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Warning: This podcast is the first I have ever published that features the F-Word, in multiple places… and unicorns. That says a lot about my guest today.

Leonie Dawson is one of the most unconventional and unlikely entrepreneurs I’ve ever had the pleasure of interviewing. Everything about Leonie seems incredibly contradictory to how most people would imagine a million dollar blogger.

Leonie is a fellow Australian who has been living a semi-hermit lifestyle in a fairly isolated part of far north Queensland with her husband, her four-year-old and her baby.

Just by looking at Leonie’s blog with its hand drawn swirls, stars and hearts, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore. Everything in her business, including her emails, sales pages and products, are filled with her own hand drawn and handcrafted artworks. In Leonie’s own words, she feels like a hippy who has accidentally shown up at a business party.

So, how DOES a self-confessed, rainbow-unicorn loving hippy come to be the creator and owner of a million dollar blog business?

How Leonie Consistently Smashes It Out of the Park

One key element in Leonie’s success is that she has one of the strongest senses of personal brand and a personalized way of communicating with people in her tribe that I’ve ever seen.

Leonie doesn’t hold back at all with her personality – it’s BIG, sparkly, and it’s uniquely Leonie. This makes such a strong point of difference between her and everyone else online… There just isn’t anyone else like her!

Because of this, not only does Leonie stands out a mile from the crowd, she magnetises an audience to her blog who are incredibly glad to have found one of their own kind in the online world. In her own words –

I’m not really motivated by money, it doesn’t excite me… I just want something that’s creative and spiritual. I prefer to teach people who are hippies and who get that this is a rainbow unicorn ride and yes – there is glitter involved!”

Another element in Leonie’s success is that she started blogging way back in August 2004, just one month before I began my first blog!

It’s important to stress here that the reason this is a factor in her success is not just because she’s been doing it for so long. The momentum and creative output that you build over that length of time is an undeniably powerful factor in succeeding online. However, Leonie is quick to dispel the myth that she just made it because she was such an early adopter.

For a start, there are countless early adopters who didn’t make it just because they didn’t stick with it. Secondly, even though nowadays she only works 15 to 20 hours a week, for years, Leonie blogged every single day. She worked a lot of nights and poured a tremendous amount of time and energy into building relationships and making connections with people all over the world.

Another technique that Leonie makes use of is a mastermind group to ensure they continually stretch themselves. Included in this is having an accountability buddy to help them keep on track and stay focused (something we recently added to my EJ Insider Community).

One of Leonie’s greatest success habits is that she has worked out exactly what builds her business. Every day, she asks herself what she needs to do to drive her business forward and focuses all her energy on that. Of equal importance is Leonie’s strong focus on completion. She consistently cranks out awesome creative content and hits the publish button.

Similar to me, Leonie works with a very lean team. She employs two VA’s and a tech helper and works with another contract tech team. Leonie does all her own artwork for her blog and programs and creates all the content herself. She also writes her own copy and sales letters.

What Does It Take To Make A Million From Blogging?

The million-dollar question is… how DOES she make a million dollars a year from her blog?

Leonie has two goals workbooks, Create Your Shining Year In Life and Create Your Shining Year In Business. Last year she launched her own publishing company to print her workbooks. Leonie has mailing houses in three different countries and is selling the workbooks to 73 different countries.

She also has another 10 to 20 programs on creativity, spirituality, business and meditation courses. Rather than selling these individually, these are packaged up so clients get access to all the materials at once for a single fee in her Academy, which you have to check out just to see the sales page – it’s colourful!

In order to make it online, Leonie insists that you need to be true to yourself – unashamedly and unapologetically authentic.

She says it’s the only way to find your people; your tribe. Leonie describes what this is like for her clients when they find her…

Oh thank God I found you! I didn’t understand what any of the other online mentors or teachers were saying but can I speak your unicorn language!

Her other advice to bloggers is that it’s vital to keep asking yourself on a daily basis what you need to do to grow your business and just do it! Leonie is a big advocate of limiting the hours you have available to work in your business. This is because then you’re forced to get the work done rather than loll around all day procrastinating.

Leonie spends the morning with her family then goes into her office from 1pm to 5pm to work on her blog. Having children that are going to start screaming at her within a number of hours keeps her locked on the clock, squeezing every minute of productivity out of her time.

Leonie is an inspiring business woman with a huge heart and showers a lot of joy (and rainbows and sparkles) over her audience and into the online space. If you’d like to hear even more from Leonie, listen to the interview on the podcast or read through the transcript.

Be warned though – she really doesn’t hold back and there’s plenty of swearing scattered throughout the interview.

Talk to you again soon,

Yaro
EJ Podcast

Relevant Links

• leoniedawson.com
• amazingbizandlifeacademy.com

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