The Game Changer: Recent Episodes
Katie Wussow
This is a business podcast that doesn’t just help you dream big...I will actually give you the practical strategy and action steps you need to build a business doing what you love.Hi, I’m Katie Wussow, and I’m a business coach for service-based creative entrepreneurs. I help business owners put a strong foundation in place so they can make a consistent income doing what they love. I believe that anyone can learn what it takes to be successful in business. On this show, I’m breaking down the foundational, simple, no-nonsense strategies you need to build a profitable service-based business. I have a knack for breaking down complicated topics and making them simple and actionable...whether you are a seasoned veteran or brand new in business.
In the process of building a business, every business owner has defining moments where you are forced to stop, step back, and ask yourself a hard but important question: “Am I doing the right thing here building a business?” In the past few months, that’s the place where I have been. There were big things that happened that caused me to reevaluate everything. There were also small inklings, nudges, and signs from God that led me to today, the last episode of The Game Changer podcast.
My husband, Travis, always said that when you make a job transition, there are always push factors and pull factors. It’s in these two ways that I’ll be talking you through this decision. I'm here to provide that reasoning in a way that is hopefully helpful to you as you navigate how to make these decisions.
Shop the going out of business sale https://katiewussow.com/goodbye
So many of us have ideas that we’re sitting on. Our self-generated creative work, the things that we do for ourselves are often what is most important and meaningful. But it is also the work that can be the most easily pushed aside. We struggle to make tangible progress and our ideas never come to fruition.
Today’s episode is all about how to produce your own self-generated creative work. Joining us is Jessica Abel, a former indie cartoonist-turned-entrepreneur. She coaches other mid-career creatives who want to build more autonomous lives and teaches them how to run sustainable businesses without burning themselves out. Jessica specializes in helping creative people get focused and organized so that they can produce the work they care so much about. Tune in to hear about:
How to practically decide what projects are the most important to pursue
Breaking down your huge projects into manageable action steps
What to do when you find yourself in the dark forest – aka the “messy middle” part of any project
JESSICA’S Creative Compass Challenge: https://jessicaabel.com/compass
JESSICA’S WEBSITE: https://jessicaabel.com/
JESSICA’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/autonomouscreative/
JESSICA’S FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jccabel
JESSICA’S TWITTER: https://twitter.com/jccabel
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
In 2020, 12-year veteran wedding photographer, Sarah Bradshaw was coming off of her best year ever in business. But then the pandemic hit as well as other unexpected things – Sarah had to move to be closer to her family which meant changes in her business.
Today’s episode was initially going to be about how to move your business into a new city. But Sarah took it a step further to talk to us today about how to shift your business model. A business model is your plan for making a profit, which customers you’re going to serve, at what price point, and will it be enough for you to sustain a living? Sarah’s going to be teaching us about:
Difference between an aspirational middle market client and a true luxury market
How she made the decision to scale her business up and up-level her client base instead of scaling the business down to match the Greenville market.
Identifying marketing strategies that leverage your strengths and get you in front of the right people.
SARAH’S WEBSITE: www.sarahbradshaw.com
SARAH’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/sarahbradshawphoto
SARAH’S FACEBOOK PAGE: https://facebook.com/sarahbradshawphotography
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
This episode is all about how to craft a welcome sequence to help you turn your email list from strangers into fans. This is something that you should put into place if you already have a lead magnet and you are already emailing your list consistently. In this episode, I’m breaking down:
What you’re risking if you don’t have a welcome sequence
8 things you can talk about in your welcome sequence
A simple framework for creating your first welcome sequence from scratch
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Email marketing shouldn’t be transactional. It’s not about getting clicks, open rates, or even getting sales. Email is about building connections so it needs to be personal and consistently add value for your readers.
In part 1 of my interview with Bobby Klinck, we talked about how to do email marketing differently from other entrepreneurs. In today’s part 2, we’ll be getting into actually writing the emails that build a connection with your audience. You’ll learn:
Addictive story-based email structure – how you can write emails with personal stories that still have a point
What kinds of stories we should be telling
Practical ways that you can collect your stories – big and small – so that you never run out of things to write about.
LinksBobby’s Book: Email Marketing That Doesn’t Suck
Bobby’s Email Marketing Resource Hub
Bobby’s Free Stuff: BadA$$ Online Marketing University
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
How do you write emails that people actually want to read? If we’re trying to use email to build relationships and connections, people are going to need to at least have some interest in reading our stuff.
