Do you ever worry that you’re not being professional enough on your social media?

Do you often hold yourself back from sharing certain parts of your personality?

Or do you quash your own ideas, because they aren’t deemed the ‘right’ way to do things in your industry?

Well today’s guest is here to show you how to bring your whole, colourful and creative self into your business!

Leonie Dawson is an internationally best-selling author of the 2023 My Brilliant Year workbooks (formerly known as the Goal Getter workbooks) which have been used by over 500,000 people worldwide.

A multi-passionate entrepreneur, Leonie has generated over $13 million in revenue while only working 10 hours a week. Leonie has been recognised for her business acumen by winning Ausmumpreneur’s People’s Choice Business Coach, Global Brand & Businesses Making A Difference Awards.

Leonie has spent the last 10 years living in some of the most beautiful places around Australia. She currently lives with her two daughters and husband on the Sunshine Coast.

I think you’re going to find this conversation entertaining and refreshing in the way Leonie approaches business, marketing and the idea of being authentic online.

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Emily Osmond (00:00.734)
Hello, Leonie Dawson and welcome to the podcast. Oh, I had the absolute privilege and honor of meeting you in person at Tash Corbin’s Heart-Centered Business Conference. And I was like, I’ve got to have a chat with you more. So come on my podcast.

Leonie Dawson (00:04.158)
Aww, babes, it’s a joy to be here!

Leonie Dawson (00:20.078)
Same, same. And like me and Kelly Rowatt have this like running joke now because we don’t just call you Emily Osmond, it’s lovely Emily Osmond. Like it’s the lovely, you’re the loveliest in person. And yeah, it’s just like, I’m so glad we get to spend this time. It’s just like at conferences, they’re so busy. I felt like I just kept on wanting to like launch myself at you. I love you. I love you. But you then, you know, there’s always other people to talk to as well.

Emily Osmond (00:29.62)
Hehehehe

Emily Osmond (00:38.415)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (00:48.206)
Oh, that’s so good. Hey, so good to get out and into just in-person events and stuff. Oh, the best. Anyway, would you like to introduce you? Who, who are you? What do you do?

Leonie Dawson (00:54.74)
It is.

Leonie Dawson (00:59.006)
Oh, sure. I’m the world’s worst at doing elevator pictures. I was just at a conference, Osmumpreneur Conference, and people would ask me what I did. And so I said I was Australia’s leading wide girth dildo supplier. And I just never told anyone what I was doing. And I won a bunch of awards. And here’s for the wide girth, the wide girth dildo girls, you know.

There’s a real need out there, an urgent. That’s exactly, exactly. So basically, like I just, I talk shit on the internet. I write books. I help people, like my books have been used by half a million people worldwide now, which is amazing. And it helps them set their goals for their life and their business for the year ahead. And then I also have my brilliant business life academy where I teach people everything I know about building a wildly successful business

Emily Osmond (01:30.329)
And you’ve got your supplies by the sounds.

Emily Osmond (01:38.063)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Osmond (01:47.087)
Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (01:57.282)
bugger all time. So I’ve created over $13 million now. I work about 10 hours a week, I’ve always only worked about 10 hours a week. So I like to talk about doing business differently and sales and marketing differently.

Emily Osmond (01:58.846)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Osmond (02:04.617)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (02:08.462)
Yeah. Love it, Leigh-O-Leigh, and love you for being very unique and very just real as well. I bet it didn’t. I bet you were like, isn’t that just what you meant to be?

Leonie Dawson (02:21.047)
It didn’t occur to me to be anything else.

Leonie Dawson (02:26.246)
Yeah, like, it was like, gonna make up a character to be like, did I have to pretend to be somebody else? Like this? No, I think I might just do it this way. It might be a bit weird.

Emily Osmond (02:35.254)
What if I, um, I remember one of my friends saying to me, Oh my gosh, Emily, I didn’t realize like people hire other people’s houses for photo shoots. I’m like, Oh yeah, of course. There’s that, there’s that. So Looney, you started your business back when you had a government role, which is part of the reason you had to be able to do it parts like on.

Leonie Dawson (02:44.206)
Oh the sweet thing! Of course we did because we don’t want to clean at home!

Leonie Dawson (02:58.635)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (03:02.058)
minimal hours really. And I was the same. I worked in a tourism body that was funded by government. Awesome job. Like tourism, so fun. But at the same time, I just wanted to work for myself and I wanted to have a bit more control over what I was doing and have more flexibility and all of those types of things. I know that you started your business and then you went on to have kids. So again, not a lot of time when you’re running around after little rugrats. And that continues to be how you run your business today.

I know that this is something that you would be asked all the time, but how do you prioritize or structure your time so that you are working on only the essentials? How do you figure out what they are? And what is it that you then are like, right, I’ve only got so many hours this week to work, here’s what I’m going to do. Like what is it you do in that time?

