The social media world is changing, and we all have to change with it! This isn’t 2016 anymore. No one wants to see the perfect girl boss who never has any flaws. People want to see real people, with real problems and real solutions. 

But that raises another question – how do I be vulnerable online without losing myself? How do I make a connection without being cringe? And how do I create content that builds trust if I’m not perfect? This week, we’re going to take a look at Jessi Jeans 7-figure launch to answer all of these questions and more!

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about the lessons we can all learn from Jessi’s 7-figure yap launch. That’s right, Jessi Jean made 7-figures just by yapping to the camera and being vulnerable. That vulnerability of building in public is what connected her to her audience and created the foundation for such a successful launch! 

Tune in to hear what she did right and what you can recreate in your own personal brand. 

How to work with Erika:

Join the waitlist for the Magnetic Mastermind program here!

Join the waitlist for the Courage Driven Latina program here!

Resources Mentioned:
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Website:
http://www.theerikacruz.com

Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST, an Afro-Latina-owned boutique podcast production and copywriting studio. 

Episode Transcript:

Erika: Imagine making $1.2 million in a little over a week. That is exactly what happened with Jessie Gene because she launched something called a YAP Challenge. And in today’s episode, I wanna take you through all of the different lessons that we can learn from Jessie Gene. I did some digging. I looked at her profile from when she had got started.

I looked at her previous [00:01:00] profile, and I wrote down all of the different tips that you and I can take away and implement to our own businesses, our own lives. But she is evidence of what is possible when you build a personal brand that is authentic, that is vulnerable, that brings people along the journey with you, and when you know to listen to your audience.

So let’s break it down. Who in the world is this girl? How did she do this? And what was she doing before? I’m going to answer all of these different questions. So Jessie Gene started creating content on this page that she has. I believe it’s, like, Jessie Home or something like that. and I’ll link it down below so that you can check it out.

She started creating content six months ago because she was career-confused. And let me actually start from the beginning because I think it more, it makes more sense to go in order. She was a coach, a binge eating recovery [00:02:00] coach, meaning she coached mostly women who were emotional eaters and had a difficult time having self-control around what to eat.

And it can come from many different reasons, but this work is pretty heavy, and she, she shared all of this on her feed. This is how I know this, and I went to go find her binge eating recovery page as well, and she honestly shared why she was closing down that business and why she was taking the different next steps that she’s taking.

She became a mom, and binge eating recovery coaching is a heavy subject. A lot of trauma comes up. A lot of emotions come up. And she said, “Sometimes I lose sleep because I’m worried about my clients. And as much as it’s been such meaningful work, and I never thought it was something I would stop doing, now that I’m a mom, I’m really craving something more light-hearted.”

So she decided to close that business, and in November of 2025, she created a new Instagram account [00:03:00] where she was documenting her journey about being career confused. And we watch her from November through December and January, that she is just sharing honestly what she’s going through. She starts flipping furniture.

She shares how much money she made from furniture. She starts talking about the millennial career crisis. So many millennials are very confused about what it is that they’re doing with their career. And she ended up selling a furniture flipping e-book that was $37, I believe, or $27. I think it was 37.

And she ended up making $23,000 from that furniture flipping book, and it was a great way of making some income because obviously she still has expenses. But the, the wonderful thing is that she’s bringing us through this journey, so we’re able to observe and watch the evolution, and it’s very clear how she got to where she got.

Obviously, it required her [00:04:00] intelligence. It required her, her knowledge. Obviously, her previous knowledge from having been a business owner supports her here. She’s not really starting from scratch, but she is starting something completely new. And I want to go over all of the different things that we can learn from her.

So the first thing I want to mention is that- She is evidence that your content, and I’m, I’m looking down if you’re watching this on video. I’m looking down because I literally just jotted things down in my notebook. She’s evidence that content can be your messaging tester. In other words, if you aren’t sure if somebody wants a specific offer, if you’re not sure that somebody wants to hear about other things, literally create content on it and see how it lands with people.

