is really kind of the person in charge of that category. And that helps us a lot like it really, like, I would not say we have any power struggles, because we default to each other in those areas of like, Hey, this is a content thing. I'm going to hear out, you know, your opinion, your thoughts, they matter to me, I'm going to take that into consideration. But like, ultimately, this is my zone. And so I'm the person who's gonna make like the final decision on that. And that really helps to have those like boundaries and guidelines each other.

  And for us, it's really informed by our experience, like Vanessa has so much experience doing content, she's built this business up from scratch, it's scary to think about the number of things that she's written, and the amount of content she's created. And then you know, on on the flip side, I have more experience when it comes to like web technology, and the kind of back end operations of our business because I was the one before we hired our integrator who built up all of our marketing automation, and the whole operational side of the business. So it does align well with sort of our areas of expertise.

  I love the book traction, it's such a game changer for small businesses to really create a framework of how this is all going to function. And what I'm hearing you say is that kind of once you had your own lanes, it just makes it very clear and defined. Like if there's an issue with this piece of the business, you know that this person owns it, and it just kind of like streamlines things a lot faster. And we're actually going to have a whole episode coming out soon about partnerships and how we've made partnership businesses work. But I would imagine to that, because you're in a partnership, you've been able to experience some exponential growth. Because you have these really defined roles, you're able to support each other and maybe get to that goal a little bit faster. And it's been so fun watching your business, even in the past year, year and a half. You've experienced some incredible growth and I would just love to kind of hear just dive right into it and really dive into what's working. Why is it working everything from your Instagram account, which has grown. I think, honestly, when I started or met you guys, it was under 10,000. And now it's well over 100,000. And I'm sure your revenue has been also going in a positive direction. So let's just dive into it. I want to hear the good, bad and the ugly of what's going on.

  Yeah, so there are I mean, there have been so many things that have been working for us. But I think it really boils down to getting more clarity on what we want from this business. And I know you guys wanted to talk about hiring a little bit later in the interview, too. Like, that's definitely something that's been working for us. And as part of our hiring process, and really, in the mastermind, that we were all in together, like, we did a big exercise around getting clear on our company values. And that like, you know, initially I heard that exercise, I was like, Yeah, sure, whatever, like, let's talk about sales funnels and conversion rates and stuff like that. But that exercise of getting clear on what our mission statement and our values is, has just had such tremendous impacts on our business of really helping us identify like, what is it that's important to us? What kind of business do we want this to be? How do we want it to fit into our lives? What is the you know, what are the goals that we're reaching for here, like that was just so powerful. And I'm glad that you said the word fun, because I think that's like, probably the biggest defining words that we've really tried to take on, like, especially in the last year, year and a half is like, how do we have even more fun with this business, because I think, you know, sex and relationships, they can be heavy topics for people, because they are ways that we struggle a lot, you know, all of us have baggage, we have wounding around this. And I think we used to approach the business more from this, like, you know, like, let's help people fix the things that are wrong. And we really made this shift into you know, what, like, realizing fun is actually one of our core values. It's like, a core value for us in our marriage and our relationship. And we want it to be a core value in this business as well. And so we really tried to like, find all the different ways that we could infuse that into our business. So social has been a huge, huge thing for us, like, for a very long time, we really had this blockage around this thinking like, oh, nobody's gonna want to follow a sex therapy account. And yeah, we were stuck at like, we couldn't break that 10,000 mark for so long. And I think we were just, you know, even around this time last year, we were at that, and we just started thinking, like, you know, how do we have more fun with this? How do we show up more authentically? How do we show up more vulnerably? Like, you know,

  and it turns out stories is a really good way to actually show up and how people get like, what your personality is, and show that you're having fun. It's really hard to be like, yeah, hey, we're really fun in our email, like, trust us, we're really fun.

  So yeah, I mean, just showing up there authentically and without things being perfect. Like it even even just random things. People are always commenting. Like, I'm so glad you guys don't use filters. And it's like, nice to see you guys showing up kind of looking like crap on Sunday morning. I just rolled out of bed this way. So that's been a, you know, that's been a big thing for us. And I think it's really just about like, the intentionality that we're trying to show up in our business in Yeah.

