Business Archives - Page 14 of 19

The 4 Things I Did to Uplevel My Business

The 4 Things I did to Uplevel My Business

My business has definitely been built in stages. There is no overnight success to be seen here, just a lot of long term planning, hard work and consistent effort. In each clear stage of my business there have been changes or upgrades I have made that ultimately resulted in my business growing into the next stage, and in time I have always been able to look back and see that it was this a specific catalyst that helped me grow my business to the next level. Today, I want to share with you 4 things I did to up level my business that had a clear impact on my growth, the impact it had on my business and provide some analysis for why it was a game changer. Hopefully, you can spend some time reflecting on these items to determine if you also are ready to up level your business in a certain area and reap the rewards of upgrading tools or strategies.

#1: Moved from Blogger to WordPress

What I did: Upgraded to a self hosted website from a free Blogger site I had been using for years to host my blog.

Impact on my business: Sky-rocketed my blog traffic and page views, and then later gave me a ready made platform to create my online shop.

Analysis: For years I had used a free Blogger/Blogspot account to host my blog, but eventually I knew it was time to upgrade to a self hosted WordPress site if I wanted to go from hobby-blogger to serious-blogger. Luckily, WordPress has many free plugins available to help make that migration from Blogger to WordPress much simpler and it only took me a weekend and an investment of about $200 to get my new site up and running. Almost immediately I could see the impact it had on my traffic and page views. Having a self hosted website is much better for your SEO (search engine optimization) than a free blog site, and my page views grew steadily over the coming months and years. Although I have garnered a pretty large following through social media, I still find that the majority of the traffic to my site comes from organic search results and SEO, and I know I have many regular readers who came to me, not through YouTube or social but through a search engine to my site and shop. SEO has been integral for helping the passive income for my business grow and upgrading to self hosted WordPress was the catalyst for this growth.

#2: Upgraded to a DSLR Camera

What I did: Purchased a DSLR camera and learned to use it!

Impact on my business: Greater following on social and YouTube.

Analysis: Once I started using a DSLR camera, the quality of my pictures and videos increased dramatically. This had a positive affect on many areas of my business, including my blog, Instagram and YouTube. Almost immediately, I began to see my followers on Instagram increase as I posted nicer pictures regularly. My blog page views increased as well as my images were getting more hits in search and they picked up significantly on Pinterest as well which in turn drove traffic to my blog and shop. Once I started using my DSLR for video, it took me some time to find the sweet spot for filming and the right lenses to use, but the improvement in the quality of my videos was noticeable. Online marketing has become increasing visual and the quality of your images and video really make a big impact in the polish and professionalism of your business as well as the marketability of your content online.

#3: Found a Business Mentor

What I did: Began working closely with a business mentor.

Impact on my business: Greater clarity for my business, generated new products and revenue streams.

Analysis: I found a business mentor early in 2015, or should I say, she found me! We clicked immediately and through our frequent chats, I gained new insight into the direction I wanted to take my business. 2015 was a big year for me revenue-wise, I was able to introduce many new products and revenue streams that helped propel my business forward in leaps and bounds. Having someone to bounce ideas off of and to challenge me to think about my business in different ways was a priceless experience that really helped empower me.

#4: Automated my Social Media

What I did: Began using social media automation tools that allow me to pre-create and schedule content to fill my feed in certain platforms.

Impact on my business: Established a promotion plan for specific platforms while also giving myself back time.

Analysis: Whenever you can automate actions in your business it is a time saver and it frees you up to do something different or more productive with your time. I started using the social media scheduler Edgar earlier this summer and since then I have put my promotion for Twitter and Facebook on autopilot. Since Twitter and Facebook are not two of the platforms that I actively create for, it was helpful to me to establish a regular posting schedule in these peripheral platforms while also spending as little time as possible managing them. Since implementing this change, I have seen sales of certain products rise, which shows me that these promotion efforts are working, even if I’m not working on them!