To help us with this, I’m joined today by one of my business mentors, Bobby Klinck. Bobby is a lawyer turned business coach who helps entrepreneurs build profitable knowledge businesses. Bobby and I love to talk so we had to split this into two episodes. In part 1, he talks about:
How email fits into your marketing plan and helps you turn strangers into raving fans
Why it’s important to write emails like a friend, not like a brand
The four parts of a story-based email structure that can help you write truly addictive emails
LinksBobby’s Book: Email Marketing That Doesn’t Suck
Bobby’s Email Marketing Resource Hub
Bobby’s Free Stuff: BadA$$ Online Marketing University
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
When we think about email, we tend to think about just the regular newsletter. Don’t get me wrong, those emails are important but there are so many other ways you can use email to strengthen your relationship with your subscribers. Today we're talking about five ways that you can use email marketing in your service business.
We are talking about:
A concept called permission marketing and how it applies to email
Why you don’t need to worry about unsubscribes
5 kinds of email sequences you need in your business besides the standard newsletter
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
You’ve probably heard people talk before about the importance of having a clear niche, or you’ve thought about niche-ing down yourself. So how exactly can you be sure it’s the right move for you?
Tune into today’s episode where we’ll talk about what it really means to niche down and how to know when you should. Having a clear niche lets you powerfully attract the right kinds of clients to your business so it’s important to know:
Five signs that you’re ready to define your niche
Common misconceptions about what it really means to niche down
How to make sure that your chosen niche will help you build a profitable business
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
You may not know this, but your business has one job, and one job only – generate an income for you as the owner. Erica Goode, a former corporate accountant turned fractional CFO, joins us in today’s episode to help us answer the question of how your business can start doing its one job. Besides being passionate about the topic of helping entrepreneurs pay themselves what they deserve to earn from their business, she’s breaking down for us:
How you can know how much you can afford to pay yourself (and how to overcome the fear of picking the wrong number)
The mechanics of paying yourself depending on what kind of business entity you have
How you can get started with paying yourself even when you aren’t making what you want to make yet
Sign Up for Erica’s Money Stuff Newsletter: https://www.ericagoode.com/
Erica’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erica.goode.cpa
Katie’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
Katie’s Website: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Book: No B.S. Small Business Book by Casey Graham
Article: More Than Half of Entrepreneurs Forego Salaries When They Launch Their Companies
Episode 104, Five Reasons Why You’re Spending Too Much Money on Your Business
Episode 105, How to Plan for Smart Business Investments in 2022 (and Avoid Buyer’s Remorse)
Episode 114, How to Achieve Financial Sustainability in Your Business with Dondrea Owens
You’ve probably seen countless examples of creatives like you quitting their jobs and making real money from their creative talent. You know that building a business is possible, but why does it seem like it’s working for everyone besides you?
Building a long-term sustainable business will require you to continue to operate in your role as a creative but also step into a new role as a business owner. Listen in today as I talk about how you can build confidence as a business owner so that you can build a truly sustainable business. I’ll be exploring:
How our internal beliefs can keep us stuck and unable to learn new skills
Where real business success is actually built (hint – not the exciting, external stuff but the boring internal stuff)
How clarifying your owner’s intent can help you stop caring about what other people are doing and focus on your own business
FREE TRAINING: How to Build a Sustainable Business Doing What You Love
https://katiewussow.com/webinar
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
No B.S. Small Business Book by Casey Graham
Too often we just look at our business as a snapshot in time – we don’t look at the big picture. We don’t appreciate the trajectory. We don’t document our actual progress. One tool that will keep you encouraged and motivated and see your progress – tracking your KPIs (key performance indicators).
Listen in on today’s episode as I talk about measuring your KPIs. Let me help you measure the things that actually matter in your business as well as teach you:
What KPIs are and how they are different than goals
Things you can measure besides sales, likes, and follows
How to choose the right metrics for your unique business
LinksKATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
I’m talking to Courtney Fanning on today’s episode about what makes website copy effective, and how you can get good results from your copy even if you are DIYing it. Listen to know:
What do you need to be clear on before you write a single word of your website.
The minimum viable product version of the MVP – the core pages that you need to finally publish your website.
Practical ways you can understand the voice of your ideal customer
Four kinds of buyers that might be landing on your website, what each of them really needs to see before they hire you.