  And I think another piece of it was around the time that all of us were in that mastermind together, we were a bit focused on what wasn't working for our business rather than what was working or like, you know, what, what was there for us to like, what type of opportunities were there for us? Like, I know, I was very focused on like, oh, man, like our search traffic is going down because Google change their search algorithm? Or like, you know, oh, no, we can't really grow our social because no one wants to follow a sex therapist. Or like Facebook's ad policies, don't let us advertise on Facebook or Instagram. And so we can't like grow our audience in the normal way. Yeah. And so instead of, you know, when you're focused on what can't work, then it's hard to find the stuff that can work. And I don't know how we made this shift. But eventually, I think it was kind of like mid pandemic, it was just like, you know, Screw this, let's just, let's just do us. And yeah, at the end of the day, that's practicing what you preach, like we are talking about having a great relationship and being authentic and being vulnerable and being honest. And when we are showing up on Instagram being like, Oh, we're gonna beat around the bush, because like, you probably aren't going to want to comment on this post, because you don't want anyone else to see that you're following a sex therapist like that, or, you know, we're just not our values aren't aligned with like, or our intentions aren't aligned with our actions. And once we started having that alignment, everything started to turn around.

  Yeah, absolutely. And even like, I mean, we're obviously talking about like, kind of some bigger picture things But I think there are even ways to like infuses in smaller daily decisions, like, we just finished up a launch. And you know, launches are always like pretty stressful. And you're thinking about like, how is this going to do? Am I going to hit the numbers that I wanted to hit all this stuff? And at the end of the launch, I, I forget where I saw this, but I saw some piece of advice that somebody said that was like, what would your launchers look like if you went into them? Just assuming that people have already said yes. And that your goal in the launch was to just get them as excited as possible? about saying yes. And I was like, Oh, crap like that. Yeah, that's another way that you can take that, you know, that intentionality and just approach your business from a really different kind of energy. You know, it's little stuff like that, that we're really trying to pay a lot of attention to, I think, yeah, the mindset aspect of it is just such a valuable and underlooked aspect of entrepreneurship,

  something I admire so much about your business. And I just think this is a testament to anyone who's sitting on, here's why I can't do this is when you were sharing about how because your business is a sex therapy business, that there's limitations on paid advertising. And I think so many people think that you have to scale with Facebook ads, and you have to put X amount into this type of model to make it work. And so it feels like a limitation for a lot of people who want to get in the game. But what I love just hearing about your business is when you started focusing on what was working what you could do, it exploded in a way that, you know, wouldn't have even seemed possible if you hadn't opened your eyes to that possibility.

  Yeah, and and to all the like, you know, the more business financial focused people out there, you know, if you think about, okay, well, if you can't do Facebook advertising, you can't do traditional advertising. For example, if you can figure out a way to get the business to grow in scale, think about like what the profit margins look like, when you don't have an advertising budget.

  Yeah, I think, you know, with entrepreneurship, there are so many things that can go wrong, and so many mistakes that you're going to make, and so many challenges you're going to come across and like, of course, we're human, and we don't like going through those kinds of things. And we wish that it was just effortless and easy. But I do think that there's such a huge shift that you can make when you start focusing on like, what are the things that are working, that I can do versus like, just being so fixated on the problems and the things that you can't do.

  And that actually just reminded me that's like, kind of the message that we try to send on Instagram when it comes to like our stories and our tips, because like, we get so many DMS from people that are like, oh, like you gave this tip, and I just can't here's all the reasons why I can't do that. And we try to always reframe for people, like, instead of like, What can't you do? It's like, what's here for me? Okay, so this tip doesn't apply to me, one for one. But can I take bits and pieces here and try to find a way to apply it to my life? And I think we kind of that's what we kind of had to do with our business was like, okay, yeah, all the traditional business advice, maybe it doesn't work one for one, we can't just like apply that system to us. But we can, you know, pick and choose things and figure out ways to adapt things to make them work for us.

  What I'm hearing is you're seeing it through a lens of how can this be easy. And that can kind of reshape a lot of things. And so I'm just so curious, obviously, you've had this growth, we talked about this huge mindset shift. Were you dreaming this big? Did you see growth as a possibility that was ahead of you at this level? Or did you need to reset retained your goals? Or I'm just so curious, and it seems like it was just so fast within a short period of time? Yeah. So

  I mean, I have been really passionate about working with sex and relationships for honestly, as long as I can remember, and I've always been a big dreamer. I've always known like, I want to make a big impact in the world, I want to help people, I want to, like, you know, contribute to people having a healthy and happy sex lives and relationships. So I'm a big dreamer, I've got a lot of things that, you know that I'm always thinking about ways that I want to help. So, you know, I have really big like visions of where I want this business to go. And I think, you know, I want to share that because I know that your audience is, you know, women and I think that we really get there's a lot of judgment around women who are very ambitious, you know, and who have big dreams and goals. And so I want to normalize that, you know, for anybody else out there who might be feeling like ooh, is it not okay for me to like to dream big or to want this much, but it is, it's totally okay. And it's wonderful. And it's awesome. That being said, like, yeah, it definitely has we've experienced, you know, growth in ways that I didn't anticipate, you know, that are so exciting for me and we have had a little bit of recalibration.