I hope you gained some insight from this post in understanding how certain changes can help you up level your business in different ways. Whether it was increased revenue, more traffic or just time I gave back to myself, every once in a while you advance your business in ways that have a positive collateral affect that changes the way you do business for the better!

xoxo,

Business

Entrepreneurial: Getting Back In the Groove

My husband and I (and Starbuck) have officially lived in our new home for a little over a month and I’m very glad to report that we are really getting back into the groove of life and work, at last! We’ve completed many home projects, purchased a lot of new furniture, and although our work is far from done, that anxiety I get when things are completely out of place has dissolved. August was my first month back to work full time at my biz after my very long and exhausting summer of moving and home ownership prep. I’m surprised that I was able to transition back into my old work habits pretty quickly, but then again, when the alternative is obsessing over unfinished home projects, work really seems like a welcome treat!

What I didn’t do

1. Wake up early everyday: I think this is one part due to my new home and the lesser amount of light that comes into our bedroom, but I’m also not forcing myself out of bed in the morning. Although I don’t plan to keep up this routine much into fall, I think that with the exhaustion of moving and all the extra home projects, I just need more time to sleep. So I am giving myself permission to sleep more if I want to.

2. Work 8 hours a day: I go through periods of time when I work full days and then periods when a few hours of work is all I need. Since I have been keeping my workload light this summer, I haven’t been working full days as of yet. After sleeping in and allowing myself to take it easy in the morning, I have started working around noon and ending work around 4pm.

3. Focus only on work: Right now I have more on my plate outside of work, so again, I have given myself permission to spend time on things that aren’t work related. Some of that is establishing new routines in my home. Some of that is taking care of random new home things I never had to manage before. I only have 24 hours in a day and when new essential items are added to your life, it’s important to take measure of what you can scale back on so that you remain balanced and not overwhelmed.

What I did do

1. Set my priorities: All of the recent home life changes have meant that I needed to reevaluate my priorities. In doing so I was able to determine the areas of my life where I would be able to cut back without causing a crisis. Taking the time to sit down and think about your priorities and what you are trying to achieve is crucial whenever you’re managing change.

2. Enjoyed my evenings: In establishing new routines for our home, my husband and I have been focusing a lot on enjoying our evenings. We have a patio with a gazebo where we like to spend some time with a drink in hand to unwind. We also have a larger living area and more spaces without our home to use and enjoy and we are really trying to make the most of it. Especially now that we aren’t renting a little apartment and have a place of our own, I really want to enjoy our space and the fruits of our labor.

3. Started a weekly newsletter: So this was the one business project I kicked off this month! I have been wanting to do a newsletter for a while and I actually scheduled it out on my project plan to get this started at the end of the summer. I have been taking steps to arrange this for a few months now and it feels great to be on track with my business projects even if I’m not thinking business 24/7!

What I learned

1. Making progress in your personal life will trickle over into your work: It might seem like common sense that if you want to improve a certain area of your life, you should focus on that area alone, but I think that perspective ignores the bigger picture. For me, I have found that by spending time on my personal life and getting that in order, I have made progress in my work life. The more time I spend relaxing in the evenings, the greater my capacity for work is the next day. The more I get my eating habits under control, the more structured I find my workday. When you think work-life balance, I think there is a misconception that it’s all about shuffling around tasks and priorities until you find equilibrium, but I think that simply taking action to take care of one area of your life will tilt the scale for other areas of your life as well.

2. To take advantage of my flexible schedule: This was my big a-ha moment this month. Obviously, since I work from home for myself, I have a flexible schedule, but I don’t usually take advantage of that flexibility. I normally insist on creating a consistent workday schedule that might mimic a normal 9-5. This month, I challenged myself to understand why. Why do I force myself into that mold if I have created a business and lifestyle where I have the ability to legitimately break out of that mold? I know it comes down to old habits and expectations, so this month I loosened those expectations and gave myself permission to sleep in, start working later, and finish up with time to spare in the evening without hopping back on to my computer in bed! Flexibility in your schedule is only a blessing if you use it and I want to use it!