Take the quiz to find out what kind of buyer you are: https://www.bigpicturebranding.com/quiz
COURTNEY’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/bigpicturebranding
COURTNEY’S PINTEREST: https://www.pinterest.com/BigPictureBranding/
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Improving the quality and quantity of our sleep might be the most effective productivity strategy that no one is talking about.
A lot of entrepreneurs and creatives feel like they struggle with motivation, focus, energy, and discipline. If that's true of you, you might not need a productivity hack, fancy planner, or more caffeine.
You may need to improve your sleep.
Tanessa Shears joins me for this episode to talk about sleep and the impact that it has on our daily performance and productivity. We talk about why sleep matters so much and realistic strategies to start getting more of it.
TANESSA’S WEBSITE: https://www.tanessashears.com/
TANESSA’S INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/tanessashears
12 WAYS TO BIOHACK YOUR ENERGY: https://www.tanessashears.com/energy
BECOMING LIMITLESS PODCAST: https://www.tanessashears.com/podcast
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Video content is one of the most powerful ways to really connect with people online and introduce them not just to your brand, but to you. To help us with this, I’m joined on this episode by Lashonda Brown. Lashonda makes an income from YouTube and also consistently creates short-form videos on Instagram (including REELS). Lashonda spent 10 years as a commercial film producer but has since transitioned to being a full-time YouTuber and educator for entrepreneurs. This conversation will get you to think differently about video and make you feel like even being a YouTuber is attainable.LASHONDA’S YOUTUBE: www.lashondabrown.com/lashondambrown
LASHONDA’S INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/lashondambrown
LASHONDA’S WEBSITE: www.lashondabrown.com
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
First of all, I want to let you know, if you don’t already – you WILL have people that don’t pay. That WILL happen to you. Big or small. Consumer or business. Services or products. Every business owner deals with non-payment. It’s important to have a game plan for handling it in a way that is professional and fair but also compassionate and human.
This week’s episode has the goal of providing an approach that will help you be firm, but still flexible when dealing with clients who don’t pay. You’ll be learning how to create clarity and avoid drawn-out and ambiguous client situations as well as knowing a couple of pitfalls to avoid this situation.
BOBBY KLINCK Legal Templates (affiliate link)KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Most creative entrepreneurs that I work with accomplish more in a day than most people could ever dream of. But they still don’t feel like they’re doing enough. The reason? Wildly unrealistic expectations for themselves and what can get done in a day’s work.
Today I’m joined by my friend and former client, Cristina Slabic. Cristina is a productivity coach and is certified in Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus system of productivity. The idea of the full focus system of productivity is really to help us to focus. Not try to do everything, but do the most important things. Cristina is going to help us with practical strategies and tools to stay on track and make consistent progress on our most important goals.
CRISTINA’S WEBSITE: http://cristinaslabic.com
CRISTINA’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cristinaslabic
CRISTINA’S FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/cristina.slabic
BEGIN TODAY ON PURPOSE FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/begintodayonpurpose
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Technology has made owning a business easier and cheaper than it has EVER been. And on top of that, it’s always getting better and better.With so many tools, and so many different ways to use them, sometimes it’s really challenging to know what’s going to be right for you.
Over the past six weeks, I’ve made some big changes in the technology that I’m using to run my business. On this episode, pulling back the curtain on my own business and sharing what I’m using and how I’m using it.
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
PLATFORMS MENTIONED
- Denotes affiliate link
Upcoach (Coaching)
ThriveCart (Checkout & Course Hosting)
Dubsado (CRM) Get 20% off your first year with my affiliate link.*
Creator Studio (Social Media Scheduling)
Wave Apps (Bookkeeping)
Calendly (Scheduler)
Canva Pro (Graphic Design)
ConvertKit (Email Marketing)
Buzzsprout (Podcast Hosting)
Zoom (Video Conferencing)
ShowIt (Website)
Zapier (Automation)
Evernote (Notetaking)
Nozbe (Task Manager)*
Instead of making a real financial plan for your business, with real numbers, a lot of creative entrepreneurs prefer a more passive approach. Unfortunately, "trying your hardest and seeing what happens" isn't the best approach to managing your finances.
Dondrea Owens of The Creatives CFO, a CPA and the CFO for women entrepreneurs, joins us today to help us create a real financial plan for our businesses so that we can achieve true financial sustainability. Listen to know:
Why it’s important to focus on profitability from the very beginning of your business.
The three different budgets you should have for your business so that you can adapt to changing circumstances.
How to break down financial goals into actionable strategies and tactics.