Leonie Dawson (03:54.354)
Yeah, look, honestly, like I read the four hour workweek when it first came out. And I was like, oh, okay, so that’s how you do it. And so I just like applied a whole bunch of the things that he teaches in there. And I just took it literally, I just took it literally, especially like at that point, like 2007 ish, I think that came out. You know, I was still working in the public service, and I had very minimal hours to work on my business, but it was still growing. So I think Pareto’s principle, which he talks about in the book is really helpful.

Leonie Dawson (04:23.558)
knowing that 20% of your tasks create 80% of the results, and really trying to get clear on what those are and focusing down on the most important. So even like above my desk, I have, you know, if I only had two hours a week to work, what would I do? Like what would keep the business pretty much ticking over? What would bring in money and, you know, deliver to clients? And so

Emily Osmond (04:33.404)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (04:42.759)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (04:50.446)
Yeah. Oh, it’s dropping in and out, but hopefully you can hear me okay, Leonie. Um, let me just wait for you to come back. I don’t know why it would be doing that. Can you hear me all right? I don’t know why it’s dropping out.

Leonie Dawson (04:54.842)
Oh, I can hear you. Can you hear? No, so you can’t hear me as well.

Can you hear? Yeah. Oh bless. Did you want me to like stop and come back in? Okay. Do you mean I just, I’ll just get my husband to make sure he’s not downloading anything. All right, I’ll just, okay.

Emily Osmond (05:07.038)
It’s fine. I think it’s okay. It should record it. It records it locally. Well, you kind of, if you want. Okay. Sounds good.

Leonie Dawson (05:42.558)
Is that any better? Is that any better or is it still choppy? OK.

Emily Osmond (05:46.71)
There we go. Well, we’ll see. We’ll keep going. We’ll see. But it does record it locally, so it should be all right, I think. But yeah.

Leonie Dawson (05:51.282)
Okay. All right. Bless. We’ve just like had internet issues this morning. How dare they? That’s right. So busy guys.

Emily Osmond (05:56.446)
Uh, how dare they? That’s so rude. So rude. But, um, I read the four hour work week too. And I think that’s, that was before I had my own business, but I was kind of like building up some things on the side. And I was kind of similar, I guess, that I didn’t want to and couldn’t work heaps and heaps of hours. And I know like, um, when people join my membership, I asked them, you know, what does your ideal week look like? How much are you working? And they might say, oh, you know, I just want to be able to work like 30 or 40 hours a week. I’m like, really?

That sounds like a lot of time.

Emily Osmond (06:34.226)
Do you want to jump out and come back in? See if that helps. Yes, that’s good. Of course.

Leonie Dawson (06:36.586)
Yes, I will. Yes. Okay. That’s all right. Okay. Hold tight.

Emily Osmond (07:24.782)
a bit better. Hopefully. Yeah. Let’s see. Okay. Close your other Riverside tab though. It’s saying if you got one open. Okay, cool. Hopefully it looks better. Okay. Fingers crossed. Sorry. I don’t know why it’s being annoying. Oh, bloody hell. I think you frozen again. Is your internet playing up? Do you know? Do you know if your interest playing up or is it fine? Your end? I don’t know why. Do you think

Leonie Dawson (07:26.749)
Alright, damn.

Leonie Dawson (07:31.306)
Oh my god, okay, of course. There we go. Is that better?

Okay.

Leonie Dawson (07:40.126)
Oh no, it just stopped again. Oh my God.

Leonie Dawson (07:51.838)
Let me go check mate with my husband and see if he can work out what the… Yeah, okay, hold tight. Oh my god.

Emily Osmond (07:54.978)
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Leonie Dawson (08:32.654)
Okay, Chris just tested and our ping rate’s looking good. All right, fingers crossed. No, I’m so sorry. I haven’t had issues like for years with internet speed.

Emily Osmond (08:34.93)
Oh yeah. Looking good. All right. Cool. Sorry, Leonie. I don’t know why it’s… No, it’s fine. Yeah. Okay. It could be this Riverside thing, so… Anyway, so I would love to ask what, basically like what you love doing and think you’re good at and how you’ve built your business around that. So…

Leonie Dawson (08:46.743)
Okay, alright.

Leonie Dawson (09:02.223)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (09:03.09)
I’ll go ahead and ask my little question for you. Um, so Leone, how have you really designed your business around what you feel like you’re good at? What feels best and easiest to you?

Leonie Dawson (09:05.724)
Mmm, go.

Leonie Dawson (09:15.362)
Mm. For me, it’s creating. I just love making stuff. And whether that is drawing something, making an easy, making a coloring book, whether that’s like writing and creating blog posts or podcasts or courses or workshops or art journal, like my creativity, like I don’t have just like one medium. It’s just all the mediums to express myself. And

It just makes me so freaking happy to be able to make stuff. It’s also why I don’t like just have one course that I sell. Like I’ve now created over 180 courses. And it’s just because I just, I want to make something new all the time. So I try and generate my business off creating and then sharing, like sharing that creation with the world and whoever it needs to, to find it.