3. Patience: I don’t think I have ever been a particularly patient person. I like immediate gratification, I tend to rush and I don’t like not having control over situations that affect my life. But holy cow! If buying a home doesn’t teach you patience, I don’t know what does! Not just patience with the process of purchasing, but from the moment we bought our home there were a few dozen projects and repairs that I needed to manage and if you follow me on snapchat you might already know that seriously, nothing went according to plan! Every contractor encountered issues beyond what we were already facing. Every important delivery or installation was botched. I have lived in my home for over a month now and we are still dealing with contractors that haven’t finished their work from the first week of move in. It’s crazy- apparently this is normal- but because of all of this, I have learned to let go and be patient. I’ve had to turn my obsessiveness off and just accept things for what they are.

Let me know in the comments how your month went!

xoxo,

How to Improve Your Life, Sleep and Business!

Hey there business and productivity besties! I know it has been a while since I’ve had a link roundup here on the blog but I’m back today with some great links to help inspire you to get your personal development, productivity and business under control just in time for fall!

Personal Development

Productivity

Business

As always, I hope you enjoyed these articles and found a new great read that was able to help you answer some questions or inspire you to live a little differently. If you have any articles you read and loved lately, please share those in the comments below so we can all check it out! And if you are looking to dive deep into personal development this year, I highly suggest you check out my Charmed Life Master Class! This self-paced ecourse is designed to help you get control of your life, career and relationships through a series of guided lectures and worksheets all for an affordable price. Don’t miss out- get started today!

xoxo,

Business

From Passion to Profit: How I Turned a Love of Planners Into My Full Time Job

If you are reading this, you undoubtedly know me from my work in the planner community. Perhaps you already know about my business, have purchased from me before, consider me a role model for business and productivity, or perhaps you followed a link from a YouTube video to this blog to read more planner related content. No matter what you’re experience is with me, we both have a passion in common, planners! For me, that passion was so great that I ended up turning it into my full time job and started an entire enterprise around it. You can read the story of how it all went down here, but today I want to break down the path I took that lead me from loving planners to selling inserts and courses to help others with the same love.

Follow your passion

My journey begins as most do with a passion. We’ve already established that my passion was planners and a deep love for productivity. Back in early 2014 when I entered the planner craze, I was completely obsessed and entranced by this world of planners. Without thinking about it from a business stand point, I started making videos and posts on planners and stationery supplies and gave myself permission to play with this passion with a child-like intensity that brought me happiness and joy in creating. This is really the key sign that you have a real passion for something, when you can get lost it in for hours upon hours and create endlessly and end the day with more ideas for tomorrow! If you feel this way about something, don’t ignore it, it’s a true passion.

Become part of a community

Like I said, in 2014 when I started diving deep into planners, it was already a craze, which meant that there was a community of people who were interested in this same topic (you are probably one of them!) and so connecting with others and gaining a following from my passion seemed so easy. When you become part of a community with the same passions as yourself, things really do seem a little easier and sometimes effortless. Early on, I strove to not only be a consumer in this community, but to also be a leader and a creator, making videos and content that shared my knowledge and skills. I spoke to so many planner people in such a short time, really taking time to understand what they wanted to see and know and I made so many videos that were in response to questions I had received or seen frequently asked in different Facebook groups. Because of this, not only did a grow a following, but I gained a lot of insight into what people in the planner community were looking for. No matter what your passion is, I highly suggest finding a community or creating a community if one does not exist, around it. When you have a group of like minded individuals ready to consume your content and telling you what they want, it makes it that much easier for you to create.

Identify the opportunity

Now, once I had the passion and community under my belt, it actually took me a while to identify the opportunity that I was being faced with as a creator. Although I loved planners, had an audience and was creating constantly for them, I didn’t recognize that there was an opportunity for me to create a business around this passion. It took me several months of my followers and community members asking me to sell my designs for me to acknowledge that there was a market for my work. Part of it was fear I think. Fear that I couldn’t do it or my work wouldn’t be good enough and then part of it was that I was focusing on the wrong things. I initially thought that my business would be blogging and creating YouTube videos and making an income from sponsored posts and ad revenue, and because I was focused on this, the idea of selling my own goods and having my own shop was something I glazed over. When it comes to our passions, a lot of times we have many options for how we can proceed with turning those passions into profit, but if we ignore the signs (in my case, people telling me to sell my designs) we can miss the real opportunity!