DONDREA’S WEBSITE: https://www.thecreativescfo.com/
DONDREA’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thecreativescfo/
DONDREA'S FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/thecreativescfo
FREE BOOKKEEPING CHECKLIST: https://www.thecreativescfo.com/bookkeeping-checklist
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
FREE BUSINESS CHECKING ACCOUNTS:
Bluevine, https://www.bluevine.com/
Novo, https://www.banknovo.com
FREE BOOKKEEPING SOFTWARE:
Wave Apps, https://www.waveapps.com
APPLY FOR AN EIN ONLINE: https://www.irs.gov
We spend a lot of time learning the hard skills of entrepreneurship. And that makes sense, right? We need to learn the strategies, tactics, and technical skills to build a business doing what we love.
But even though most of our energy goes to the hard skills, the soft skills of entrepreneurship are just as important. Successful pitches, networking connections, and sales conversations often come down to what we say and how we say it.
Tune in to this episode to hear about the four magical phrases that will help you to come across as confident and clear when you’re proactively marketing your business.
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Sales calls aren’t about showing your client how great you are. It’s about showing interest, learning about their needs, goals, and challenges. Sales calls convey in a really simple way: “I get you, I get your problems, and I can help.”
It’s important to ask the right kinds of questions that can help you understand your client. For today’s episode, we are talking about the specific questions you need to be asking on your sales calls. Learn about the five types of questions to construct a sales call script, words to take out of your prospective client’s mouth and put directly into the proposal, and the questions that you need to ask to stop getting ghosted.
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Building a business isn’t just about what you’re doing, it’s about how you are showing up. I know most creative entrepreneurs are looking for ways to be more organized, focused, and in control of their businesses in 2022. For some, that means working on new habits.
Starting new habits is easy, but often we make the mistake of sprinting hard out of the gate in January only to crash and burn by the end of Q1. In this episode, I’m talking about six ways that you can make your habits really stick. Tune in to hear about how choosing to cultivate new habits in the right season, building new habits onto old ones, and simple strategies to make new habits easier.
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
BOOK: The Power of Habit, Duhigg
BOOK: Atomic Habits, James Clear
BOOK: Effortless, Greg McKeown
It’s hard enough to find the time to get basic things done in business. When it comes to our biggest dreams and ideas? Sometimes we are so overwhelmed that we don’t know where to start.
My former client and career coach Jenn Smith is joining me on this episode to talk about how she took one of her biggest game-changing ideas and made it a reality. She launched her very first group program in 2021. Tune in to hear how she:
Overcame analysis paralysis and started taking meaningful action
Designed a very robust but SIMPLE group program with only three elements
How she learned to more actively promote her business without losing authenticity
How launching her first group offer led her to create a second one
JENN’S WEBSITE: https://flourish.careers/
JENN’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/flourish.careers/
KATIE’S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/katiewussow/
KATIE’S WEBSITE: https://katiewussow.com/
GET THE FREE 90-DAY PLAN TEMPLATE: https://katiewussow.com/plan
Being the most talented person in your field doesn’t guarantee the best client experience. If you are difficult to work with, don’t meet your deadlines, have a bad attitude, are disorganized, or don’t communicate well, clients aren’t going to have a good experience with your business. Your client experience matters just as much, if not more than the product you are producing.
This week, I’m joined by Maggie Patterson, founder of two successful service-based businesses. She is the editorial director at Scoop Studios, a content marketing agency for tech companies. She also is the founder of Small Business Boss where she acts as a consultant for other service-based business owners.
Maggie knows firsthand the impact of having a truly excellent experience around your expertise. So she’ll be sharing her wisdom from being in client services from her 20-year career, with 15 years of being a successful entrepreneur. She’ll also be telling us:
- How to balance marketing and growth with serving the clients you already have.
- Simple, everyday interactions that can create a wow-worthy client experience.
- Three ways that the client experience supports your marketing: retention, repeat customers, and referrals.
- How to build a “surprise and delight” margin into your pricing so that you have the bandwidth to go above and beyond.
LinksFollow Maggie Patterson on Instagram.
Check out Small Business Boss.
BS Free Service Business Podcast
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
For the last few months, my personal motivation in business has been a bit lacking. I started asking myself the question I’ve asked myself 1000 times over the last 5 years – “is this what I really am supposed to be doing?” After attending a virtual conference, it hit me like a ton of bricks. There is nothing more motivating than clarity. Knowing exactly what you need to be doing, why it matters, and what milestones you need to hit.
