Are you tired of trading your time for money and want to spend LESS time in your business and MORE time with loved ones, and doing other things that light you up?
Have you thought about hosting retreats or offering high-ticket coaching programs, but have no idea where to start? In this episode, I will share with you the retreat business model that helped me to bring in 6 figures in the first 7 months after implementing it which has allowed me to have monthly reoccurring income so that I no longer feel like I need to chase my next client. For a more detailed plan to implement this model for your own business, check out this page on my website to download the full training course for free.
In This Episode, You Will Learn About:
- The retreat business model that creates monthly reoccurring revenue in your business
- Free Downloadable training course
FREE downloadable training course
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About Julie Goetzinger:
Julie Goetzinger is a psychic medium, best-selling author and coach who teaches how to make more money and impact without sacrificing your well-being. In her book, “Free to Fly: Manifest the Life of Your Dreams,” she shares her story of how she created abundance by stepping into her true self as an artist and spiritual medium. She is the creator of Free to Fly and has seven years of experience in business as an entrepreneur.
Connect with Julie Goetzinger:
Get free training to learn how to make more money and impact without sacrificing your well-being
Email: julie@juliegoetzinger.com
I took a little hiatus from hosting my podcast over this summer and did a lot of reflecting, a lot of refining and reshaping my messaging, my mission, my brand. Now I’m super clear on who I’m here to serve and I am super excited to be coming out again to guide my listeners who have the desire to have monthly recurring income in their businesses. The people that I love working with are the fellow photography educators, the coaches, the spiritual teachers, those who have wisdom that they know is meant to be shared with the world. And, they haven’t quite figured out how to do it in a way that works best for their followers, their students, and themselves. Having the lifestyle that they wanna have, the balance they wanna have, the income they wanna have. And I wanna share a little bit about something that’s worked really well for me, to create that monthly recurring income in my business.
From Photography to Unleashing Other Potentials
So who am I and why? Listen to me. I’m Julie Goetzinger. As you know, I started out as a portrait photography business owner, specializing in boudoir photography. And what that is, is empowerment. Photo sessions for women. I also did some high school, senior shoots, and family shoots. I love photography, but when COVID came in 2020, I couldn’t do the in-person work. So I decided rather than applying for a loan or unemployment, that I was going to take an inventory of my skillset and see what else I could do to bring in that income that I wanted to provide for my family.
I started doing intuitive readings, and I did them online. And, they quickly got booked. I am a psychic medium as well, and they got booked so quickly and I realized that it was way too much to be doing that one-on-one work for a low price point. It was not sustainable. I was exhausted. I did confirm for me that I am, actually a psychic medium. So that was good. And I got a lot of great testimonials and people saying how the messages were changing their lives. And I had to leverage my time in a different way to also increase my income. What I did was I ended up hiring my coach, Michelle Villalobos, who taught me this retreat business model so that I could leverage my time.
I ended up implementing her system that she taught me and I made over a hundred thousand dollars using this retreat model that I’m gonna share with you. And I made it in the first seven months of implementing this model. The year before I had brought in $40,000 and which is wonderful, which is great. And that was not enough to sustain me. And I did become a single mom. After I separated from my partner, I knew that I was going to have to bring in more income to provide for my children and myself. This all happened at the right time, as it always does in the universe. So I ended up bringing in that a hundred thousand dollars in the first seven months of doing this model.
I also became an international bestselling author. That’s me with my book, “Free to fly, manifest the life of your dreams,” where I actually share my full story of how I went from making $40,000 to making $225,000 two years after that. It took me two years to get to that. I’ve also hosted seven retreats. I’ve hosted virtual retreats; I’ve hosted international retreats and domestic retreats. I call them my abundance breakthrough retreat, which you’re gonna hear a little bit more about, little couple minutes. I’m also the host of this podcast, obviously, and I hosted a summit called “Unleash your abundance.”
So as I shared before I started out, actually, I was a public school teacher before becoming a photographer. I was a fifth grade public school teacher and I felt my leadership skills dying to come out. I had the desire to teach teachers. I remember hearing that intuitively that I meant to teach teachers.