Because when she saw that her furniture flipping content was landing with people, that is when she created her guide, her e-book to furniture flipping. But time went on, she kept talking about being [00:05:00] career confused, and she was already getting a lot of compliments as to how she was yapping to the camera.

So she did a video that was all about… She created a video titled How to Yap on Camera Like a Pro. Didn’t think much of it, posted it, totally blew up. And what did she do? She doubled down on it. She did more of what was working. Her audience was telling her that this was something they wanted. Her audience told her with the way they engaged, the way they commented, the amount of times it was shared.

That is evidence that something is working. And she tried a lot of different messages. She… You can go look at her content, and she’s not posting about just being career confused. She’s also sharing about her finances. She’s also doing the furniture flipping. 

She also has a video about a friends and finance quarterly meeting where you s- share with your friends how it is that you’ve been making money, and the whole intention is to help each [00:06:00] other make more money. So she has a variety of different pieces of content. But what she did so well is that when that video popped off, she started creating more of it.

So not only was she creating, she created a part two about how to yap on camera like a pro. She also created a video about things I think you should yap about. She also did a video about The fear of posting on social media, how to become well-spoken, the fear of friends and family seeing you post content. So she really took this YAP video and saw the evidence of the demand that people had for it and ran with it She even did a video on my direct-to-camera filming setup. So she took us behind the scenes of what her yapping setup was. All of this is extremely valuable content for people. It’s giving people more of what they already expressed they liked. And [00:07:00] 100 days after posting that initial video that was how to yap on camera like a pro, she came out with the six-week yap challenge.

Her audience was so primed for this piece of content because she was already providing so much value. She had already established so much trust. She was a living example of how yapping to the camera video supported her in going from zero to 400,000 followers And what happened next was a tremendous amount of abundance. I mean, I had been watching her from the moment she announced it. I joined her wait list. I ended up signing up because I was like, “I wanna know what is happening in here.” I was so curious. I was rooting for her. It was incredible to watch somebody show up so vulnerably, not make it seem like they have their entire life together, kind of figure something out through their content.

 what does this mean for you? Let me take a stop here really quick. If you aren’t sure what in the world to [00:08:00] post about, just start posting and let your audience tell you what they want to hear from you, and it’s going to require you creating good content. It’s going to require you really paying attention to, “Okay, what did I say in this video?

How did I say it in this video? Why did this do better than this one?” And really studying your own content. So anyway, back to, Jessie. She opened doors. I joined the wait list right away. Actually, she hadn’t even opened doors yet whenever I, I joined the wait list, and I ended up joining on, like, the first day.

I was like, “Sold. I, I wanna see how this is.” By the way, the product is, like, two… It was… I, I think the doors are closed now, but $299, so it’s not a huge investment. And I did the math of how many people joined within the first few days, and it was $123,000 that she had made. And I was like, “Oh, my goodness. This is so incredible.

Good for her.” But then more people joined. More people shared they were joining, and it became [00:09:00] this, like, huge ripple effect. And people were so excited to share they were doing this because she built so much trust with people. She ended this enrollment at $1.2 million in a week. Incredible. Incredible. And I want you all to know that what is possible for one person is possible for anyone, and maybe it won’t happen the way it happened for her, where it happened within four months, but this is evidence that the abundance is there.

I know we’re living in this time of, oh, inflation and the economy, but this is evidence that you can still have success. So let me read out the different points that I have with the lessons that I think we could learn So the first one I already mentioned, and that is that your content gets to be your experiment for what your offer can be, even if you don’t know what it is yet. She was literally just sharing about how she was so confused about what her career was going to be, and she was simply bringing us behind the scenes of this journey.[00:10:00] 

And then once her yapping videos really started taking off, there was no gatekeeping. She was sharing with us what gear she was using, what it was that worked for her, how this wasn’t always what her voice sounded like. 