Emily Osmond (09:49.149)
Yeah?

Emily Osmond (09:53.01)
Wow.

Emily Osmond (10:02.351)
Mm, mm.

Emily Osmond (10:08.302)
Yeah, so smart. Did you know that from the start when you started your business, Leonie, or did you kind of have to change your business model over time to better cater for that?

Leonie Dawson (10:17.862)
I, like, I’ve tried a lot of things over and over, but it’s always really just been based in the creativity. And it comes in different ways. Like when I first started, it was, I was selling art prints online, and that was kind of all I did. But then blogging really developed into something more, and I kept on playing around. So I would do like life coaching online, or wedding photography, or running spiritual retreats. Like I just tried all the things, and to get…

Emily Osmond (10:44.048)
Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (10:46.402)
what felt like a really good fit for me as the energy and also what would be a great fit for other people and what would be an economic driver for the business as well.

Emily Osmond (10:56.311)
Yeah, cool. Speaking of the economic drivers, what are your different things that you sell? You’ve got courses, membership, anything else? There’s some affiliate, I think. Books. Okay, yeah.

Leonie Dawson (11:06.098)
Um, it’s mostly the workbooks, my goal workbooks and, um, the academy. So like I was selling all of my courses individually. And, um, then less than a year ago, I just compiled them all into one resource. So people can get everything I create for under a hundred bucks a year, which is super fun. So, um, those are my two big things. And then if there’s other things that I add in, um, that’ll be cool, but those are my

majorities and they’re the ones that have earned me like 95% of my income at least.

Emily Osmond (11:37.29)
Yeah. Nice. And I’m good hate to look at what’s working and focus on that and dial it in and everything. What what do you do in terms of your marketing? Leonely? What are some things that are your, I guess, like non negotiables? If they were only certain marketing things that you were going to do? What are those for you?

Leonie Dawson (11:57.05)
For me, it is sending something to my mailing list. My mailing list is by far the biggest. Social media, I can do without. I did two years without social media. And for me, I just review like view marketing as like, okay, how can I share my work with the world? And how can I build up long-term relationships with people? Like, how can I…

Emily Osmond (12:06.867)
Hmm

Leonie Dawson (12:22.866)
give to them and build up that beautiful trust and help them, even if not giving me any money. So the mailing list and sending wonderful things to my mailing list, free stuff is by far the most important marketing thing for me.

Emily Osmond (12:36.739)
And you’ve been in business for a few years. Have you seen people that have been kind of in your sphere that maybe have found you, joined your email list, and then maybe it’s taken a few years for them to really be ready or resonate or be like, yep, now’s the time and jump into your academy.

Leonie Dawson (12:52.97)
Yeah, absolutely. Like, and I’m always surprised like at how long sometimes it takes for things to pay off and I’m totally fine with that. I did a, I only do like, I only offer like coaching maybe once every 10 years because like I have very low social needs. So like, I keep it very contained. So last year.

Emily Osmond (13:00.147)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (13:12.186)
Yeah

Every ten years I’ll emerge and talk with someone.

Leonie Dawson (13:17.462)
10 years, I’ll have a chitty chat. And so last year I did, I offered that. And I had somebody join up for that. It was like $5,000 a year. And she had been following me since 2001 off her message board. And we hadn’t really been in contact during that point. Like she’d always just sort of followed my work. But I was like, wow, that’s like the power of like building long term relationships with people.

Emily Osmond (13:19.729)
I’m sorry.

Emily Osmond (13:34.546)
Wow.

Emily Osmond (13:45.438)
20 years. Is that right? Yeah, wow. Oh my gosh. Over that time, Leonie, have you found that you have had times when you have felt lower confidence or questioned yourself or felt you weren’t sure on your direction? I was listening to one of your podcast episodes where I think you were saying something around that, that you’re like, oh my God, like, what am I doing? Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Leonie Dawson (13:46.914)
Yeah, yeah, 20 years, incredible.

Leonie Dawson (14:09.01)
Hmm. Yeah. Sure. You know, and it’s surprising to me because it definitely happened to me this year. I was like, what even am I? And I don’t know, like maybe we could blame it on the planets or.

Emily Osmond (14:17.89)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (14:24.134)
What happened to me this year to Leonie? I’m like, who, what’s my name? What, what do I do? Who am I? It was horrible. I’m blaming having a baby, but, and I know that you’re in Perry.

Leonie Dawson (14:30.13)
Oh my God. We can definitely, we can definitely blame this on the planets. Absolutely. Oh, that too.

I assume so. I’m 40, I’m nearly 41. So at some point, it’s got to hit. It got me the planet. I’m always ready to blame the planets. And for me, it feels a little bit, I’ve been doing this career for a really long time. I have been selling online for 20 something years and kind of been doing a lot of the same stuff in a lot of ways. And in some ways, I feel like I’ve completed a mission.

