"My approach to business is guiding more women to reconnect with themselves so that they fall back in love with themselves as well as their business."
Meet J.D. Drayton – music artist turned Business Coach and Mentor, helping visionary female CEOs elevate their brands so that they can attract more leads in their sleep and scale to 6-figures and beyond.
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Table of Contents
Thank you for joining us, please introduce yourself to our readers.
J.D. Drayton: Hello, my name is J.D. Drayton, and I am a music artist turned entrepreneur, having built multiple 6-figure businesses in the last 10 years. Today, I am an intuitive Business Coach and Mentor, specializing in personal branding and online brand experiences. That means that I help visionary female CEOs elevate their brands so that they can attract more leads in their sleep and scale to 6-figures and beyond.
Can you tell our readers in what ways you are disrupting your industry?
J.D. Drayton: I’m disrupting the online coaching and mentorship industry by empowering more visionary women to unlock their divine feminine power using my ‘QUEEN Method’. I’m teaching them how to work smarter not harder and outsource so that they can focus on their zone of genius.
I’ve made them aware that services like mine exist, where it is a One-Stop-Shop, giving them access to the ultimate brand experience while getting support and accountability.
Using my hybrid model of combining coaching, self-study courses and done-for-you agency services gives them more time, helps them save money and make more money while reserving their energy.
As a result, they show up online with 10x the confidence, they make more sales and have a bigger impact.
I’m helping more entrepreneurs understand that it’s not about doing more, adding more offers, trying more strategies. It’s about simplifying.
Through my ‘QUEEN Method,’ I’m helping rising female leaders to stop overcomplicating their businesses and step into the highest versions of themselves so that they can show up authentically in a bold and unapologetic way.
Through this holistic experience that begins from the inside out, they elevate their personal brands and clients’ experiences, which positions them as the GO-TO expert in their industry.
My approach to business is guiding more women to reconnect with themselves so that they fall back in love with themselves as well as their business. This is what makes them magnetic to their audiences.
And when they move away from ‘screaming louder’ to be heard and just allow their magnetism to do the work for them – magic happens!
To sum it up, I’m disrupting my industry by helping more women change lives as they unleash their “Sasha Fierce” with ease so that they become the Beyoncé within their industry.
Did you become a disruptor by choice or by necessity? Tell us more about the journey.
J.D. Drayton: Currently within the online space there is so much noise. In my opinion, 90% are blending in with each other. They are duct-taping their brands together and just DIY-ing everything that they possibly can in a desperate attempt to stand out.
As a result, most online-based entrepreneurs end up using the same Canva templates, have inconsistent visual branding and messaging, and unfortunately, because they don’t have a clear vision of where they are going with their business, they end up imitating other people’s work, ideas, and strategies.
And unfortunately, they fail.
So I am disrupting the industry by necessity, since only 24% of coaches are successful within the online space, and generating a full-time income. This means there are too many coaches and mentors failing and giving up. In fact, I read that 90% of coaches/mentors fail in business within their first 2 years of launching.
My goal is simple! I wanted to disrupt what was going on to help more female CEOs, coaches, mentors and experts to succeed because I truly believe in the power and impact of the self-development industry.
I became obsessed with getting the results so that I would help increase the success rate.
Now for the main focus of this interview: Many readers may wonder what are the biggest challenges women entrepreneurs must overcome to be successful?
J.D. Drayton: In my opinion, the biggest challenges that women entrepreneurs must overcome to be successful is by:
- Rewiring their brains so that they can manage their negative thoughts and operate from a ‘growth mindset’
- Investing in themselves and in their business (and getting out of this mind frame that they can do it all)
- Gaining clarity so that they can niche down and create services, products, programs and packages based on what their target audience actually wants and needs
- Implementing what they’ve learned (as they get stuck in this cycle of non-stop learning and consuming content when the actual work has to get done)
- Managing their time more efficiently and becoming more productive during their workday
- Actively building confidence (within themselves, the results they help clients, their systems, their brand, their offers)
- Consistently showing up in their business as the face of their business via video content, email, social media etc
Some women are all about the ‘WOO’ and forget the ‘DO-ing’ part. And others, are the complete opposite where all they do is work, work, work, and forget about the mindset, the energetics and the self-care.
Running a successful business starts with being soulfully and energetically aligned as well as having all the marketing and sales strategies in place.
It’s a balancing act that can take years to perfect, after a lot of trial and error.
For those who want to skip the blood, sweat and tears and fast-track their success, then my advice is to invest in a business and mindset coach and outsource as soon as possible.
Ultimately, we can make more money, but we cannot make more ‘time’.
And unfortunately, I see too many women operating in business as if they have the luxury of time when that is not the case!
How did you overcome these obstacles? Who helped you during these difficult times and how did they?
J.D. Drayton: Sadly for me, I didn’t know of all the things that I didn’t know when I first started my first business in 2005.
I was not aware of business coaches and mentors, and I did not know about any online courses.
So I wasted money on a college education being lectured by teachers who didn’t have much experience as entrepreneurs. Although I am grateful for having the opportunity to go to college in the first place, I definitely would not have done things like this if I had a second chance to do it again.
For me, I have probably learned more within the online space in the past 5 years, than in all the previous years in business. This meant that I spent years failing forward.
I quit more times than I could count. I cried so many times. Had endless sleepless nights. Felt the most stress ever in my life as an entrepreneur. And yet, I never gave up on my big dreams.