And I had a lot of resistance around being led, especially by women. I had a very strong leader at the time that I clashed with. And I now know it was because I had not allowed myself to step into leadership yet. So I blamed her for what I would’ve done differently as a leader, and I can laugh about it now, but yeah, I gave her a run for her money.
I definitely questioned her multiple times. Questioned authority, questioned her leadership, to her face, and learned a lot from that experience. First of all, how to respect leaders and how it’s a really fucking hard job to do. And also that I am meant to lead myself. And that’s where that frustration and blame came in. Because I hadn’t allowed myself to step into leadership yet.
Those are my beautiful children there in the photo. I have two wonderful children and I believe that it’s really important to model leadership for them. And to model following your heart, following your intuition, doing what feels good to you, not chasing after money, but knowing that you get to decide what you do and you can be really profitable, wealthy by doing what is in alignment with you, and what that means—what feels right? What feels good? What feels fun? It’s not always easy, but feels like a yes. And when you follow that, that’s where your abundance lies. That’s where your freedom lies. Your fullest expression, the money, the love—all of it lies in that place of saying yes to what feels right to you.
The Problem: Trading Time for Money
And my problem that I grew to work through was that I was trading my time for money. I was doing one-on-one photo shoots. I was doing one-on-one intuitive readings, one-on-one coaching, which all of them created a lot of joy and pleasure for me, but it wasn’t sustainable because I felt like I was always chasing my next one.
I would do one photo shoot and then looking for my next one; I would do an intuitive reading and then have to do another one right afterwards, cause I wasn’t charging enough. I would coach one person at a time and there is wonderful money in one-on one-coaching. I still do it today and I still love it, but I have to limit how many people I can take. Cuz it’s a big form of energy exchange when you’re meeting one-on-one with a person to coach. My solution became the group model. Coaching a group at the same time on a common goal and having common backgrounds, common interests, and a common destination was the solution to my problem.
And this is an example of one of my abundance breakthrough retreats, and we call it a retreat because we retreat from our lives to do this program together. And it is absolutely doable. It’s doable virtually or in person. I will say that I prefer in person now that we can be in person again with COVID settling down. It’s been equally powerful and successful doing it virtually.
And if you have clients in different areas like I do in different countries, coming together virtually makes sense. There’s also zero overhead costs and it’s amazing the deep bonds and connections that happen online, as we’ve seen during COVID, that you can develop really beautiful bonds and connections with people sometimes never even having met them in person.
And that’s exactly what happened for my clients. They started to form these friendships and these alliances together even though many of them had never even met each other in person. So you can do this virtually or in person. I choose to do a hybrid of both so that I can mix it up with where my clients can come from.
So it’s more open to more people and more places. And I also do them in person. This is an example of one of my in person, abundance, breakthrough retreats. It was in San Diego. And at this retreat I had five people join in who were brand new to working with me. Four out of the five went on to join my yearlong program after that. And I’ll share a little bit more about that a little.
So what the retreat is is a three-day immersive experience to achieve a specific outcome. And then, you invite them to a year-long mastermind program. And what I’ve learned from my coach, Michelle Villalobos, is that people want the biggest transformation in the shortest amount of time. If you can provide a really amazing outcome for them, such as having their own program completed, developed, ready to launch by the end of those three days together, that’s a really juicy outcome, as we call it, because that’s something people take a long time to create on their own.
And they’re always second-guessing themselves. How much do I charge for? Is someone really gonna buy this? And that’s something we do, too. During the three-day experience, we work through the mindset blocks because we can get excited about an idea and be like, “Oh my gosh, that sounds so much fun. I’d love to host a retreat, but where do I start with the marketing? Who’s gonna come? Who’s gonna pay that much for the retreat?” And my retreat is 2, 997. That’s the cost of my retreat. So you might have blocks around that. Who’s gonna pay that for three days? Well, a lot of people will. I’ve paid for it myself multiple times. So, I don’t have that mindset block, but a lot of people think, “Oh, that’s a lot of money for three days. And how do I know it’s gonna work for me?” That’s part of the work too—working through their own mindset blocks and their own limiting stories about what’s possible for them and their ability to achieve the desired.
