Alisha Found Confidence and Consistency by Bringing Her Business Online

Q: Can you share a quick overview of your business and what you do?
A: Yes. I run retreats, wellness retreats, and have been doing that for 13 years. More recently, in about the last year and a half, I added travel agent services to that. I was already planning travel all the time, so I added group travel and general family travel to the business. I’ve been combining the two.

Q: Do you travel a lot for this work?
A: Not right now. I love to travel and I always have. I’ve done it my entire life and I’ve always been the planner of any family trip, any girls trip—from my high school graduation trip all the way up to now—leading into wellness retreats because I’m a yoga instructor as well. I lead yoga wellness retreats a couple times a year, but I wanted to grow my business into something I could sustain more since I have a child now. I wanted to be able to work from home more and increase profits so I’m not always at these places. I want to still offer what I love, but not necessarily go on all the trips.

Q: How long have you been in business?
A: My retreat business has been for 13 years, and I added the travel side a year and a half ago.

Q: Do you have employees or team members, or are you solo?
A: No, it’s just me. Once in a while, I’ll hire another instructor to co-lead a bigger group, but for the most part, I do them all myself.

Q: When you joined the cohort, what problems were you looking to solve?
A: I wanted to find a way to expand my reach. I’ve been getting most of my clientele through email marketing, and I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job with that, but I don’t have a big list. That’s where all my enrollments come from. Everyone that goes on my retreat—about 50% return—but I’m just getting the same people over and over again unless they invite a friend.

I wanted to branch out and spread the word to their friends’ friends, because retreats are unique in that people usually like to go with someone they know or have heard of. So I wanted to get beyond email marketing. I’ve dabbled in social media and never quite found my way with it, so I wanted to learn more about that and how to focus my energy.

Q: Had you tried to improve your digital presence before this program?
A: I’d say this is my first real program. I had a marketing professional who focused on social media come to one of my retreats, and in exchange for her coming she gave me her services because her prices were astronomical. She shared a little bit, but it didn’t resonate with me. It wasn’t something I could sustain because it didn’t feel good to me, even though she had plenty of successful clients. It just wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t what was going to work for me.

If you get somebody that’s really good at something and it works for them, they assume it’ll work for everyone. But just because it worked for them doesn’t mean it’s going to work for me. I’ve dabbled in things here and there and just really haven’t found my way with it.

Q: Have you seen any tangible results from implementing what you learned (customers, engagement, feedback)?
A: I’ve been really consistent about posting, and utilizing AI has been an extremely helpful tool for me. It helps me not have to wrap my head around so many things and make them perfect, because that’s not my specialty. I’m known for misspelled words or forgetting something, and AI is nice because it cleans everything up for me and organizes my thoughts.

Since using this program and finding ways to combine what I learned with AI, I’ve been consistent with posting and have seen much more engagement—which has been encouraging for the first time ever. I actually like what I’m posting now. I see a rhythm and consistency that feels more authentic.

Crossing over social media, email marketing, landing pages, and branding—finding ways to bring those together—has been nice. I can see how they all affect one another, especially website, SEO, and keywords. I feel like my quality is getting better and everything I’m putting out there feels stronger. I’m getting more followers, and even if there’s not a lot of interaction yet, it’s acknowledgment that what I’m doing is working.

Q: Do you feel more confident with your digital skills now than before?
A: Yes, definitely. Little bits at a time. I feel like I’ve taken the course and now I’m digesting it all. I downloaded everything so I can go back to the PDFs and go deeper into subjects like branding, landing pages, or SEO. I have an overall idea of how it all comes together, but now I’m going back in to clean everything up.

Q: What was your most impactful takeaway from the cohort?
A: It taught me more of what I didn’t know about what makes a business stand out. I learned a lot of things I need to do to clean up my act—just to organize things more. These are all really helpful tools, but especially the importance of analytics and understanding that you can do all this beautifully, but if it’s not reaching people and you’re not checking in with your analytics, you’re not going to get what you’re seeking out of it.

I need to know more about that, though. When I look at my Google Analytics page and scroll down, I’m not sure what I’m looking at. Some interpretation would help, like someone sharing their screen and walking through what the data means. That’s a little challenging for me to comprehend.

Q: What is the most valuable part of being in the cohort?
A: The overall structure of it—understanding the structure of a business and of digital marketing. It opened my eyes to the different ways we can get ourselves out there.

Q: What does the future look like for your business?
A: It looks bright, shiny, and lucrative. I love what I do. I just want to expand my reach and offer different things that are similar. I’d love a business partner or someone to help me navigate that because sometimes I have so many ideas, it’s hard to stay in my lane.

I feel like this course really helped and is going to help me do that. There’s so much to do, and when I implement all these changes, I hope to start seeing more return because I don’t want to be out there as much. I want to offer more services and travel opportunities, but not necessarily have to be there in person to make the money.

Q: Anything else you’d like to share?
A: I’m excited about the opportunity to apply for a grant. The funding piece is always a big challenge because I have to do all these things on my own. I can’t hire people to do these services because I don’t have the finances to get support.

If I did, I feel like I could get a lot of things crossed off my list. I’d much prefer a professional to handle some of these tasks so I’m not here 13 years later still figuring it all out. The money piece has always held me back from where I could be because I don’t have capital to reinvest in my business. It’s just me squeezing it in whenever I can. So, it’s a lot.

I plan to do some research. I’ve never applied for a grant, so I really want to make sure I know the best way to approach it. But I do plan to.