  Yeah, I on the other hand, did really need to recalibrate my goals. My definition of success originally is struggled a lot because I would see Vanessa with these really ambitious goals. And initially, when I was starting to work with Vanessa, I felt like it was my job to maybe to rein her in to try to focus on like, what feels achievable, like, Okay, well, now that I've started working together, like, what was our revenue last year, and like, Okay, if we can grow that by 10%, and like, that's a great result. Whereas you know, Vanessa's like, let's double it, let's triple. And I realized, I realized that, you know, I didn't want to be showing up like that, in work, I didn't want to be showing up like that in our relationship. And so growing, our team really helped me kind of break free of that type of mindset, where it felt like I was the one that had to be responsible for creating a reasonable bowl, because the reality is, yeah, we've been really successful, especially over the last year, it's just sort of shattered my own perceptions of what is possible. And like, yeah, for example, we hit our annual revenue goal a couple weeks ago, like in mid September, and right now we're already 10% above it, and like, we need to recalibrate. We haven't even had time to recalibrate, like what our goals are, for the end of the year, now that we've blown past them.

  I also want to say to like, you know, I remember being at the very beginning of my, like, you know, starting my entrepreneurial journey, and like hearing all these stories of people who were like, I 300x my business overnight, you know, and and I remember feeling like, oh, my god, is that gonna be like a shoe that seemed like a lot of growth. And so I want to say to like, we've definitely had years and years where our growth was very sluggish, you know, and it felt like, we kept getting the sense of like, man, it feels like there's so much potential here, but like, Something's just not clicking. So it's, you know, that's one of the challenges of entrepreneurship is that I think a lot of us have this expectation that we're just gonna take off and be this wild, overnight success. And so I just want to, you know, kind of acknowledge and honor as well. But like, it's a journey, there are going to be plenty of times where you feel like you're not growing fast enough, plenty of times where you feel like you're actually going backwards. And there are going to be times where you experience growth that is just like beyond your wildest imaginations. So it's just, you just have to buckle up.

  Well, yeah, I mean, I love that you said that, because it can from the outside, you guys look like overnight success in a way, because you grew so fast in one year, but it's like, wait a minute, this business is, you know, what is it 10 years old now. And this has really been momentum in a positive direction and a lot of work behind the scenes. And now you guys are enjoying the success that you really did work very hard for?

  Yeah. And I think Yeah, another important point is for us to all be able to, like celebrate our successes and achievements to like, you know, it just always shocks me how you hit these milestones that maybe a year or a few months before, you know, just seemed completely wild and unrealistic to you. And then you hit it, and you're just kind of instantly like, Okay, on to the next one. And I think it's really important for us to take that time to like, slow down and really celebrate, like, holy crap, I did this thing that I've been wanting to do for such a long time. And, you know, I finally hit that milestone, like, we've got to take that time to celebrate it before we look ahead and, and set the next goal.

  You are absolutely talking cats love language, because she loves celebrate celebration and the pie. It's so cool, because people just blow right through these things that they couldn't have even dreamed of accomplishing. And then they don't even pause the celebrate it, you guys don't let that pass you up, soak it

  in. I think that we we have this like thought in our head that like, oh, as soon as I'm making X amount of money per month, or as soon as I have X number of people on my email list or X number of followers like then I'll be happy and satisfied and content. And then yeah, then we just like blow right by it. And we don't acknowledge it. So I think yeah, we've got to celebrate, there's always something to celebrate. There's always something to be proud of, even when you don't hit those numbers, and you don't hit those goals like yeah, celebrations definitely a big part of our business.