 When she was a binge eating recovery coach, she didn’t always sound the way that she sounds on camera, and she takes us behind the scenes of all of that. The next thing we can learn from her is that showing your personality and your journey is so much better than trying to come off as perfect and as the expert.

The fact that she is confused is so relatable because so many people feel that way, and people don’t buy from the perfect person. They buy from people, right? People buy from people. So if people feel like you understand their pain point, they are going to want to work with you. And that’s exactly what happened to her.

But so many of us have this misconception that we need to come off as perfect, and that is so far from the truth. [00:11:00] And Jessie’s a great example of that. And I’m not saying she’s imperfect or anything, but she’s super laid back. She’s usually got sunglasses on her head or she’s wearing very, like, casual clothes.

It’s not like she’s getting all done up and she’s in a studio. She’s literally, like, in her backyard. You see her kid running around. It’s human. It’s real And so many people also think they need to be an expert before they create content, and that is so far from the truth, especially because of my next point. My next point is that you’re not supposed to just share educational content, not in the world of AI. Because information is available to anybody instantly.

Anybody could use AI, they can Google something. Information has never been so easily accessible to us. That is not what people need from you on social media. What they want is they want to be able to connect with you. They want to see your human side. They want to see your journey, and that’s exactly what she did well.

It’s not about being an expert. It’s [00:12:00] not about knowing everything. It’s about being relatable. It’s about being human. The next point is that yapping is something most people avoid. People avoid talking to camera at all costs, and she was willing to do that, and she doubled down on it, and it worked. And she got so many followers from yapping, from speaking directly to camera.

So the fact that she was willing to do the thing that everyone else avoids is part of her success The other point we can learn from her is that vulnerability does not equal weakness. Vulnerability equals connection. Because so many people feel so connected to her because of her ability to describe what it feels like to be career confused, to let go of something that was maybe working at some point but we’ve outgrown.

She literally reinvented herself in public, and all of us are always going to go through different reinventions. So even if you don’t relate to her, like she’s a, a wonderful white woman from Denver, right? It’s not like I’m connected to her because she’s a fellow Latina, but I’m connected [00:13:00] to her because she’s a millennial, and she’s real, and I like the music she uses, and so many other people are connected to her as well.

So many men became clients and joined the challenge. And yeah, they’re, it’s not like their identity is the same. It’s because she’s able to clearly state the pain point that she feels that other people also feel as well She also talks like she is your friend. She is not talking like she is doing a commercial. And, you know, it’s so funny becauseShe’s done a few videos about this where you shouldn’t speak from your throat, but more drop down.

And I didn’t really know what she meant until I went back and I listened to one of my first trainings for Courage Driven Latina, and I sounded like this, and it was just very high-pitched and blah, blah, blah. And she has shared examples of her speaking years ago, and that’s what she sounded like as well.

And it’s not even that that’s how we naturally speak, because I would never talk to a friend like that, but we suddenly put this performance on [00:14:00] because we are in front of the camera, and we feel like we need to speak in a different way. And it is very dysregulating to speak in front of people and to allow ourselves to be seen.

And now, when I’m sitting on this podcast, I’m usually leaning back. I am not nervous at all because I’ve been doing this for so long. But when you’re just getting started, you do feel nervous. So even just having a moment to kinda calm yourself and ground yourself because your voice carries energy, and you will definitely hear that.

And pay attention to, like, whenever you’re scrolling on Instagram, and then suddenly an ad comes up. You know it’s an ad based on how people are talking. Just pay attention to that next time. Versus when you come onto this podcast and I’m just like, “Hey, what’s up? Welcome back to another episode. Here’s what’s been going on.”

Maybe I kinda stumble a little bit. That feels a lot more casual, right? You wouldn’t listen to this podcast if the whole time it sounded like I was just pitching you for something The other thing that I think is so important to point out is that [00:15:00] it can be really easy to see somebody have such fast success and want to compare ourselves. And yes, allow this to be evidence that a lot is possible, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare because even though she started this account in November, she also was running a business before this.