Emily Osmond (14:42.677)
Maybe. Yeah.

But it could be the planets, definitely.

Emily Osmond (14:56.413)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (15:03.891)
I mean…

Emily Osmond (15:07.876)
Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (15:09.258)
And so I’m working out what the next mission is. And I don’t know if that’s like, I suspect it’s probably like, eventually start moving into more of a semi retirement model. I mean, cause I work massive 10 hours a week. I’ve got to take, that’s right. I’m just like so worn out, babes. But then just like, I would like to just spend more time just making really weird random shit, you know, and just.

Emily Osmond (15:24.84)
Yeah. I’m really ready to cut this back.

Emily Osmond (15:39.366)
Hmm.

Leonie Dawson (15:39.482)
like just like without any consideration about the commercial capacity of it.

Emily Osmond (15:43.906)
Yeah. Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. Because it is a business that you’re running and it’s got to be sustained and it doesn’t just happen on its own, you know, there’s certain things you need to do.

Leonie Dawson (15:55.27)
For sure.

Emily Osmond (15:57.302)
Yeah, yeah. What would you have any idea what the next phase might be for you, Leone? What are you feeling drawn towards? Or you’re open, I guess now.

Leonie Dawson (16:06.063)
No.

Leonie Dawson (16:09.326)
just open and I’m trying to be just kind of a loyal servant. So like every night before I go to bed, I say God, great spirit, goddess, all that is, all the angels, can you please just let me know what it is I need to do? Like what, just even just like the next step, the next way of service I can be. And it doesn’t have to be like this big revelatory thing of like, you’re going to be this and you’re going to do this. Just tell me one freaking thing to do tomorrow and I’ll do it.

Emily Osmond (16:15.262)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (16:24.048)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (16:27.162)
Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (16:38.714)
And so that’s been working for me to not really have a big picture and instead just work on whatever assignment, sacred assignment turns up. Um, it’s like I did one day when I asked them that a few weeks ago, they said, Oh, do a workshop about, um, what to do when like you don’t have any money. And like, things are really hard for you at the moment. Cause cost of living is tricky, tricky. Mortgage rates are really tricky. So.

Emily Osmond (16:42.798)
Mmm.

Emily Osmond (16:47.672)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (16:58.226)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (17:02.443)
Mmm.

Leonie Dawson (17:05.21)
Um, I did, I just created a free workshop around that and it just felt beautiful to listen to the assignment, just do the assignment and then get on with my life.

Emily Osmond (17:12.349)
Hmm. Pretty cool. Hey, tapping into, yeah, that intuition or that like, all right, give me a message, tell me what to do. I had Kerry Rowitt on the podcast. So she’ll be coming out that episode will come out soon. And so chatting with her is well around sometimes it so much of the time, it’s less about the strategy or less about like that in the head and like, right, let me like figure this all out and just like, okay, just drop that for a second. And try and tune in with what feels good to you. And I feel the only that

Leonie Dawson (17:37.144)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (17:41.83)
without maybe knowing it, especially to start with that something that you are very, very good at in terms of listening to yourself. I know that I think your business is very, very simple. You don’t necessarily have any types of funnels. You’re like, I didn’t know that was what you meant to do. Do you approach, and I know it’s perhaps going into a slightly different time now where you’re like, awesome, like,

Leonie Dawson (18:02.326)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (18:09.362)
questioning, is there something else? Is there something next? But up until this point and having made millions of dollars and working 10 hours or so a week, how much have you planned at the start of the year or the start of the month? What has that looked like for you in terms of setting, right, this is what we’re gonna do this year.

Leonie Dawson (18:29.622)
It’s not much honestly, I don’t have a great track record on the planning front. Like I try, but then I’m also just, I try and leave a lot of leeway and see what happens as well. I give it a red hot go. I always love running after a goal, but I like the goal to just be the overarching goal of like, you know, this is the amount of members that I want or this is the amount of money I want to bring in. Okay, what could I do to make that happen? And then they’re just going to be a absolute, you know,

Emily Osmond (18:40.476)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (18:44.421)
I’m sorry.

Yeah, okay.

Emily Osmond (18:51.954)
Mm… yeah. Nice.

Leonie Dawson (18:58.954)
nest of scratches on my pad of paper of like what could potentially get me there and how much I can get done we’ll just sort of see but I’m definitely not very analytical

Emily Osmond (19:04.619)
Mm. Yeah.

Emily Osmond (19:10.482)
That’s, that’s pretty cool though, Leone, to think, right, what’s okay, I want to make this much money or I want to get this many members. Let’s just give so many things a go. Like, right, we’ll try this, we’ll try this. And it also, I think, takes the pressure off being like, this is like a big, massive strategy that like, I have to follow so intimately. It can, well, we can first of all, never actually create that strategy. Cause we’re so busy, worried about, I’ve got to, I’ve got to have more in place before I start taking action. You just never actually start moving forward.