As a follow-up to last week’s episode all about my year in review, today will be a deep dive into my priorities and some of my goals for the coming year. I’ll be reintroducing the goal-setting framework that I use for my Thrive Business Bootcamp coaching program to set up my top 3 priorities for 2022, which help define my goals and outcomes.
- Priority 1: Put more money in my own pocket from my business
- Priority 2: Build programs with a high level of accountability and support
- Priority 3: Create a more robust content strategy
LinksFollow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
In this week’s episode, I’ll be sharing my wins, challenges, surprises, and lessons learned from 2021. These are things that came directly out of my Thrive in Five goal-setting process. You’ll hear about:
- How to grow your business without getting new customers
- How finances were my biggest win as well as my biggest challenge
- The most valuable thing I bring to my clients (hint: it’s not information)
LinksFollow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
Last week’s episode was all about misunderstandings about money and finances that lead us to over-invest in our businesses. Continuing the conversation today, we’ll be diving into what we need in order to make good decisions about the money. I’ll be sharing a reliable and repeatable process to help you make solid decisions about investing.
First, we'll talk about how to come up with an investment budget for the year. Then I'll share a five step process to evaluate whether a particular investment is right for you.
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
Have you ever felt like you're spending SO much money "investing" in your business, but you don't have much to show for it? As we continue our goal-setting series, we are talking about the topic of investing in growth. Specifically, why are so many creative entrepreneurs over-investing in our businesses and not seeing any return?
On this episode we are diving into 5 misunderstandings that are leading you (and me) to spend too much money on our businesses:
- Misunderstanding 1: We don't know the difference between an investment and an expense.
- Misunderstanding 2: We spend money like a startup when really we are building a lifestyle business.
- Misunderstanding 3: We don't know where we are in the process of building a business.
- Misunderstanding 4: We don't realize the role that our businesses are meant to play in our overall financial plan for our lives.
- Misunderstanding 5: We overestimate the impact that a single investment can have on our growth.
LinksLearn more about the goal-setting workshop
Follow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
If you are a creative entrepreneur running a business with a full life outside of work, goal-setting can’t just be a tactic you use to help you get more done. Goal setting should be a filter to help you get better results without adding more to your plate.
In today’s episode, Fanette Rickert, food photographer and business educator, returns to talk about how the challenges she experienced this year. The hard times she experienced revealed that she didn’t set goals the right way the first time around. Fanette hit the reset button with only 4 months left in the year, adjusted her priorities and goals, and now is more clear than ever on where she needs to be focusing in order to earn more and work less.
Through understanding the basic goal-setting framework that we use in the program Thrive in Five, you’ll be able to get clear and focus on the right goals to get what you really want out of your life and business:
- Priorities -- themes, what is most important right now.
- Goals - specific metrics that will measure success for your priority
- Tasks and Projects - the things you do to achieve your goals
LinksSign up for the Thrive in Five Goal Setting WorkshopFollow Fanette on Instagram
Check out Fanette’s blog
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
Follow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
This is the second in a four-part series about goal-setting to get you ready to set strategic goals for 2022. Today, I’m going to share what your priorities should be in different phases of business and talk about how things might shift for you as you grow and evolve. I’m going to provide a lot of suggestions for what kinds of priorities are common and useful to pursue in these phases:
- Start
- Streamline
- Grow
- Expand
Links
Learn more about the goal-setting workshop
Follow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
Harvard Business Review Article Three Popular Goal-Setting Techniques Managers Should Avoid
Back in late 2020, I did a five-part series on goal-setting, with the very first episode in that series talking about mindset shifts you need to make when you’re setting goals for next year. Because it’s almost the end of the year. This means it’s time to start thinking about what your business is going to look like next year.
In this week’s throwback episode, we’re going to challenge the flawed approaches you have with goal-setting and come at it with a new approach, which is strategic goal-setting. This comprises outcomes and the related action steps you’re going to take in order to achieve them.
The mindset shifts that you need to take note of before setting your 2022 goals are:
- Shift 1: I don’t know what’s realistic.
- Shift 2: I don’t want to fail.
- Shift 3: I don’t have time.
- Shift 4: I know my plans will change.
- Shift 5: I don’t have any control over the outcomes.
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
Every business starts as an idea. It’s a little thought that you can’t shake. You think about it when you’re in the car, walking to pick up your kids from school, or laying down to sleep at night.