  I love the quote that your business grows to the level of problems that you can handle. And I feel like you did so much groundwork in those early years to just not only on your skill set, Vanessa, the business pulling Xander and then building your team. And when it was time for this growth to happen, you were adding capacity where you could handle whatever problems could arise from having a very skilled business. Yeah, speaking

  of that, that actually reminded me one of the big mindset shifts that I made around that was like, when I have it in my head, like, oh, we have this revenue goal. How are we going to get to that amount of money? Like that was a really scary thing for me and I was really scared of failure. And then what we have started doing is thinking, Okay, it's not that the goal is to hit that revenue number. But the thing about if that is our revenue goal, like, how do we need to be showing up in order to hit that? What types of what types of skills do we need? How big of a team do we need? How do we work in such a way? Like, if we were a $5 million company, what would that look like in terms of the roles that we have the work that we're doing the quality of product that we're putting out, and I kind of reframed like, okay, it's not that we need to hit this goal is that I need to figure out how to show up as a leader, as if I were the leader of a company that was this large or something like that. And our team needs to be doing, you know, work of the quality of a company of that size. And so the goal is much more about how I show up rather than like a result that I need to hit in order to validate myself.

  Yeah, that's been such a fun mindset, mindset shift for us to make.

  I love all of these mindset shifts that you guys have made, there's so much growth that has happened, but you guys have grown your mindsets to allow for it to happen and to continue to foster it. I'm excited for this next question, because it's a little bit more behind the scenes. And I know, it's something that the three of us have chatted about before. So people listening right now, they might not be quite as far along as you guys. And they're kind of looking out for their big break. But as we've talked about, it might not always be where you think it is. So I know, Vanessa, you have gone on some enormous podcasts in the past. And that did give you some credibility, which is an important aspect of business. But from a social media growth, and an exposure sentence, it wasn't exactly what you thought it was gonna be. On the flip side, I know that you've gotten paired up with some smaller accounts. And those have actually helped you to grow really, really well. So I would love your guys take on how you look at different opportunities now that you've had the experience. And if you could provide our audience with some lessons learned and some advice around this subject? Yeah, this

  is such a fascinating one. And I know I'm always texting you and being like, oh, you know, this little collaboration brought in so and so? Because it's just always such a crapshoot. Yeah. So we we've really learned along the way that whatever collaborations or opportunities you have, like, you just can not guess beforehand, the impact that it's going to have on your business. So exactly like what you were saying, you know, I've done collaborations with like, huge Instagram accounts. I've been on like, really big podcast, and then we're just sitting waiting for, like, all the new followers to flood in and it's like, crickets.

  You're like checking your podcasts out there.

  Today, yeah, we have, like, spend a week like building out a special landing page, from people that want to come from this thing, like busting, you know, busting our butts. And then it's like, 200 people. Oh, God, why did we do all that? And then

  on the other hand, like we've done it, you know, collaborations with like, smaller Instagram accounts that like, blow our minds how much engagement and new follower and not only that, it's just, we're just looking at numbers, but like, really incredible people come flooding into our community. So Amy, I think you might still hold the record for like, when you shared us on your account, you know, the first time like, it brought in so many people, and so many amazing people and like still to this day, like we get messages are like, Oh, I found you through Amy originally and you know, all that. So it's it's just like you can never guess. So what the you know, the way that we've learned to approach collaborations is to first of all, like, make sure that we're only working with people where it's a values fit, you know, making sure it's people that we enjoy working with. And, you know, we don't have to be like exactly the same person or anything like that. But it just feels like a good fit between the two. And then really trying to like detach from the outcome. So I just for me personally, like I just try to say, okay, how can I show up in this collaboration in a way that I'm going to feel proud of what I did, regardless of what the outcome is. So I'm gonna feel proud of the content that I shared, even if it brings in five followers, or if it brings in 5000 followers, like it doesn't matter. I just feel good about how I showed up and what I was able to contribute to this audience. So that helps, but yeah, it's just it's really funny that you just never can never predict beforehand. Yeah,

  I also I also think that hearing you ask this question made me think the concept of the big break, I think, is one of those stereotypes that we get from like movies and TV shows and books, but I kind of wonder if there's really no such thing as the big break. Like, you're never gonna be on a podcast or do a collab where all of a sudden, you know, you can't bring it up like a million followers, and you never have to work again, it's just like a series of little breaks that, you know, build and build and build until one day you look back and you're like, oh my god, you know, my Instagram account has grown 10 times or like, I just hit that revenue goal that I was dreaming of. But yeah, it's it's not, it's not ever going to be like this overnight thing. It's about laying laying groundwork, and laying groundwork and laying groundwork and so that you're able to capitalize on the momentum, like once that momentum does hit you.