Leonie Dawson (19:37.047)
Yeah.

It’s true. And like this year, I think part of my self-confidence was like, okay, I need to do something different. So what I’m going to do is I am going to follow Jeff Walker’s product launch formula, even though I’ve never like followed any formula. And so I started like, you know, getting into it and I was like, Oh, this is a lie. And also I don’t understand it. And also like the level of detail in it just drives me insane. And the fact that I have to follow this thing.

Emily Osmond (19:44.094)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Emily Osmond (19:56.85)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (20:04.287)
Hmm…

Leonie Dawson (20:08.118)
And so then I felt like really shitty with myself, like, oh, why can’t I just work this out? And I had to remember like, Leona, you’re fine. You’re not broken. What you’ve been doing is already more than enough and you can just continue building on successes, but the whole like perfectionism of following somebody else’s thing perfectly is never gonna work for me.

Emily Osmond (20:10.68)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (20:15.51)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (20:21.78)
Mm-hmm.

Emily Osmond (20:27.302)
Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I think for a lot of people, too, what I would love you to share, how you promote your membership, like basically what you do when you promote it.

Leonie Dawson (20:40.666)
Oh, I don’t know, just say it’s open, motherfuckers, get in. Like, you should, like, I don’t know. Really? Okay, good, I was like, Jesus Christ, did I do something special?

Emily Osmond (20:42.974)
I’m going to go to bed.

Yeah, that’s what I mean! No, that’s what I mean! It’s so good, it’s just like, hey everyone, it’s open. Maybe for a while, I’m not sure. Maybe two days.

Leonie Dawson (20:56.074)
Yeah. And also like, why wouldn’t you join it? Because it’s brilliant. Like it’s like more than, it’s amazing. It’s exceptional. Like people just stay in it for decades in this membership because it’s that good.

Emily Osmond (21:05.115)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (21:10.034)
Hmm. I think Leonie, you, and that just gives permission for people to be like, Oh my God, it doesn’t have to be so complicated. And I don’t have to have something really sophisticated sometimes. And I can just let people know, Hey, you should totally come join. Oh, sorry. Oh my gosh. That was horrible. But it’s, but it’s, it can get so busy and sorry. Like.

Leonie Dawson (21:28.306)
I dare you, I am very sophisticated and so complicated. No, no, it’s absolutely true. Like, NEPA never has anyone.

Emily Osmond (21:39.614)
And I got to have this part here and then this part here and then oh my gosh. But what if you just like email your list and be like, Hey, it’s open. Come join and give it a go. See if it works.

Leonie Dawson (21:45.206)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like Tina Towers, she said to me, Oh, what are your open rates? And I was like, I don’t know. She’s like, well, how often do you do a list clean? Never. She said, what do you mean? So just it’s not for me. I opted out of that system years ago, babes. It’s not for me. I’m not into the data. I’m not into the numbers. I don’t give a shit.

Emily Osmond (21:51.466)
Hehehehehehe

Emily Osmond (22:07.182)
And this is the thing that everyone is different and every online business can work and they’re all going to be done in different ways and we’ve got to figure out what suits us and our personality as well. And you’ve got a product that’s I think it’s like $100 a year like you said for your membership. Other people have a product that’s maybe 10,000 or 20,000 or whatever it might be for

six months or a year. And so they’re going to need to try maybe some different strategies for that. And there is no one way to do things. And I think through my podcast as well, I’ve just had a chat with loads of different people with lots of interviews coming out. Yeah, I said to you, Mem was on and she’s got like loads of different products that she offers and has a few different funnels and all that type of thing. But I think hopefully people feel a little bit lighter that there isn’t just one thing they have to figure out.

Leonie Dawson (22:58.532)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (22:58.638)
so that they can succeed. There’s just not, yeah. What, I don’t know, like what has been some of your biggest lessons as a business owner, entrepreneur, creative for you that have really stuck out for you and helped you on your career of 10 plus, 20 years in this space? What have you learned that’s been very helpful for you?

Leonie Dawson (23:16.92)
Mmm.

Leonie Dawson (23:20.89)
Firstly, self-care is critical. Like you want to, it’s got to be sustainable, you know? And if you just keep on working harder, you will burn out. Like it’s not a case of if, it’s when. Another big thing for me was I don’t enjoy having a large team. It doesn’t work for me. I don’t like managing people. At one point, my business was so big that I had like 25 staff and it just-

Emily Osmond (23:25.628)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (23:30.459)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Emily Osmond (23:40.936)
Mm.