A lot of people think about starting businesses. Some of them even start taking baby steps in that direction. But it’s a minority of people that actually start the businesses they dream about. But then what’s the difference between the person that just dreams of starting a business and the person who actually starts one?
That difference is action. In order to start the business of your dreams, you have to turn that dream into action steps. And in this week’s episode, Nikita Montgomery is joining me for today’s conversation about how to translate your big vision into something smaller and more tangible that you can start now.
Niki has started several businesses here in the DC area, but her latest venture is that she is the co-founder of Hazel O Salon, a luxury hair salon in Old Town Alexandria. In today’s show, she’s going into how to start a business small but set yourself up for growth. Specifically, talking about:
- How to overcome the fear of embarrassment when you’re just getting started.
- What to focus on when you’re starting from scratch.
- Simple and free strategies to research your competitors and ideal client.
- How to translate your big vision into a Minimum Viable Product.
Links
Download the Service Business Startup Checklist
Download the Year-End Review & Reflection Guide
Follow Katie on Instagram
Visit Katie’s website
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
What would you do if you weren’t afraid? For me, the answer to that question was to start this podcast. I had been wanting to start a podcast for over a year, but I hadn’t made any progress. If I’m being honest, what was really holding me back was fear. Fear of looking silly. Fear that no one would listen. Fear of not being able to figure it out and make it work.
My guess is that you have something in your life and your business that you’ve always dreamed of doing but you’re afraid that it won’t work. Afraid of failing. Afraid of looking silly to people you respect.
Overcoming fear is just one of the things we are talking about today on this podcast. To celebrate my 100th episode, my client and fellow podcast host Merritt Onsa is interviewing me today and asking all of your burning questions about life and business.
We gathered a lot of these questions in advance from you guys on social media and via email, so much fun to be on the other side of the microphone for a change.
- How and why I started my business
- The scrappy and no-frills strategy I used to get my first clients in the door
- How I decided to focus on working with creatives
- Advice I would give to my younger self
From the bottom of my heart, thanks for listening. Thanks for being here.
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram
Follow Merritt on Instagram
Check out Merritt’s podcast, Devoted Dreamers
Get the 90-day planning template
Episode 20 with Lauren Ramirez
Episode 93 with Jena Viviano Dunay (Katie’s favorite episode)
Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what we’re good at. If I asked you -- “what are you great at?” you might struggle to come up with an answer. Or if you could, you would probably rattle off a list of your weaknesses without batting an eye.
The biggest asset that you can use to grow your business is probably something that’s so easy, so effortless, and second nature for you that you aren’t even aware that you’re doing it. If we are blind to our strengths, we are blind to the most powerful tool that we have to grow our business.
To help us understand our strengths and find an appreciation and gratitude for them is Anna Nelson. Anna is a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, particularly in the strength's finder assessment, which helps you understand your strengths and how to leverage them for your career.
In this episode, she’s going to break down for us:
- What is a strength? How is it different from a skill or our personality?
- How can we begin to recognize our natural strengths?
- What’s the key paradigm shift we need to make to go from hiding our strengths and FULLY owning them?
Links
Learn more about Anna Nelson at her website and follow her on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram: @annaynelson
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
I’ve heard it 1000 times, “My market is so saturated”. What that means, however, is that there are a lot of other people who do what you do. Think of it like a sponge: when it’s full, it can’t take on any more water. When a market is fully saturated, it means that all of the customers are being served. In order to get customers, you have to take them away from the competition or increase the demand for your product.
So why should your ideal client work with you instead of someone else? It’s not just having better skills than the competition. You have to understand what the competitive landscape in your market looks like and figure out how you’re going to stand out in the eyes of your ideal client. Standing out requires articulating your differentiators – the things that make you different from the competition. Defining what makes you different is one of the hardest things to figure out. To help you lean into it, I’ll be sharing 10 ways you can stand out from the competition:
- Branding
- Customer service
- Experience/expertise
- Systems
- Aesthetic/Style
- Values
- Personality
- Approach
- Pricing
- Business model
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Sales don’t have to make you uncomfortable. In fact, even if you are a total introvert, you can craft a sales process that feels authentic to you and plays to your strengths. But how can you sell your services in a way that feels comfortable and authentic to who you are instead of like you’re imitating a sleazy, pushy salesperson?
Leah Neaderthal is a sales coach for women and the founder of Smart Gets Paid, and the host of The Smart Gets Paid podcast. A three-time business owner who started her career in corporate marketing, Leah didn’t learn to sell by being a commissioned salesperson. She taught herself everything she could about selling, overcame “selling shyness,” and created a sales approach that feels comfortable, builds strong client relationships, and gets results.
