Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Hawks.
Hi Jessica, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a small town in North Carolina. It’s essentially the type of town that most people don’t leave when they’re born there. My parents owned a local business there but despite them being entrepreneurs as well, I was never pushed to go one way or another in terms of going to college or starting my own business. I appreciated this in the sense that I didn’t have someone telling me I “had” to do things a certain way but at the end of the day, the reason for this was mostly because we had a really difficult family life at home and that consumed most of our attention rather than it being on my future.
When I was 16, I moved out of my parent’s house and started working full-time while finishing high school online. I worked in retail as a dog walker and a barista over the next few years. At the same time, I was struggling in a severe way with anxiety and depression.
At 19, I moved to SC to find a sense of independence and a fresh start. I immediately began working as a Chiropractic Assistant for $9/hour. Over the next four years, I would go on to continue working there while eventually raising my hourly rate to $20/hour. I was also going to school for Nursing for two of those years. During all of that, I was living by myself and paying all of my bills. After taxes were taken out of my pay at work, I ended up struggling every single month. I knew that I needed to do something different and I had an intense desire to be able to travel, make my own schedule and find the creativity I had as a child. I just didn’t know HOW to get there.
In 2019, I dropped out of college with no plan. I continued working full-time and stumbled onto the online business world in October of that year. I was immediately obsessed and knew that this is exactly what I had been looking for. Although, I was still terrified to actually start and leave a “stable” job. It took me 6 months to actually make a decision and go for it. I quit my job and signed up for a coaching program to help me build my business as a Virtual Assistant for Wedding Creatives and within around a month and a half, I had completely replaced my corporate income. Within four months, I was making $60/hour and 9k/month which was over QUADRUPLE my corporate income.
I was completely shocked and felt compelled to tell others who were in similar situations as me about the opportunities in the online space. I took a chance and started making TikTok videos about what I had grown my business to and immediately had thousands of people coming to me asking how I did it.
This led me to building out my own educational guides, classes and courses to teach people who are unhappy with the 9-5 job how to build a successful, sustainable & ethical business online. I went into mentoring full time by the end of 2020 and a little over two years later have since grown my business to a multi-million dollar business, have built a team of nine, been featured in Yahoo & Business Insider and recently have guest spoken live at VidCon.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Absolutely not! Something that I always tell my students is that your business is around 70-80% mindset and 20-30% strategy. No matter how much you make, no matter how successful you are and no matter how experienced you are, you will STILL have many bouts of mindset struggles as a business owner. The hard part is realizing that that is normal and taking the action needed to precisely identify what exactly you’re struggling with mindset-wise and then address it.
Mindset blocks can be insidious within your business and personal self. It’s so important to take time every month to sit down and be honest with yourself about where you need help.
In addition to this, I have built a very large social platform on TikTok & Instagram and that comes with a plethora of struggles within itself. I feel so fortunate to have a mostly supportive audience, but I say some pretty controversial things such as “you don’t HAVE to go to college in order to be successful.” This can be very polarizing and with it comes a lot of hateful comments from some people online. That can be really difficult to take, especially when you’re first starting out.
Despite all of this though, I’ve never had a moment where I wasn’t immensely grateful for everything my business has done for me. It completely changed my life and perspective in so many ways.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m an online coach guiding people in their 20’s & 30’s on how to build an online business and get booked out, giving themselves financial security and a flexible schedule. After going viral on TikTok and building massive awareness around this career opportunity, I’ve led students from around the world in becoming booked-out service providers. The main goal of my business is to provide accessible, accurate information to individuals who are tired of being overworked and underpaid and have a desire to create a life with more freedom, personally and financially.
I have many classes and courses that are paid as they teach you how to build your business A-Z but I also make an intentional effort to constantly provide as much free information as possible to my audience as I know how it feels to desperately want to try something new yet lack the funds to do it. There are a lot of coaches in the online space but what sets our business apart is that we teach you how to THRIVE within your business rather than just exist in it.
I’m not here to teach people how to make quick cash. I’m here to teach people how to build a business than not only helps them become financially free but also is SUSTAINABLE and can be successful for as long as they want it to. This reflects in the business in every single facet.
At this point, we invest a large chunk of money every year into things like photoshoots, branding, copywriting, marketing, systems, automations, workflows, programs, team members, etc because we aren’t aiming for mediocrity. We want our audience to know that when they enroll in one of our courses, they can trust that they are receiving accurate business information that will help them stand out.
My programs range from lower price point PDF guides all the way to high price point 11-week programs where you have direct access to me and my other co-coaches Monday-Friday.
I’ve also created a second business, Fluent University with my first student ever, Sydney Kerr. She went on after being a student of mine to build a 6-figure, thriving business and become an expert in the marketing field. We’ve teamed up to create specialized courses about offering services to clients such as Pinterest Management, Blog Management and Email Marketing. Over time, Fluent University will become a one stop shop for anyone who wants to learn how to become an expert in a specialized field and then get paid to implement that service in other people’s businesses.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
There’s definitely too many to shrink it down to one specifically but to name a few: relatability, transparency, tenacity, genuine care & curiosity.
Most of my audience are people who are very unfamiliar with the online space so it’s really important to me to show them that I’ve been exactly where they are and I’m more than willing to pull the blinds open on my business and show them the real numbers/what is happening.
It can also be easy to become complacent with your business once you reach a certain level of success. You fall behind on continuing to educate yourself &. learn and before you know it you’re falling behind in the business world as well. You have to maintain your tenacity and curiosity for learning like you had in the beginning.
Maybe the one that trumps it all is care. One of the BEST compliments I can receive from a student is them saying “I can tell that you truly do care about our success.” It’s so true! I want every single person that learns from me to have the tools & support needed to build the live that they’ve been dreaming of.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://itsjessicahawks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsjessicahawks/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessicaleighhawks
Image Credits
Jackie Sterna