Leonie Dawson (23:48.754)
broke me because you spend all your time managing people and that’s not what I was put on the planet to do. So now I’m very clear on the fact that I need a very small team. I currently have like two part-time assistants and I also prefer to work with other neurodivergent people. So people with autism or ADHD or preferably the two. And because we like as an autistic

Emily Osmond (24:00.29)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (24:12.677)
Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (24:17.558)
ADHD person myself, we have a particular way of speaking and a very clear communication. And I don’t understand subtle nonverbal communication. So I need people who can honor that and respect that and who don’t like hate working for me and make me hate working.

Emily Osmond (24:20.966)
Mm.

Emily Osmond (24:28.178)
Mm, mm.

Emily Osmond (24:31.899)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (24:37.115)
Probably important, I would say. How did you go about downscaling your team, Leonie, or your business?

Leonie Dawson (24:38.446)
Yeah, really important.

Leonie Dawson (24:45.494)
Mm. It was like it didn’t happen overnight. It was like a decision and it was like, right, OK. And it’s going to take, you know, it took a few years to do it. And it was like when people would leave, I just wouldn’t replace them. I’d go through their task list. I would reprioritize everything. Then there was a couple of people I unfortunately had to fire just because they weren’t able to do what their role was requiring. And.

Emily Osmond (24:53.928)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (24:59.397)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (25:10.497)
Mmm.

Leonie Dawson (25:14.07)
Yeah, it was just kind of that attrition process. And there was some people who were contractors. So after a project had finished, I just didn’t renew that contract. Um, and just keeping it simple is really, really important to me. My business is my absolute dream business when I have just a very small aligned team and it’s hell on earth when it’s not like that.

Emily Osmond (25:17.394)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (25:26.686)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (25:30.907)
Yes.

Emily Osmond (25:37.723)
And it’s good that you’ve been to the other place and be like, well, this is not what I want. Yeah. Can we talk a little about your membership, Leonie? What what’s what people get in there? What does that look like?

Leonie Dawson (25:41.554)
Mmm. Not for me. It’s not for me whatsoever.

Leonie Dawson (25:53.106)
Sure, they get everything. So basically I put together all of my courses on business and marketing and working less and earning more and creating and selling e-courses and writing and publishing your book, just everything about business. And then I have guest expert teachers every single month. We have new workshops come out every single month. We have new templates and resources and spreadsheets that come out every single month.

Emily Osmond (26:12.098)
Mm.

Leonie Dawson (26:21.518)
And then I also do coaching, group coaching with everybody. And what I’m aiming to do really is just make it kind of like the essential resource platform. The, no, there needs to be more. There needs to be more in there, Emily. It’s still like, I’m going to like map out the next like 40 things that will be released in their next year. So, it’s really fun. I like just being able to deliver and over-deliver and for people to go, this is the best fricking value ever.

Emily Osmond (26:30.79)
Sounds like it already is, Leone. Sounds so good. Ah!

Emily Osmond (26:43.243)
Mmm…

Emily Osmond (26:49.75)
Yeah. And well on that, Leonie, I think whether it’s just been a little bit more prevalent or like, in our faces a bit more, but the whole message around high ticket things, and you’ve got to charge a lot of money, people, and even like the message, the people are going to value something more if they spend more. Clearly that’s

not the model of your business. Have you ever felt as though, well, I guess another way to put this is you would leave money on the table and how are you absolutely in love with doing that?

Leonie Dawson (27:34.546)
Oh yeah, look, I’ve tried doing the high ticket price and I always just feel like, ugh, I just don’t like being out of reach for people. I want like anybody who needs it just to be able to go heck yeah, I can make that investment. And also I am so much happier teaching more people than I am teaching less people. And I’ve got friends who do it completely the opposite. They prefer to teach less people and for those people to invest more in it. And there’s no wrong answer. It’s about what it.

Emily Osmond (27:37.805)
Hmm.

Emily Osmond (27:41.564)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Emily Osmond (27:53.551)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily Osmond (28:01.886)
Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (28:04.698)
what feels really great inside you. So I am so much happier just to have, you know, like instead of charging two grand, I could have 20 people join my membership for that. That makes me really excited. I love being able to make it that accessible and that fun for people.

Emily Osmond (28:06.834)
Hmm

Emily Osmond (28:14.362)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (28:18.726)
Mm. Yeah. You have people all around the world, right? In your membership, I bet. That is pretty awesome, too. What are some of their countries?

Leonie Dawson (28:31.258)
So it fascinatingly, and this has been since the beginning of time with my business, America is always my biggest market. Australia is one of my smallest markets. I know, I know, I know. I’m like still like a little unknown and I like, I’m totally fine with it. It’s like 10 to 15% of my sales. I’m much, I have like more in England, Europe, Germany. And then we have throughout.

Emily Osmond (28:34.152)
Mmm.

Emily Osmond (28:37.431)
Yeah.

What? Come on, Ozzy’s, get on board!

Emily Osmond (28:50.206)
Interesting.