In this episode, Leah teaches us how to:
- How to educate your potential customers about the value you provide before they ever reach out to you.
- Why introverts have an advantage in consultative selling (aka selling that involves talking on the phone with your customers before they buy).
- Practical ways that you can make it easy for your clients to say yes.
- How to minimize ghosting (and respond correctly when it happens).
LinksConnect with Leah on LinkedIn or Facebook. To see more of her work, check out her website and podcast, The Smart Gets Paid.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Are you busy updating your website for the nth time, taking up a lot of time creating a reel, or posting a testimonial on social media? Or are you spending your time reaching out to a prospect, or sending a DM to a new follower, or asking a former client to introduce you to new prospects? These might all seem like things that we do in our business that keep us busy, but do they help us make a sale? As business owners, we need to determine if what we’re doing is just busy work or revenue-generating activities.
Busy work is easy because it makes you feel like you’re doing something without actually risking anything. There’s no possibility of rejection. But if you continue to hide behind it, you will most likely continue to struggle to make the money you want to make.
For this week’s episode, I’m going to walk you through how to figure out what your revenue-generating activities are so you can learn where to focus your limited time and resources to give you the best bang for your buck. Because all businesses are unique, I will be providing broad principles to help you figure out what’s going to work for you.
- Understand how marketing works
- The different phases of marketing
- The marketing phase “asks”
- Ideas for revenue-generating activities
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Knoxy Knox has had an incredible 14-year career as a food and beverage as well as lifestyle photographer whose work is primarily featured in advertising. She’s been in Super Bowl commercials, billboards, magazines, and worked with household names like Vital Farms, Chameleon Cold Brew, Whole Foods, Shake Shack, and Tito’s Vodka. Knoxy has the type of business that so many of us creative entrepreneurs dream about.
This week, Knoxy is coming on the show today to talk about how she creates boundaries with her clients. As her business and expertise as a photographer grow, setting and managing client expectations is even more important. We’re discussing:
- How she went from Jane-of-all-trades to being an expert in her field.
- What you’re giving up when you refuse to niche down.
- How to listen to your gut and walk away from clients that you know will be a nightmare.
- Practical ways to set boundaries and manage expectations with clients from the very beginning.
Links
See Knoxy Knox’s work on Instagram and her website. Check out her course, Set for Success.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
In the entrepreneurship space, we don’t often talk about what we’re struggling with. This results in everyone thinking that everyone else is crushing it. But every business owner experiences feeling frustrated and discouraged with their business. You might be thinking that you’re not cut out for it. You could have jumped into your business early because you thought it was easy but you didn’t have the necessary skills to build on it successfully.
We need to take a step back from these thoughts and recognize that building a business is really, really hard, even when you’re successful. Whenever we experience this frustration, we need to learn how not to internalize it and instead respond in a way that helps us emotionally and practically.
Uplifting yourself when you’re feeling discouraged is not as simple as reciting the right affirmations or changing your mindset. In today’s episode, I’ll be breaking down the ways on how to respond when you’re discouraged, as well as share my own stories of discouragement because you’re not alone. To deal with these feelings of discouragement, you should:
- Be honest about how you feel
- Be specific about what isn’t going well
- Acknowledge your progress
- Focus on people
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Do you know how you want your business to come to an end? If you've never thought about your exit strategy, then you need to listen in to this conversation with former career coach and entrepreneur Jena Viviano Dunay.
Jena is an ex-Wall Streeter who built a successful career coaching business around her signature program and framework called Recruit the Employer. She had a growing audience, consistent revenue, coaches working under her, and most importantly, she was getting consistent results for her clients. She had made it. But on this episode she's telling us why she decided to walk away from entrepreneurship and go back to traditional employment.
Tune in to hear about.
- How her business was giving her financial success but not emotional peace or a healthy lifestyle.
- The physical and emotional signs of burnout, and how to respond when you are experiencing them.
- How to wait and trust instead of strive and strain when you're feeling stuck.
- The biggest thing she would have done differently from the very beginning if she knew her business would end this way.
LinksFollow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
We are ending the Fall Focus with a very special guest, my husband Travis! Travis is a lawyer and policy professional in D.C. and he's joining us for this episode to talk about our experience adopting the weekly review as a family.
We’ll be giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how embracing this discipline has impacted us as a couple – our marriage, family life, and individual professional lives.
