• Julie Ciardi is a results coach for busy moms and podcast host of the Ignite Hustle Podcast. She helps moms step into the CEO role in their own business and helps them to scale the business to 6 figures and beyond.
• Julie is a mother of 3 who worked as the VP of marketing at a Fortune 500 company for 18 years. She built up her side hustle while working full time until you ultimately left her corporate job to go out on her own 5 years ago. 
• Her first business was a boutique store in her town that catered to busy moms (think curbside pick up so moms didn’t have to get the kids out of the car – and this was pre-covid!), but has since shifted to coaching busy moms to monetizer their side hustles.
• Julie’s sweet spot is to help busy moms go from $0-$100K in their businesses.
• Julie thought about leaving her corporate job about 4 years before making the leap. She stayed at her job for so long because she was comfortable and had a great salary and a flexible work schedule. 
• She considered herself to be an intrepreneur within the company she worked at because she was always carving her own path. She took a 9 month maternity leave a year after joining the company with her first child, and again with her second child a few years later. Her mentors questioned her decision, thinking it would hamper her path to promotion, but Julie didn’t care. She wanted that time with her babies, and she believed that her work would speak for itself. 
• She was right, because she was promoted to an executive position while she was on maternity leave with her second child!
• Memorable quote from Julie: “No one is going to fight for you and what you want more than you will.”
• According to Julie, everything is an inside job. Whatever you want in life comes first from within.
• Julie is on a mission to open that world of personal development up earlier, because as she mentions, it’s not taught in school. Often personal development work doesn’t happen until people become entrepreneurs and are forced to do the work.
• According to Julie, women think they’re coming to her to learn how to do social media and marketing and set up their business but what they end up getting is this development from the inside out because that’s actually the secret sauce. 
• Julie is a 4 on the enneagram, and once she knew that, it changed everything for her. Apparently 60-70% of the time, the enneagram we get on the free tests are wrong. Julie worked with a coach to get the right one.
• Julie uses the enneagram with her kids and her marriage and it’s a game changer.
• When it comes to starting a business – and anything in life – nothing is overnight. It took Julie 4 years of building and planning her side hustle before she actually left her corporate job. Ultimately, though, she had been exploring other options outside of her job for the entire 18 years that she was there.
• When Julie wanted to leave her job, she felt stuck. They lived in a large house and had a lot of expenses. Her accountant told her it’s not about how much she makes but how much she keeps. So they downsized significantly to give Julie the space to try out her new business without having to worry.
• Julie reduced her mortgage and taxes by 60% which allowed her to start her business while also still being a mom to her 3 kids.
• Julie reminds us that the road to success isn’t a straight line. It’s more like a squiggly line. And it wasn’t easy. But her burning passion to do it was what kept her going.
• Within 4 months of launching her business, a brick and mortar boutique, they were bringing in 6 figures.
• From there, Julie launched a podcast called the Ignite Hustle Podcast because people were coming to her for advice on how to do what she did.
• Now, Julie teaches people – particularly women who are busy moms – how to creat a personal brand.
• She teaches people how to stand out on social media and use it to grow your business and how to niche down so as to stand out.
• At the core of every business, Julie believes there are 3 key things to ask:
• But Julie implores people not to wait until they are ready to start. Just start. Take imperfect action. Be open and explore.
• Julie believes social media is an absolute gift because before social media, people had to do a lot of heavy lifting in order to advertise, and it was very expensive (going door to door, hosting events, paying for ads in print, etc.)
• When it comes to coaching women to start their own business, Julie is all about simplification. What that looks like is choosing a single social media platform on which to grow your business. Get clear on the 3 things (who am I helping, how do I solve the problem and what am I offering) and then pick the platform where most of your audience will be. For Julie, that’s Instagram.
• Julie funnels people from Instagram over to her Facebook group where she hosts live trainings for free every week. From there, she does 4 launches a year to her Ignite University, a signature coaching program for busy moms to start and scale their businesses. In following that formula, Julie has grown her business to almost the $500K mark.
• Julie has seen women grow their businesses to 6 figures with only 1000 followers on Instagram, and other women with thousands of followers who haven’t grown their business at all. Clarity is key.
• The moment a person says, “Oh my God, it’s like you’re in my head!” you know you’ve got clarity on your message.
• The biggest mistake Julie sees people make is trying to talk to everyone and therefore having a very luke warm message.
• Make sure you’re only talking to your person on social media, even if other people are following you who aren’t part of your target market. Always be clear in your messaging and only talk to your person.
• Julie has the skills to work with women who want to scale to 7 figures, but she doesn’t want to. She prefers to help women in the $0-$100K mark.
• Julie is a big fan of hustle, but she believes there are seasons of hustle. You’ll definitely be hustling at the start of your business as you’re trying to grow it. You do that in the beginning so that you don’t always need to be hustling.

About Julie

Julie Ciardi is a former Fortune 500 marketing VP turned multi-passionate entrepreneur. She is the podcast host of IGNITE Your Side Hustle. Julie believes that there has never been a better
time for women to create an additional income stream that is aligned to her passions and purpose on this planet. She also believes that it is the wild wild west out there for these women; they are wasting so much time and money and not MAKING
money. It is causing friction with their spouse, affecting their confidence, and robbing them of their dreams. With this in mind, Julie is dedicated to helping women create profitable side hustles that give them joy, purpose and profit with proven, timeless business strategies in today’s online world.

Julie is the creator of IGNITE University – a one of a kind program to ignite purpose, passion and profit with proven methodologies in business as well as creating a mastermind space for like minded women.

Julie is mom to two teenagers and a kindergartner, and wife to a police officer.

CONTACT INFO:

Website: https://julieciardi.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julieciardi/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julie.ciardi 

Resources mentioned in this episode

Personality Test: Enneagram 

Amanda Bolelyn She Did it Her Way Podcast

1000 True fans – Pat Flynn

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