And it’s also about coming together with a group that has a common goal of also doing this. This group also wants to start hosting retreats. They also want to add coaching to their business. They also wanna step more into leadership, so they have that common goal. And then we invite them to the year-long mastermind program to start rolling out that program.
Three-Day Retreat to a Year-Long Mastermind Program
During the retreat, we build the program. And then during the year-long program, that’s when they get the accountability support, the mindset, support the friendship, the bonding of the community, the stepping further into leadership and working through other personal problems that come up along the way throughout the year. Cuz we all have things that come up personally and they get that support in the year-long program. And like I shared before, the results from hosting not my very first retreat but my first in-person retreat was that four out of the five people who attended my first retreat joined my yearlong master program, which is called “Free to Fly.” This allowed me to leverage my time and to stabilize my income because people had two options.
And at the time the cost of the year-long program was $16,000 and has since gone up, but the cost was 16,000. So they could choose to pay that in full for the year, or they could do $1,600 a month in a payment. What that allows for is for you to have the monthly recurring income. So,every month you’re gonna be getting this recurring payment from the people who chose to do the monthly payment plan. A lesson I learned along the hard way was when people choose to pay in full, avoid the temptation and just be like, “Woo, we’re rich! Now we can do whatever we want.” I did fall into that trap and I didn’t go crazy as far as buying cars or things like that. Like stories you hear about that. I’ve never been really into material things like that. No judgment if you are, but I am more into experiences. So I did a ton of traveling. I went to all my favorite places in California and Colorado. I really didn’t do much of a shopping free. I spent more of the money on experiences going out to nice restaurants, things like that. What I did not plan for was that not everyone’s gonna pay you in full and you need to be mindful of, your overhead expenses, like paying the venues and putting deposit down for future retreats, because I do this multiple times a year.
Of course, you need to be thinking about taxes. You need to be thinking about your team, paying a team, because if you grow quickly as I did—I went from 0 to 15 year long clients really quickly. I got to hire a team to help support me. So then I started to have money going out to them.
I needed more money for my marketing, my design work, because I was growing and I didn’t account for all of that. And when I saw the lump money come, I just thought I was rich. So I’m much more wise now. I’m actually doing the profit-first method that Mike Michalowicz teaches in his book, “Profit First.” But then you also need to be smart about managing your money and then also of course investing and growing your wealth.
Case In Point: Success Stories from my Program
Just to share some case studies of people that I’ve worked with, who’ve had great success from my program like Taylor Shawley. Before Taylor took our money-intensive and abundance breakthrough program, she wrote in her journal that she would like to have a $25,000. She ended the month at nearly $37,000, the highest month ever in her business. And she said that this time, it felt easy and she didn’t feel overwhelmed or overworked. Taylor graduated from our Free to Fly program. That’s our year-long program and is now studying to become a certified sex coach and is hosting her own self-love retreats and programs.
And then we have Kira Jones here with her adorable family. Kira brought in $45,000 in 40 days while taking our money intensive and abundance breakthrough programs. She’s now successfully hosting online software programs for her BIR portrait clients, which have allowed her more time to be home with her new baby girl.
And then we have Devanie McCartney. When she signed up for our money intensive and abundance breakthrough program, her goal was originally to make $6,000 in the next 30 days. Through our coaching program, She made over $13,000 that month. She shared, “Julie is inspirational, truly intuitive, and a lifesaver. She helped me healed me and gave me the tools I will forever use in my life and business.”
So just to share with you some of the numbers, because we all love to know how is this gonna work out like numerically? A possibility, and I do think this is a likely possibility, cuz I’ve been through this experience myself and I’ve led others through it as well, it’s very possible that you could be offering one retreat or one immersion experience per season. So that would give you four retreats in a year. I choose to do two in person and two virtuals. So I’ve got four yearly myself. It’s very likely that you can get at least five people enrolled into each immersion. That would give you 20 participants. The cost of the retreat will likely be around $2,500 to attend a three day retreat, which would bring you $80,000 up front.
A likely statistic is that about 30% will enroll in your year-long program at about $12,000. That’s average. I mean, I would say most programs are more than that. This is pretty conservative, but if it was about $12,000 for the year, then that would give you $72,000. In addition to the 8,000 and just to share with you my results from doing it.So that’s a possible scenario that I just share with you.