Create value

It’s one thing to find out what people want and then give it to them, and it’s quite another to take it a step further and create real value for people. When I mean value, I don’t mean pricing my products so that they are in a certain range, and I don’t mean having sales or giving discounts. I mean value in terms that transcend money and really give people more than they expect. In my business, this is a major topic and a reason why I believe my business still works after two years. So many people start these passion projects and side (or full time) businesses because they have passion and a market to sell to but they end up failing within a year because they haven’t found a way to create value that keeps customers coming back for more and brining new customers to your community everyday. For me, I create value through all the extra free content I create on my blog, YouTube and through social media. I create value by responding to emails and giving people answers to the questions they bring me. Think about how you can create value for your audience, the type of value that gives people a sense of confidence that when they buy your products or engage your services they will get more than they expected!

Make it work

The final step I took to make a profit from my passion is something I continually do day in and day out, making it work! Every day I have to get the job done and solve problems that potentially threaten the existence of my business. I have to make plans, execute and then change them if they don’t work out. I have to keep my head in the game and find a path forward even when challenges block my path. The ability to make it work stems from a sense of responsibility and perseverance that when the going gets tough, I can’t back down or else I loose it all. That’s why this whole process must start with passion, because without true passion, you will give up before you ever get your idea off the ground!

So, let me turn the tables and ask you a question now! Do you have a passion that yo want to turn into a profit? If you do, I want to invite you to check out a Free Training video I have that will help you get your business idea started if you are ready to start taking the steps to make your passion a full-time or part-time income! Click here to sign up for my training and you will be emailed a link and study guide to get started ASAP!

xoxo,

Online Business

The 3 Platforms For Massive Brand Growth

The 3 Platforms For Massive Brand Growth

As a business consultant and social media guru, I am often asked by my readers and clients about the best social media platforms to join if you want to make a name for yourself online. In my signature online business program, Empire Building, I have an entire workbook dedicated to the platforms of online communication which is designed to help you choose the best platforms for your online brand and business. But the trends are clear, there are a few social media platforms that are really rising to the top right now and if you are looking for massive brand growth, it would be in your best interest to incorporate at least one of these platforms into your online presence. Now, this doesn’t mean that EVERYONE should use ALL THREE of these platforms because all three will not apply to every person and every business- hence the reason I have a dedicated workbook with information and activities to help you decide the platforms you need to optimize your online presence in Empire Building! However, these three platforms are very popular at the moment and trends show they are going to remain popular for quite some time, so they are a safe bet if they make sense for you and your brand!

YouTube

Although all video based platforms are on the rise at the moment, YouTube happens to be one of the fastest growing, most accessed platforms out there today and it’s growing so fast that within a few short years it is actually projected to become the #1 website online AND the #1 search engine, dethroning the mighty Google! With billions of searches being conducted each month and millions of users accessing the site daily, including a wide user base demographics, YouTube really is a place where you can find a following online quickly if you do the work! Although there have been users like me on the site for years building up their community and following, I still see everyday small accounts with great content rising to fame and fortune on the platform because hard work and good strategy really does pay off on YouTube more so than other platforms.

Instagram

Instagram is the youngest platform on this list, but it has been a brand power player for nearly as long as it has existed. Yes, this year Instagram announced some new updates that do make it a little harder to grow your following on the platform if you are a brand or business, however, it has opened up advertising as well, which could help with growth if you are willing to pay to play. Even the recent addition of Instagram stories, the Snapchat-like extension of the platform that gives users the ability to vlog and share content exclusively to their followers, is just another way to help brands stand out on the platform!

Facebook

Good old Facebook! Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Facebook is practically a social media dinosaur at this point, but it always seems to find a way to remain relevant and on top in the social sphere. You can’t deny that the user base of Facebook is out of control- everyone uses Facebook including children and grandparents and on a daily basis no less! Yes, Facebook often makes changes to their platform that end up making it harder for businesses and brands to stand out, only to increase the end user experience of course, and because of this Facebook is a place where you can find and build a community around your brand. I’d suggest skipping the Facebook Fan Page option for a Facebook Group which is really where it is at for developing community and brand loyalty, but having both is nice as well!