Leonie Dawson (29:00.318)
Um, I think we’ve, I think we’ve sold over like to 150 plus countries. So yeah, it’s really fun. Yeah. I like being, I like being like David Hasselhoff. I’m huge in Germany, baby.

Emily Osmond (29:04.254)
It’s so amazing. Oh, I know you might walk around Germany, like people don’t know you’re here, but they do, Leone. But imagine walking around Germany like, is that Leone Dawson? Have you done anything specific to get in front of the American audiences? Hmm, interesting.

Leonie Dawson (29:16.946)
That’s right. Oh my God, look at that girl.

Leonie Dawson (29:26.538)
No, nothing. And I also like I don’t really use Facebook ads. I don’t use paid advertising. I think just because America one, it’s you know, they have a really large population that’s bigger than Europe and Australia combined. And two, because like I was an early adopter of blogging, like when it just started coming out and message boards and like I’ve been selling on the internet

Emily Osmond (29:32.86)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (29:44.605)
Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (29:55.95)
So, I don’t know, it’s nuts. And so that early adoption is definitely like, was in America because they were much tech savvy. Like it was, it took much longer for Australia to take up Facebook and things like that. So yeah, it’s, I think it’s just population size and also early adopter of internet stuff because I’m an enormous geek.

Emily Osmond (29:56.158)
For 20 plus years, oh my gosh, it’s amazing! Yeah.

Emily Osmond (30:11.274)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (30:15.398)
Thank you.

Emily Osmond (30:18.654)
Yeah, that’s so good. Oh, awesome. Well, Leonie, is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you want to chat about? Do you want to tell people that people must know?

Leonie Dawson (30:29.174)
I just want to know, like, how did you get so lovely?

Emily Osmond (30:33.787)
Oh, well, that is very sweet. I have amazing parents. Yeah. And I think that if I wasn’t, they’d pull me into line. They feel and my sisters as well, especially my big sister. She’s like, Emily, what are you doing? You can’t do that.

Leonie Dawson (30:38.358)
Aww, bless.

Leonie Dawson (30:43.002)
That’s really sweet.

Leonie Dawson (30:47.222)
Oh, oh, that is so sweet. So you’ve got like, is there three of you?

Emily Osmond (30:51.91)
There’s three girls. Yeah. So I’ve got myself and I’ve got my, my two, my two sisters. And I think as well, um, I don’t know. I lost my dad when I was 13. And I think, yeah, it was huge and we moved countries at the same time and lost him two months after. And I think that after that, I’ve been in such a horrible dark place that now life is just pretty good. I don’t know. Once you’ve, once you’ve had horrible stuff happen.

Leonie Dawson (30:53.461)
Oh.

Leonie Dawson (30:56.922)
Oh, that’s so beautiful.

Leonie Dawson (31:02.258)
Oh love, that’s huge.

Leonie Dawson (31:07.118)
Oh my god.

Leonie Dawson (31:16.859)
Mmm.

Leonie Dawson (31:20.09)
Mm. Yeah.

Emily Osmond (31:21.114)
I don’t know, you kind of appreciate, well, today’s pretty good. So I think all of that, I don’t know, but that is very kind of you to say, Leona and me. England! Yeah! Over in Oxford! Massive, yeah.

Leonie Dawson (31:24.499)
Yeah. Oh bless you.

Oh, and what country did you grow up in? Oh, beautiful. My gosh. And that would have just been such a massive transition to move across Australia and then lose your dad, you know. And it would have kind of like trauma bonded you as well with your sisters and your mom.

Emily Osmond (31:42.511)
Yeah, it was big.

Emily Osmond (31:47.614)
Yeah, yeah, that’s it. We’re very, yeah, very close, very close. But, yeah, no, my mom’s awesome. She’s, yeah, she’s just living her best life. She’s in her 60s. She’s like, does dance class and cycling and book club. And she, yeah, just so many great things. And I just think she’s got the recipe for a happy life over here. Like, oh, she’s, yeah, I got very, very lucky to have such an amazing family. And

Leonie Dawson (31:51.076)
Mm.

Leonie Dawson (31:57.381)
Oh.

Leonie Dawson (32:10.666)
Ugh.

Leonie Dawson (32:14.146)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (32:16.834)
Yeah, I think they would just be like, Emily, what are you doing? You can’t do that. If I go off the rails too much that I have in the past, that’ll pull me back into line and big sister energy, you know.

Leonie Dawson (32:25.834)
Yeah. I think, look, and I do think there’s a certain thing to like early grief, right? Cause I have friends who’ve gone through that early grief process. My brother died when I was 14. Um, I know, but it like, it really does give you this huge perspective shift. Massive. And I don’t know if there’s anything else that gives you that perspective shift so early on, you know? Um, yeah, it’s just huge, my love. Yeah, really. Mm.

Emily Osmond (32:32.252)
Mmm. Yeah.

Aw, Leone. Yeah.