In the first seven months after I launched this retreat model, I enrolled 20 people in three retreats at $2,200 each, which brought in $44,000. And then, I enrolled nine people into my Free to Fly mastermind program at $1,100 a month for the year.
So that brought in a $118,800. the total revenue was 162,800 from hosting retreats and my Free to Fly program alone. And that didn’t include my one-on-one coaching clients, who I enrolled at five to $10,000. Didn’t include photo shoots. Didn’t include any other special programs that I’ve released.
I also do online programs. I mentioned my money-intensive program earlier. The money-intensive program is an online course that people can do from their home. You they can work through the modules themselves. That is a bonus when people sign up for my retreat. So most people get it rolled into the bonus of the retreat. But to purchase that alone is $499. So I sold some of those as well. But what I found is that my biggest success has come from hosting these retreats and then inviting into my year-long Free to Fly program. That is exactly what I am going to be helping my clients to do themselves in our own retreats.
Actually, the next one is coming up in October. So this is October six to eighth, 2022. And this one is gonna be virtual. I also have one coming up in Washington, DC. That’s where I live currently. January 5th to7th, 2023. And then we’re doing another virtual one in February and then April again, we’re gonna be back in Washington.
So during my three-day experience, the outcomes that I promise to my clients are that I will help them to hone in the vision for what they want to create, getting to a place of not ‘what does everybody like, what are they asking me for? How can I accommodate everybody else?’ but how do you want to be living? What kind of hours do you want to be working? What would feel best for you? So allowing ourselves to start there, creating the vision for what we want, how we wanna show up the amount of time we wanna spend doing it with a life of balance. So that’s what we work through first. And then, we get to the mindset piece. As we get excited and we’ve received the vision and that’s a really exciting time when we’re like, “Oh my gosh, this could be amazing for my business. This can be so much fun. Where will I host it? Maybe I’ll go to California.” We get into that excitement phase. And then we get the ego that says, “Well, how are you going to get people to sign up for this? Or you’ve never done anything like this before. You don’t like to leave you. Don’t like when people look at you. What will you talk about?”
That is what we work through as well. Those limiting beliefs, the mindset blocks that say, “You can’t do this. Who are you to think you can do this? Others are already doing it. Like it’s not gonna work. You’ve tried these programs before. They never.” So we work through those mindset blocks. A lot of them are subconscious, and that’s where my intuitive gifts come in, that I can help you to reveal those limiting stories. Sometimes they’re not even from this lifetime, I’m able to look back at past lives. Also at ancestry to look at patterns. I look at money patterns. I look at what you believe you’re worthy of and why I can see past experiences and help you. Once we bring light to them and reveal them, then we can accept them, heal them and release them.
So we do that together during the three-day retreat. And then we get into implementation. Let’s put this together, let’s build these packages. Let’s build this offer. How are we going to market it? How are we going to sell it? Who are we talking to? Very specifically, who’s our target market. That is what we’re gonna be doing during my three-day experience. And I am going to have a link to set up a call with me if you’re interested in joining. The cost is to 997, but I do have a special offer. If you know that it feels like you’re a right fit for the retreat, then I will offer the special discounted pricing to you.
I am so excited to be back on my podcast and recommitting to my focus goals and to serving fellow photography, educators, coaches, spiritual teachers, those of us who’ve been called into leadership. Some of us don’t know yet that we’re called into it, but I will tell you if you have trouble being led by others or in the past, you have. If you feel this burning desire to teach, to lead, but you’re not sure what it’s about yet, then this is for you. If you already have online programs and you have this big vision for them all selling and they’re just not, or you have no offering after they take the program, then this could be for you, cuz we can work on that year-long follow-up program, the mastermind program.
If you are a spiritual teacher and you’re doing individual sessions, you’re wondering how you’re going to ever hit that six-figure or seven-figure mark in your business when you’re trading your time for money. When it’s just one-on-one, or you’re working for a studio and you’re making $30 a session, how you ever gonna hit those bigger income goals in doing that? So if you think that hosting a retreat is something you’d like to do and would enjoy doing, but you don’t know where to start, this is for you.