She has some business experience. She has some content creation experience. She wasn’t starting from zero. So what I want you to know from this point is two things. We can’t compare ourselves because it’s not like she literally just got started, and two, your skills are transferable. Her skills from being a recovery coach transfer so well.

Why? Because binge eating is an emotional experience, and creating content is also an emotional experience. She understands human psychology, and she was able to transfer that into her yapping videos, [00:16:00] into her launch, into the way that she teaches, and that is wonderful. So whatever you are doing right now, even if it feels like it’s not a waste of time, maybe you’re working a nine to five that you know you don’t wanna be in forever, know that your skills are transferable.

Know that everything you’ve done in your life so far is going to help you get to the next step because there’s no way I could have started a business if I hadn’t worked at a tech startup, and I didn’t understand what marketing was, what sales was, different systems. That supported me in getting a head start when I started my business.

So sometimes we can see people, and it can seem like, like things happened overnight, but we don’t know what was happening behind the scenes. We don’t know how many, other attempts there were or failed attempts there, there were before this actual success. So remember that because my stuff was not an overnight success even though it seems like it.

I grew to two hundred thousand followers in a few months on TikTok and then left my job within a few months as well [00:17:00] because I started my coaching business. But what you all didn’t see is my failed food blog before that, my failed wellness coaching before that. I tried many different avenues In summary What we can take away from this wonderful launch, and I don’t know if I’ve already said this, but if you don’t know what a launch is, a launch is when you have a digital product that you are selling. For her, it was two, her $299 YAP Challenge that she created and then sold to many people. It’s usually digital.

So what we can learn from this launch and from watching Jessie Gene, is that there’s so much power in building a personal brand, and things can happen so quickly when we are willing to try different things, put ourselves out there, say the things that others aren’t willing to say, do the things that others aren’t willing to do, and we’re also being intentional and listening.

We’re really being mindful of what’s resonating with people. Because that first YAP [00:18:00] video she did was her sign to keep talking about YAPPING. So what she was doing is she was building demand, and demand, and demand, and demand, that the moment she sold something, everybody was like, “I want in.” Because we were all already sold on her as a person because she showed up vulnerably.

She didn’t show up as a I know everything. She was like, “No, I don’t know everything, but look, here’s how, what I’ve done, and this is what I’m gonna teach you.” And if her content doesn’t gatekeep, you already knew the YAP Challenge wasn’t going to gatekeep. So this has been such a fun thing for me to observe from the outside looking in.

For the girls that were, that are in my mastermind, I had them pay attention to this launch from the moment it started. I was like, “Look, I wanna show you all this.” And then the next time we met, I was like, “All right, we have to do a summary. This is what happened.” AndWe were all so happy for her because it is evidence that it’s something that is possible for all of us. This is what happens when you build your personal brand, you put yourself out there [00:19:00] And you bet on yourself

 And if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “Wait, but I, I wanna do this. I have no idea where to start,” or, “This feels very overwhelming,” I last minute have decided to teach a free training all about the different mistakes that are I have last minute decided to create a training all about the mistakes that you are making that are keeping your content invisible. If the only person that is constantly engaging with your content is your mom and people you know, and you’re not really landing new followers, it’s because your content is not being seen.

It’s invisible. And trust me, y’all, I know that you’re listening to this podcast and you’re like, “Erika has everything figured out.” But at the beginning of this year, I was losing followers more than I was gaining followers. I mean, even though I started off as a content creator, my content stopped working because content has completely evolved, and it has turned into a different way of creating content, and I had to relearn the system.

And ever since I relearned, I’ve gained over [00:20:00] 15,000 followers. My clients have been absolutely killing it. So I would love to invite you to join me. It’s happening on June 17th. It’s a Wednesday at 5:00 Pacific Time. I can’t wait to see you there. You can secure your spot by using the link down below, and I’ll see you on the 17th [00:21:00]