For me personally, it was the support of my husband that kept me going. Being a businessman himself, he was my biggest supporter. He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.
Throughout the years, I also worked with several coaches from money-mindset to business and marketing. They supported me, cheered me on and held me accountable.
I also overcame my obstacles by just trying new things and seeing what worked and didn’t work. I asked a lot of questions. I listened to my clients. I asked for feedback and committed to getting 1% better each day.
Eventually, I learned to master branding and marketing, the tech, the mindset, my brand experience and business in general.
How did these lessons shaped the way you conduct business today?
J.D. Drayton: These lessons shaped the way I conducted business today because I no longer focus on working until the wheels come off. Instead, I start every day with my mindset work. I listen to a lot of podcasts and stay connected with a lot of my peers within my network as we learn and grow together.
I no longer operate in a ‘lack’ mentality. Instead, everything I do is from a place of trust, belief and abundance.
What advice you wished you had received when you started, that you’d like to share now with aspiring women entrepreneurs?
J.D. Drayton: My advice is to follow your passion and your purpose and not be so worried about the profits.
When you’re fulfilled and you feel good then good things happen. I also encourage all aspiring women entrepreneurs to build a ‘growth mindset’. Having a mindset for success is priceless. With the right mindset, you can do anything!
You can have all the best strategies in the world, but without the right mindset, nothing will work. I truly believe that it is 80% mindset and 20% strategy/skillset.
All these years I didn’t realize the power of having a positive mindset and having a good relationship with money (which is part of the money mindset).
I used to think that all this stuff was a bunch of BS and weird ‘woo woo’ crap until I started to shift my own mindset, emotions and energy.
As I’m sure you’ve heard – “your mindset affects your feelings and your feelings affect your actions”, which means we have to be aware of our thoughts and emotions.
What we focus on becomes our reality, so I spend most days re-routing my negative thoughts and I focus on turning up the volume on the thoughts that empower me and motivate me.
Once I learned to do this, my entire life changed (not just business).
I also just want to mention that it’s also crucial to celebrate every win (big or small) as this allows us to feel good within ourselves and “what we celebrate, we replicate”, which is a great quote I heard from Rachel Pedersen.
Out of all of your proudest moments as an entrepreneur, is there a particular one that stands out the most?
J.D. Drayton: After 22 years working in Marketing and Communications, together with my entrepreneurial experience, I’ve now helped hundreds of small businesses elevate and reposition their brands. As a result, they have increased their visibility, impact and profitability where they have collectively generated millions of dollars.
But what I am most proud of is co-hosting and co-founding the ‘Next Level Wealth Conference’, a virtual event for online-based female entrepreneurs, in early January 2022.
As the visionary of the Next Level Wealth Conference, I single-handedly created the event’s branding including presentation slides, built the website and conference portal, set up opt-in pages, thank you pages, automation and email marketing, edited all the video presentations, set up the course portal, and managed all the tech during the live two-day event, while still showing up as an Industry Expert/Co-Host and coaching and supporting the attendees.
I managed to achieve all of this in a short few weeks which was crazy! Saying it was a huge accomplishment is an understatement. But it was certainly a huge learning experience that elevated my confidence, as well as my own personal brand.
It was truly the NEXT LEVEL!
I had never felt so proud of myself because I gave so much of myself and I was committed in creating the most incredible experience for all the women who attended.
It was also a beautiful collaborative experience between myself and all the other speakers, coaches and mentors involved. We were the example that ‘collaboration over competition’ always wins!
What do you plan on tackling during 2022 year? Share your goals and battles you expect to face.
J.D. Drayton: In 2022, I am excited to launch my YouTube Channel and podcast as part of a new inbound marketing strategy that I will be implementing throughout 2022.
I have been busy behind the scenes between coaching clients, agency-client work and planning content, but I am SUPER EXCITED!! I have been dreaming about this for a looooooong time.
The biggest battle I am mentally preparing myself for is keeping up with my new content schedule as it will be gruelling to stay consistent. The last thing I want is to start and stop, which happens a lot with YouTube shows and podcasts. My goal is to have at least 10 shows and episodes pre-recorded before I launch.
I’m sure our readers will be very thankful for the insights you have shared. What is the best book you’ve gone through lately and please share some takeaway lessons from it?
J.D. Drayton: I’ve really enjoyed reading Rich as F*ck More Money than You Know What to Do With by Amanda Frances about how she shifted her mindset, energy and beliefs that allowed her to transform into a multi-million manifesting queen.
I can relate to how she put herself in ‘opulent environments’ knowing she enjoyed those types of settings such as 5-start hotels, so she practised being in them, without even knowing about the power of energetics and money-mindset.
Her story is truly inspiring and the proof that anything and everything is possible if you trust it will happen and believe in yourself.
Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, I do have one more question for you. When was the last time you did something for the first time and what was it?
J.D. Drayton: The ‘Next Level Wealth Conference’, which I co-hosted and co-founded in early January 2022 was definitely something big that I did for the first time, where I single-handedly designed the entire brand, tackled the tech, automation, email marketing, and check-out page while managing all the tech during the live two-day event.
It was also an incredible feeling being able to show up as an authority as a Co-Host as I presented content creation, funnels and mindset.
But the last time I did something for the first time, was a GO LIVE 28-day challenge in my Facebook group, helping the women in my community build their camera confidence so that they can show up more on live streams.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank J.D. Drayton for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with J.D. Drayton or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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