If you are someone who has been confused about which platforms to use for your brand or business online, I hope this information has been helpful to you and given you an idea of where to start! Like I mentioned before, not all of these platforms are going to be right for every brand or business, and if you want to pinpoint the right platforms for you, I highly suggest checking out my Empire Building Online Business Program, which helps you to not only learn all the major online platforms but also helps you to choose which are right for you and how to develop a thriving brand online with the right content and strategies! Let me know which platforms you use online and if you have any questions, I’d be glad to help so drop me a line in the comments below!

xoxo,

Business

Entrepreneurial: How My Online Business Survived My Month-Long Hiatus!

Welcome back for another installment of Entrepreneurial, my monthly journal entry chronicling my experience as an entrepreneur, my victories and failures each month, and the lessons learned along the way.

How my online business survived my month-long hiatus!

As some of you may already know, July was a big month for me and my husband because we bought our first home and then moved into it. Thanks to all of you who sent your congratulations and words of encouragement and support on this major life milestone of ours, we truly appreciate it! I know that I am incredibly blessed to run my own business and therefore, I alone am the sole manager of my time, so when my husband and I were preparing for the purchase of our home and the major project which was preparing it for our arrival and then moving into it, we decided that I was going to pull back from my business for a few weeks. Initially, this meant that I was still going to be working but that I would stop doing certain time consuming tasks (like filming for YouTube) in order to spend time on this event which was our #1 priority.

Quickly, however, that plan went out the window when, despite our best attempts to plan and manage the new home situation, unexpected issues and stress took my mind off of my business and kept me preoccupied with a litany of house related obligations. So, as it turns out, I ended up doing little to no work for my business in July, a very scary, but also incredibly necessary choice I had to make. I was of course worried that this would damage my business and my brand. Although I built my business to be a passive income producer in theory, I had never really left it alone to its own devices. So this was a big test for me and how well I had built my business to run without me.

The results of a month away from my work were pretty unexpected. My business still brought in a steady income, not the amount I usually earn each month, but about 1/3^rd of it. Still enough for me to pay my bills and keep my head above water without having to dip into savings, and although with the major expense of the move, having my usual full income would have been great, I was pleased that things were running sustainably without me and that the time away didn’t cause a financial burden. In terms of my following, I was very pleased to see that after a hiatus of 6 weeks on YouTube, my channel was still growing at the same rate it had been and that my views were comparable to the same time frame last year. Even my blog traffic stayed consistent during this time which was great, and my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook following all grew at about the usually rate as well.

So, other than a dip in my income, it doesn’t appear that the month away did any damage to my brand, and I think I have some good solid reasons why!

#1. Having a backlog of high quality content kept my SEO and discoverability consistent so that new followers and customers were still flowing in. If you are a new business that doesn’t have much content built up on their platforms, I wouldn’t recommend taking an extended period of time off, but with hundreds of blog posts and hundreds more YouTube videos in my history means that there is lead generating content available at all times.

#2. Being transparent with my existing audience meant that everyone understood why I was gone and that I would be back! I really think this was a big reason my followers didn’t drop me during my time off and were actually excited for me to get back, because I let them know what was going on, why I was taking time off and when I would be back in business. I received many messages and emails during my time off expressing support and excitement for me and my husband, and sharing anticipation for me to come back with new content.

#3. Using social scheduling tools helped me to push out and promote existing content and products consistently, so that my accounts didn’t go completely dark. Although my Blog and YouTube weren’t being regularly updated, some of my other social feeds were, so my closest followers were still connecting with me and my content while I was gone and new followers were still able to find me, my content and my products!

#4. I regularly checked my email to remain connected and responsive to those who reached out. I’m a true believer that it’s very important to reply to your emails because for me, its a sign of respect that if someone spent the time to message me, I am going to spend the time to reply back, even if its just a short response. Although my email response rate was slower than normal, I did regularly check my email and reply as quickly as I could to customer service inquiries, questions and the outpouring of love I was receiving from my community!

