The Inspiration for Cleared for Takeoff

I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my adult life with just a few brief stints with actual employment. I’ve mostly worked with small businesses, often with minimal budgets, and at times, tried to be everything to everyone.  They needed film work, my company would do that. They needed a website, I learned how to build a WordPress because they (said they) were out of money and couldn’t afford to hire anyone else. I made this my problem and allowed this pattern out of a place of lack, afraid to raise my prices and even more afraid to “abandon” people who “needed” me.

These were the early days of my entrepreneurship and clearly, I made a lot of mistakes. What I did get out of it was some skills stacking, meaning, I kept learning and stacking new skills to what I could provide. Again, this was from a place of lack, scared that a client would go to another provider if I couldn’t do it all. I get a tight feeling in my chest just thinking about it. Most of them did eventually close up shop or go on to the next person who they believed would save their lives and it went on and on. You get what you tolerate!

It wasn’t until I moved on from that company, moved to a new state, and started to heal myself that I not only raised my prices but my standards as well. I started charging my worth and investing more into my own business. I experimented a little on my pricing and found that when I agreed to a discount or a bargain price or threw in something extra, those same people were the ones who midway wanted to change the scope of the work, paid late, and were less likely to put in the work themselves. This was a small sampling and by no means scientific but on the reverse side of things, the ones who paid my full rate would be the ones who never contacted me after hours, paid on time, and expected to pay more for extra work. It’s taken a few years to be able to quote my rates without my palm sweating.  I’m never resentful of the time I spend on my client’s work still, I found myself wanting something different.

This is where the inspiration for Cleared for Takeoff comes in. I wanted something that I could scale, meaning doing a set amount of work and making an impact with more and more people without having to sacrifice more hours. You’re probably more familiar with the term Passive Income.  I don’t personally like that term because nothing is truly passive but we don’t have to sell our time for dollars.

And, if I’m honest, I missed the startups, the solo entrepreneurs, and the feminist in me needs to be a part of seeing that other women have the skills needed to be successful and to avoid the mistakes I’ve made (lack of boundaries, busyness in place of productivity, workaholism …). I truly believe the world needs more women-owned businesses and more women with wealth.  If you’re with me on that, then you’re absolutely in the right place.

I travel a lot and was sitting in the airport with extra time due to a delayed flight and I pulled out my laptop to work a bit on my business plan. My website at the time was called Jenifer.TV. I created it years ago when I was in the film industry and it was kind of a catch-all that meant nothing and everything all at once. My courses still live at Jenifer.TV but my plans had outgrown the name. My last name is Jett, it’s my real given name and whenever I fly, someone invariably makes some kind of a comment about it.  The whole night was a fiasco, with the plane finally arriving but because of the delays, our flight crew had been working beyond their maximum FAA allowed hours so we had to wait for another crew to arrive – it was crazy. Finally, on the plane, we were backed up waiting to be allowed to taxi out and take off. The pilot came on and apologized for all of the delays and said we were something like 12th in line and then we’d be Cleared for Takeoff. It didn’t immediately come to me but I kept hearing that phrase in my head and thought with a name like Jett, why am I not branding everything around taking off, flying high, soaring to new heights, yada yada – it got even cornier from there.

By the time I was on my return flight, which was thankfully uneventful, I had a concept that Cleared for Takeoff completely fit. I decided that I would narrow my programs specifically to help women in online businesses, social sellers, course creators, and those with digital and physical products that they sold online, to stack the skills that they need to create their own online empires.  Yes, it’s great to hire out but until you can afford to, you absolutely can create your website, build your own funnels and original content and more importantly, generate sales from these systems.

When a plane is Cleared for Takeoff, it’s the ground crews and air traffic controllers that give them permission to do so. You don’t need anyone’s permission but sometimes it helps to hear that and if you need that nudge, consider me your air traffic controller – conditions are never absolutely perfect and the ride will have occasional turbulence but there will be a time when you hit cruising altitude where you’ve done the hardest parts first – the preparations and takeoff – and you’ll simply be course correcting and enjoying your flight. 

Welcome aboard!