  And in terms of like giving advice for your listeners, I think the best thing that you can do so first of all, like do collaborations, I mean, that's definitely been like one of the best ways for our Instagram account, in particular has grown because we've done collaborations with other accounts, like there's no way that we would be at 120,000 Without these collaborations that we've done. And so my best advice for like trying to do those collaborations is to really approach other people from a sense of like, wanting to contribute value to their communities. So I definitely made the mistake like earlier, you know, earlier in this business of like, I would reach out to people and be like, Hey, let me be on your podcast, or like, feature my account on your account. You know, now that I'm looking back, and I'm like, wow, that is so rude. Just like, it's just like, hey, showcase me. And so now, you know, we take a really different approach. And we really focus on like, what is it that we can contribute to somebody else's podcast or to their account? And so you know, we'll approach them from that kind of perspective of, hey, we would really love to do like a q&a with your audience. We know that people are, you know, they have so many questions about sex, and there aren't really good places for them to ask it. So we would love to, you know, if your community wanted to submit questions, we'll answer like, 10 of them will give them our best advice. We'll give like free guides that they can download, you know, so just a really different kind of perspective of trying to be of service to people, rather than just trying to like, get yourself highlighted, you know,

  yeah, that was such a great answer. Because what really resonated was when Xander was talking about like, it's just a lot of small breaks. And what I saw with you guys, is there was a huge momentum, we're talking about your guys, mindset shifts, everything like that. But when you guys started growing, there was this really fun side that came out, because you had this positive momentum going, you guys were able to shine in this way. And then everything just started moving in the right direction. I don't even know how to describe it was like watching you guys do what you were made to do. But you kind of had that positive affirmation that this is what people wanted from you.

  Yeah, yeah, it definitely felt really great to like be able to bring that that joy and that fun and that playfulness into art. And, yeah, it really feels like I think this social in particular, it's so easy for people to get fixated on numbers, and you know, just wanting to have a big following. But what I feel the most proud of is the community that we've created, like, there are such unbelievable people in our community. They're so kind, they're so funny. And you know, it just like type feel, to have these kinds of connections. And to know we're making an impact on people's lives, like it just feels really special. And that matters way more than like the specific number that shows on our profile.

  Yeah, and that's the heart of any of these businesses, right is the people, the people that you serve. And being a business owner, you also get the opportunity to support and impact people's lives directly who you hire, and in your team and I know a big part of your business over the past few months was growing your team to support this exponential growth that you've had. So I would love if you could tell us more about the hires that you've made, kind of who you hired first, how you made sense of going about that journey?

  Okay, so my very first hire when it was just me, it was actually a web guy to help out just on a contractor basis, because I realized very quickly, I am not tech savvy, I cannot set up a website and figure all this stuff out. But I do think that's like an important lesson with hiring is to really start getting a sense of like, what are the things that I'm just not great? Because as entrepreneurs, I think we have this, this tendency to like, I just want to do it all. And I feel like I should be able to do it all. But the reality is like you can't and there are only like a specific set of things that you're really great at your zone of genius, and it's so much more important for you to be able to function in that role than to like, you know, get this whatever pride or ego you get from like, Oh, I'm doing it all. So from there actually, I think Xander kind of casually started working with me a little bit.

  It was more technical. Yeah. Like out of my examination system, make the spreadsheet.

  And then we hired my sister, which to be honest, was just because she was my sister. She started helping out with like social media and customer service and stuff like that. And so we really didn't get super serious about hiring actually until last year. And I think that that's one of the, if I could go back and redo our business, that's probably the thing that I would change is hiring a lot sooner. So last year, like because of that mastermind that we were in, you know, we really got dedicated to hiring an integrator and especially when Zander realized, like, yeah, I don't I don't want that I want to be the integrator doing it, but I don't. So we hired an integrator, she was like our first you know, really mean hire. And she's been so so incredible. Like, we just could not be able to achieve what we've achieved without her. And she really helped us then bring more people onto the team. So we got another full time team member who does social media and marketing, we brought on a full time like Content Manager person, we've got another customer service person, and our integrator, Laura, she also helps us with like contractors and kind of freelancers. Like we have a really great copywriter that we work with, for example. And so now we're just on a hiring tear, we are ready to keep going. We're actually looking for a sales and marketing manager and an automation specialist. So if anybody out there is listening, and and has that experience, definitely hit us up. But we are just feeling super excited about hiring and growing the team Now,