Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nisha Ryan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Nisha, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

When I started The Aligned Pretzel Inc, I never imagined it would become a six figure business. Six figures sounded like some pipe dream that was completely unattainable. Even in my previous career as an Operating Room Nurse in a prestigious hospital, I did not make six figures.

Today, I have had five six figure years, doing it my way, and as a Kajabi, Funnel and Conversions expert, I help all of my clients have six and multiple six figure years while working less. So, I deeply understand what it takes to scale a business.

My strategy circa 2017 was very simple, be everywhere on social media, and often. I was open, I was vulnerable, I shared my life, I shared my expertise and it led to one thing – people wanted to hire me. To be honest, I feel like I was a little messy and would not dare to share the intimate details or the kind of photos I once had, but I was finding my feet with it all and using Facebook like my diary. I had done, it, I had cracked the code on scaling! That was easy – not so.

The Aligned Pretzel signed clients very quickly, and then quickly realized the model was not scalable – I only had so much time and capacity to hold for clients. So I raised my prices, that should do it. I came wildly close to a multiple six figure year, but if you’re like me, it was never enough. I wanted to grow and help even more people.

But I kept bumping up against the trading time for money continuum. Raise my rates, bring on new clients, but I was still working quite a bit and I would have really high cash months, feeling like I “made it” then I would have lower cash months and my emotions were all tied up into what I was making and I was letting this define my worth.

That was the first shift. Realizing my worth had zero to do with how much my business made that month or how much I had in my bank account.

That started a flood of self-awareness. I was letting clients run my life. I had no boundaries and felt like if I didn’t do something when a client asked they might fire me, I was always terrified of getting fired.

I then implemented boundaries and I did get fired. I remember once a client (who had a million dollar business at the time) asked me to pay for a course that she wanted me to take and then implement on her behalf. I said no. A week later she fired me. Do I regret it? Not even a bit. Did I miss the income? Yes. If you’re taking notes, the second shift is boundaries. It seems so overplayed but boundaries is a secret sauce to scaling your business. As you scale and become more in demand, your time becomes more precious. If you can master boundaries and time management, you are literally unstoppable.

The third is make space. If I hadn’t gotten fired by that client, I wouldn’t have had space for the multiple multiple clients that came after who wanted to pay me $2-5k/month for half the amount of work.

Remember how I said realizing my worth led to a lot of self-awareness? It did in my personal life too. I was dating a long term boyfriend through all of this who was living with me. He was a great cheerleader of The Aligned Pretzel and it felt great to have someone who believed in me more than I did at the time. However, I started to notice little digs that were supposed “jokes” and because I had been told my whole life I was “too sensitive” (relate!?) I shrugged it off as such. Until one night (on my birthday) we were decompressing after a long day and I suggested we go to sleep as it was late while he was speaking and he got angry, violent and threw a chair at me. I knew in that moment, I had to let that relationship go. I saw the entire relationship flash before my eyes, all of the put downs, manipulations, and emotional abuse. I could see it for what it was now. Letting this go again opened so much space in my business and in my energy that The Aligned Pretzel Inc started having 20k months because I let go what was no longer serving me. In business, our energy is our currency and it is so crucial that we address what does not fill our cups not only in business but in our personal lives too, because it absolutely plays a role, and this is one of the hardest areas to make swift decisions as women.

Over the years I have revisited this same framework, Strategy, Self Worth, Boundaries and making space. It has never failed me.

Today I run The Aligned Pretzel Inc as a stay at home mom to a one year old, and this framework has become more important then ever as I continutally strive to not only serve my clients at a high level and ensure they have highly converting funnels, offers and websites, but also make sure that I am leaving plenty of time to experience life with my son.
The only thing that has changed in my framework is the strategy piece, and I want everyone reading this who desires to scale their business know that it isn’t enough to only post on social media to have 20k, 30k or even 50k launches, there is a lot of competition and a lot of noise on social media, and the strategies are changing often. This is why I offer consultation alongside launch support, funnel and website building because there are far too many coaches leaning on the energy and only the energy, to build the momentum we must put in consistent action and diversify, while always making space for self-reflection and looking at our analytics.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started the Aligned Pretzel Inc after I was in a car accident (rear ended at a red light) and I couldn’t work as an Operating Room Nurse any longer. So I went all in on my business. I started as a Virtual Assistant and quickly advanced my skills into website design, funnels, email marketing, conversion rates and online business strategy. I know I excelled at this so quickly because I was armed with a Diploma in Business Management with a specialty in Entrepreneurship prior to being a nurse. What can I say? I’m a forever student. I have done a lot of things in the online space in the last 8 years.

Today The Aligned Pretzel offers Website Design, Funnel Design and Management, Launch Support, Systems Design, Operational Support and Team Management. The main factor I support my clients with it scaling. They want to reach more people, have higher launches, but they don’t want to be tied to their computer, stop traveling or sacrifice time with their kids.

Anyone can build a funnel or a website but very few people out there actually understand consumer behaviour and what it takes for someone to say yes, to click, etc. AKA, they don’t understand how to make things convert, but I do. I also know how to integrate systems, automations and processes so that scaling your business

What I do for my clients is nothing short of magical. For example, one of my clients this year had a baby, was on maternity leave and still had her highest month in business ever while on mat leave and being at home with two kids, while tripling her income and working less then she ever had before. This is due to us restructuring offers, her delivery, her boundaries and implementing funnels for income stacking.

I love money, and I love love helping other people make money to fuel their dreams, but at the end of the day I want to provide you freedom.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I could answer so many questions regarding entrepreneurship, but I choose this one because I feel like it is under-represented in the market.

While I do get a lot of clients through social media and my website (because of SEO), the best source is always referrals – because you are getting a good and often long-term client 99% of the time.

Referrals are so undervalued. But here is why I always get referrals: I always over-deliver (in a healthy way) in my work. I don’t miss deadlines, I communicate thoroughly, I give my clients love, attention and I take their trust in me very seriously. I do not ask for referrals, I do not have an official referral program, although I have given referral kickbacks when clients ask. I do my job and I do it very well, I am reliable and I deliver results. That is all it takes to get referrals in this day and age.

Referrals make for a more aligned client (in most cases) because they already trust you because someone else referred them, so the barrier to entry is low, you will likely vibe because they were referred from your client, and generally have somewhat of a knowledge of how you work.

A huge part of my business comes from this, and it is the easiest and in a way, less action required way to source new clients.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Insider secret, whenever someone books a Discovery Call with The Aligned Pretzel, I have an automation that adds them to my email list, with their permission of course. I then send emails once a month that are totally personal, about me, my life and sometimes even asks them a question. I get a lot of responses. From people that I worked with once or twice five years ago and they stay on my list and become repeat clients. We have to remember that it is not all business. Someone is working with you because they feel they have a personal connection to you. Letting them in on a little of your life can allow them to feel connected to you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thealignedpretzel.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thealignedpretzel
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nishapretzel
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nisharyan9252

Image Credits

Anna Koloda