So, that is my recap of July aka that time I took a month off and my business was still okay when I got back! I definitely learned a lot about life and business from the process of buying a home, moving and trying to manage my business in the process, which I will be sharing with you more in future posts and emails, so if you are not already subscribed to my newsletter, sign up here! Don’t forget to let me know how your July went, I can’t wait to catch up with you all over the next few days and weeks as I settle back into my work routines and start defining some new ones!

xoxo,

Online Business

5 Reasons Snapchat isn’t Just for Teenagers Anymore

5 Reasons Snapchat isn’t just for teenagers anymore

Are you using Snapchat yet? Although I have had my Snapchat account for a while, it wasn’t until a little earlier this year that I really got into the platform. For a while, I, like everyone else, thought it was just a fad app for teenagers. That is what it seemed like, but now a few years and a bunch of hype later, the platform really seems to be exploding and you’d be surprised that it’s really shaping up to be a valuable entertainment and community building platform for adults and businesses alike. So, today I want to share with you the 5 reasons Snapchat isn’t just for teenagers anymore, and share some of my insights for why this platform is so popular and fun for businesses and adult users as well!

It’s like instant vlogging

Vlogging has seriously grown in popularity in the last few years thanks to YouTubers who took the concept of “follow me around” videos and turned it into it’s own genre of reality tv. But for as long as their has been vlogging, there have also been the struggle of vloggers to produce engaging content about their daily life quickly and easily. A whole sub market of goods has been developing to help people vlog, from selfie sticks to cameras with front facing LCD screens- vlogging is hard work and vloggers are always searching for new technology to make it easier. Well, enter Snapchat! A platform that gives you the ability to quickly capture video and images in real time to share with your following. It’s like the behind the scenes of the behind the scenes and for me personally, that is what I use snapchat for myself. I am not a daily vlogger, but with Snapchat, I can easily share snippets of my daily life with my followers. And more and more, the people I choose to watch on the platform are people who do the same!

Real time updates mean you can promote organically in real time

It terms of running a business, snapchat is also a great way to promote to your audience in real time. One of the most inauthentic parts of running a business and doing promotions is certainly the fact that everything needs to be done “ahead of time.” Promotions are prepackaged, emails are scheduled, posts are queued up. Nothing is left for that organic, in the moment reaction. Unless you use Snapchat! By building a following on Snapchat, you can tap into more organic promotion by sharing things as they happen in real time and optimizing your content for real life events. And since the content on the platform is on a timer, you can do things like run flash sales for a short window of time and by the time the promotion expires, so has your content!

Everyone from celebrities, to entrepreneurs to your favorite brands are using it

I remember back in 2014 when I first signed up for Snapchat myself, and even before that, the joke was that Snapchat was for teenagers to text each other funny/naughty/controversial things without the content being permanently out there for everyone to see or archived in some dark part of the internet to creep back up later and bite you in the butt! But now, it’s a fun platform where not only adults are enjoying and sharing, but we also see a variety of celebrities, entrepreneurs and brands active on the platform as well.

It gives your community personal access to you in a controlled environment

One of the things I love about Snapchat from a business standpoint is how it gives my audience instant access to me without me feeling like I’m putting too much information out there. My audience can send me snaps and ask me questions very easily through the app and get personal messages back from me that are part of a private conversation between the two of us. It’s easier than email because you are able to send just a short message or quick picture if you please, it’s better than twitter if you want to keep your conversation private, and it’s simpler than Facebook messaging because you don’t have to go through that whole platform to use it! I also like the fact that I can see who has viewed my snaps and who has taken a screenshot of them. It makes the whole process more transparent but also creates a private environment at the same time.

It’s pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it

Snapchat is a relatively easy platform to learn, as it really only allows you to do a few specific things. If you are interested in learning the platform for yourself, I created a whole video demonstration walking you through how to use the app if you are a beginner. Check that out below and make sure to follow me on Snapchat, my username is MissTrenchcoat of course!

So, will you be joining me on Snapchat or have you already joined the platform? I’d love to hear your experience with the app and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

xoxo,

Business

Entrepreneurial: Half Way There!