Emily Osmond (32:46.638)
Yeah. Massive things for little brains, hey? Because yeah, I was 13 when dad passed away. So very similar to you. Yeah, I’m so sorry to hear that. Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (32:55.762)
Mm. Oh, babes. Yeah, but it’s a blessing. Oh my God. I have to tell you. So you know how our friend Claire Wood had that psychic reading from Psychic Orange and she was like

Emily Osmond (33:01.286)
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was like, save the details. Maybe this is something I should look into.

Leonie Dawson (33:10.766)
Oh my God, you should totally do it. So I had a psychic reading, like a pet reading with him because we have a 19 year old dog who refuses to leave the planet.

Emily Osmond (33:17.897)
yeah

Yeah.

want your dog to do. She’s ready. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s true. I remember you saying that actually. Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (33:25.246)
Well, I mean, she’s very special needs now. So it’s sort of like, babes, please go, please babes, like, go towards the light. We can’t face having to do new euthanasia. So if you could just naturally, that’d be amazing. We adore her, but oh my gosh. Anyway, it was so funny because Michael was like, oh, this is a strange dog. She’s not really talking to me. I’m like, yeah, that’s no, you’ve got it.

Emily Osmond (33:38.412)
Yeah.

Emily Osmond (33:42.917)
Oh, yeah.

Emily Osmond (33:54.673)
Oh! Hahaha!

Leonie Dawson (33:54.958)
Yeah, there we go. There we go. And then my brother came through in this psychic reading. And OK, one thing you should know about my brother. So my brother had cerebral palsy. And you know how I’ve got quite the ego. It’s kind of a family. OK, well, you know, I am ravishing. Thank you. It’s a it’s definitely a family trait. And so my brother came through and Michael was like, oh, I’ve got this young man who’s here.

Emily Osmond (34:10.59)
I don’t know, but okay. Yeah, okay. Hahaha. Thanks for watching!

Leonie Dawson (34:24.85)
Okay, I’ll just have to trust that what he’s saying is what needs to be said. So he’s very cocky and he just said to me, oh, just remind her that I’m very, very good looking.

Emily Osmond (34:29.778)
Hmm.

Leonie Dawson (34:42.054)
I know. Comment is, and I said, I said that that’s my brother, correct? No, no, that’s how you’ve told me that my brother has visited you because that’s the kind of gaffe that he would come up with. So maybe you should have a reading with. That’s really funny.

Emily Osmond (34:44.079)
Oh, you like that’s my brother. That’s my brother

Emily Osmond (34:56.249)
Hmm. I think I’ve got to go do that. I’ve got to go. What is the message? What do you want me to know, Dad? Yeah.

Leonie Dawson (35:02.766)
That’s right. It’s probably not going to be as weird as my family’s messages, but it’ll, you’ll know. You’ll know. Oh, that’s all I wanted to share.

Emily Osmond (35:08.61)
I’ll let you know. Well, thank you for thank you for coming on to chat about like anything and everything and for and just for I hope like you know sharing with people that there’s not one magic way to do things. You can just figure things out. Do what feels good to you. And have some fun along the way.

Leonie Dawson (35:19.351)
Aw babes, I love you!

Leonie Dawson (35:33.318)
Oh, exactly. Like why not? Because you only get this like once and you might as well just have the maximum amount of fun. Like what could be like any better than just having fun? Like it’s a good way to spend the time. Yeah. It’s great.

Emily Osmond (35:40.292)
Mm-mm-mm.

Emily Osmond (35:46.142)
Mm-hmm. I think, um, when was it? I went out to Claire’s book launch, Claire that we were just talking about, Claire Wood. And I’m like, oh, and then we went out for a little drink afterwards and I drove home and had one and I’m like, oh, I’ve missed this. Oh, I’ve missed fun. Oh, it is.

Leonie Dawson (35:51.479)
Oh yeah!

Leonie Dawson (35:56.448)
Ah!

Leonie Dawson (36:01.022)
Oh.

It’s so good being around other people and other people who are doing like weird stuff and big stuff, you know, because it’s such a weird job that we have.

Emily Osmond (36:13.516)
Working from home, working for yourself, working by yourself a lot of the time. It’s, um, it’s good to get around other people.

Leonie Dawson (36:17.26)
Yeah.

It’s true. When I like won all those Osmium Prineur Awards, my husband was like, do they, oh thank you, but my husband was like, do they know you actually don’t really leave their house? Like, they know that you’re just like at home, like a little gnome in your dark cave. That’s right. Exactly. Every 10 years. Ta-da!

Emily Osmond (36:35.472)
Come out every ten years though, hey.

Emily Osmond (36:42.316)
Well, I hope we get to see each other sometime soon. And thanks so much for having a chat today, Leone. Yay! No, speak slowly.

Leonie Dawson (36:45.99)
I know. Oh, thanks Emily. I love you big capes.