My Monthly Entrepreneurial Journal for June 2016 — iPhone Case via Amazon

Welcome back for another installment of Entrepreneurial, my monthly journal entry chronicling my experience as an entrepreneur, my victories and failures each month, and the lessons learned along the way.

Half Way There!

It’s official Mid-Year and as an Entrepreneur or fellow business owner, we have a few housekeeping things to get in order! I find that now is the best time to take a moment to reflect on your business, projects and progress so far this year and make any necessary adjustments. In life and in business, I think too few of us try to push on and finish what we have started, even when its not working for us, and it takes a lot of courage to really stop and evaluate your progress to make sure you are still on the right track. For this installment of Entrepreneurial, I want to focus on getting your life and business tidy for the second half of the year!

The Mid-Year To Do List!

The first thing you need to do right now as a business owner is go ahead and perform a Quarterly Business Review. If you forget the process, I have a whole video on the subject you can watch and follow along with your own review here!
Take time to do a massive brain dump! I know you have too much on your mind right now, so give yourself a mental break and do a brain dump. If you aren’t sure of the process, here is a video I made on the subject for you to watch, and here is a link to a freebie in my shop- my Business Incompletion Triggers List! It’s great for helping you unload all those thoughts and plans that are leaving a permanent mark on your brain!
Take time to Refresh and Review your life as well as your business! I recently announced my July free printable task list which is a Mid-Year Refresh and Review with 31 things to do in July to get your life in order and on track now that we are half way through the year. Go through this list and make sure to get yourself reset for the second half of 2016!

My June Highlight Reel!

If you haven’t heard yet, my husband and I are closing on our first home! It’s a very exciting time for us and I am looking forward to all the changes this summer is going to bring to our life.
I recently announced that I am taking a break from YouTube for the next few weeks to prepare for those major life changes that come with home ownership. If you want to hear more about it- watch this video.
I finally signed up for Edgar! If you haven’t heard about this wonderful content promotion tool, definitely check it out because it’s making my job and my assistant’s job, so much easier!
I’ve changed my planner up a bit and am moving away from my spiral planner that I DIY’d last year and back into a fully discbound system. What can I say? I’m digging the discs. I hope to be able to share the new set up upon my return to YouTube.

Okay, well, that is my update for June! If you are feeling blue about my YouTube break, don’t forget to follow me on SnapChat, my handle there is MissTrenchcoat and I try to snap most days sharing bits of my life and behind the scenes. I’d love for you to follow along with me there for my summer adventures!

xoxo,

Online Business

Empire Building is on Sale!

Empire Building is on Sale!

Are you ready to join Empire Building?

If you didn’t make it to my Free Live Webinar yesterday, you might have missed the news that my Empire Building Online Business Program is currently on sale through the end of the month! If you have been interested in the program, now is the perfect time to invest and get started because although Empire Building is available all year round, I rarely drop the price, but with summer break upon us, I thought this was the perfect time to give you all a little entrepreneurial kick in the butt. If you have been waiting to start your #sidehustle or make real progress on creating your own dream job, I’m here to tell you you’ll regret not starting TODAY! With Empire Building, you get a self-paced online business building program that teaches you everything you need to know to market your brand or business online, whether you want to become a professional blogger, start a serviced based business or even run an online shop! Empire Building is all about giving you the strategies and resources that you need to get your business up and running quickly and PROFITABLY! If this interests you, click here to read the details of the program!

Of course, if you have any questions about what is included in the program or if Empire Building is the right approach for you, please feel free to send me an email and I’ll be more than happy to review your specific situation to see if you are a fit for my program. But if you’re ready to get started, take advantage of my sale pricing before it expires! Can’t wait to work with you inside the program!

xoxo,

Business

How to Find Focus as a Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur

How to Find Focus as a Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur

Today I want to talk to you about finding focus as a multi-passionate entrepreneur because this is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. I do consider myself to be a multi-passionate entrepreneur. I’m someone who enjoys a wide variety of different creative endeavors and strives to fold them all together into my business. Things from writing and blogging to photography or videography and designing. There are so many different things I’m passionate about and I’ve been lucky enough to figure out a way to pull those all together into one business. Now this is also a really important topic to me because within my Empire Building Online Business Program, I work with a lot of business owners who consider themselves to be multi-passionate entrepreneurs as well. They’re either in a stage of business where they’re trying to start their business or they’ve already begun their business and they’re trying to figure out the next step, but because they’re multi-passionate and they have all these great ideas and creative visions, they have a hard time focusing on what they need to work on next. So, this is something that I deal with personally on a day-to-day basis. Not just by myself but with my clients as well. So, today I want to share a strategy that I use and recommend for anyone looking to find focus and who considers themselves to be a creative multi-passionate individual!

The first thing I want you to do if you are someone who has a lot of different ideas and you’re trying to determine what to work on first is to go ahead and write down all those ideas. Once you’ve written them all down I want you to go one step further and I want you to write down all the tasks and actions you currently have that pertain to that idea or to that product/project you want to create. Whatever this new endeavor is, I want you to write everything out that you already have thought about. All the plans don’t have to be solidified, they don’t have to be things you know you want to do, just ideas you’ve had that pertain to this concept. I want you to get it all out of your head and onto paper so we can sort through it.

Now, while you are writing out this list of ideas and putting together supporting ideas that will go with it, I want you to make sure you pay attention to two things. I want you to be able to identify why it is that you are interested in this project or in this concept specifically, and I want you to identify what your goals are for this project. What is it going to bring to your business? What is it going to do for you? Is this a new revenue opportunity? Is this a new promotional opportunity? How does this fit into your business? You need to be able to identify those two things- why is it something that is interesting to you and how does it fit in your business! These are very important questions that you’re going to want to answer because I cannot tell you the amount of times I have had an idea, rushed into working on it, didn’t ask myself the big-picture questions ahead of time, and by the time all the work was done I looked at the project I was working on and said to myself ‘I don’t actually think that this belongs in my business, I don’t really see where this fits.” It was just something that was exciting and I wanted to act on immediately, but I really didn’t think it through. I didn’t think about it’s place in my business and why it was important to me, so you want to make sure you have those two points clearly outlined for each of the projects that are currently vying for your attention.

The next thing I want you to do is take each one of those projects and rank them based on some very specific criteria. Number one, I want you to rank them based on which idea is the most fully formed. So what idea actually seems like you’ve been able to work through a lot of it already- which of these ideas do you think is the most fully formed and seems like a viable option? Number two, I want you to rank each idea based on which will be the easiest to execute on. Which idea has a quick turnaround time or you know needs the least amount of work? What idea can you get up and running quickly? I want you to go and think about that and rank your ideas based on this criteria as well. Now, the third and final criterial I want you to rank each idea for is how profitable or how easy it would be for you to generate income from this idea. Is this idea a new revenue source or just something promotional? The easier it is to make money from your idea, the higher up the rank it should be!

Once you have your ideas ranked by these three criteria, I want you to start identifying which ones seem to be the best ideas based on how you’ve ranked them. You’ll probably have some on your list that float to the top as good ideas, and then you will have some that fall to the bottom as less practical. Once you have eliminated the less practical ideas, and hopefully your list is down to a few solid contenders, do a gut check and determine which idea feels right for you to work on. Remember, you could theoretically have a page full of great ideas, but the point of this exercise isn’t to deter you from good ideas, rather, the point is to help you choose where to focus your time and energy next. You can always come back to this list and work on the next project once your first idea is complete, but the point is to find a single idea to focus on and complete because we can only do one thing at a time!

If running a focused business that draws on your strengths as a multi-passionate entrepreneur is a priority to you, I want to let you know about my upcoming Free Webinar on My 5 Pillar System for Building a Successful Online Business. I’ll be sharing the strategies I personally use as part of my Empire Building Online Business Program and giving you insights you can use immediately to start building your brand online. PLUS, I’ll be sharing a special limited timed offer for those of you interested in joining me in Empire Building, so you won’t want to miss this event!

Click here to reserve your spot for this informative FREE Live Webinar Training and to also access the replay and downloads! Hope to see you there live!