Tune in to hear about:
- How the weekly review can help you stay organized and calm even when the crap hits the fan in your life.
- Three weekly journaling questions to focus on what’s most important.
- How a weekly planning time gives you confidence to pursue big goals
- What embracing the weekly review as a couple has made possible for our marriage, family, and professional lives.
LinksTake the 90-day planning workshop!
Day One, journaling app
Evernote, note-taking app
YNAB, budgeting app
Getting Things Done by David Allen
The Importance of the Weekly Review by Michael Hyatt
How to Be More Consistent in Your Journaling by Michael Hyatt
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Getting swept into the current of a busy Fall season is easy. So how can you go into the rest of the year and be intentional with what you’re doing in your business? This week’s episode is the second in a 3-part series called Fall Focus, and we’ll be going into how you can stay on track with your plan, week to week.
An important thing to remember is: planning isn’t something you do once, it is an ongoing, dynamic process. Like how you care for the plants in your garden, the plans that you make for your business are the same – they both need tending to. Staying on track with our plans and goals requires structure, and this is where the practice of doing a weekly review comes in.
A weekly review is a time you set aside so you can review what’s on your plate and plan for the week ahead of you. Specifically, going through the 3-step workflow will help you stay organized and on track with everything that’s going on in your life and business. Before anything else, you should be able to answer the question of when you’re doing your weekly review. After you’ve sorted it out, it’s time to:
- Get clear – process your incoming tasks and projects
- Get current – review and update the tasks and projects that are on your plate
- Get focused – make your to-do list for the week
Links
Getting Things Done, David Allen
Download your free copy of the 90-day planning template here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
No matter what industry, family status, or even if your business does a lot of year-end stuff – everyone in the universe is busy during the Fall. Coming back from vacation during the summer, we immediately start to get busy in our lives and businesses. However, we’re not necessarily getting busy with the right things, so we’re left at the end of the year confused and exhausted.
A lot of us operate from a list instead of a plan. This leads us to be overworked and discouraged. Having a plan helps us decide what will go on our list. It’s hard to do, it takes practice, but you have to learn how to do it. Having a plan helps you focus on the main things, have tangible outcomes, and lets us recognize and celebrate our progress.
Today’s episode is the first in a three-part series called Fall Focus where I aim to help you go into the last part of 2021 with focus so you can get amazing business results without burning yourself out. We’re starting by talking about what it looks like to have a plan instead of just a bunch of lists. Using my 90-day template as a guideline, I’m breaking down the specifics of creating a plan, which are:
- Setting the time frame
- Figuring out your top priority
- Focusing on your goal
- Having your sales goal align with your business and priority, and
- Listing which projects and tasks to commit to in order to achieve your goal
Links
Episode 52 - Mindset Shifts You Need to Make Before You Can Set Goals for Your Business
Episode 69 - 3 Ways to Set a Sales Goal for Your Business
The One Thing, Gary Keller
Download your free copy of the 90-day planning template here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
A really big part of our businesses is talking to other people and articulating how you can help them. Talking to clients, taking sales calls, showing up on social media, developing content, attending a networking event, and meeting new people – improving our ability to speak has the potential to make a massive impact. And to help us entrepreneurs with the practical side of improving the skill of speaking is Heather Sager.
Heather helps online entrepreneurs become the go-to authority in their industry by confidently nailing their message on live and virtual stages. In this week’s episode, she’s going to give us insight into how we can strategically leverage speaking opportunities to grow our businesses.
In this interview, she is breaking down:
- Overcoming your fear of being visible as the face of your own business.
- A 5-minute daily habit that can help you intentionally practice and improve your speaking skills.
- A simple hack for practicing Instagram stories without anyone seeing them.
- How to get strategic about pitching signature talks and podcast interviews so that visibility leads to profitability.
We are surrounded by stages in our businesses. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a speaker, if you talk to other people about your business, it’s important to lean into this conversation.
Links
Find Heather Sager and her work online on her website, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Facebook Community.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This week’s episode is the second in a 2-part series all about time blocking. Last week, I covered the basics of how to use time blocking as a creative entrepreneurs. Today we are going to touch on (and resolve) the obstacles that are preventing you from using time blocking. We are going to cover all of the "what ifs" that are holding you back from taking control of your time.
For instance, you might want to use time blocking, but...
- you don't have consistent childcare
- your schedule changes from week to week.
- your business is just a side-hustle.
- things are always coming up!
In this episode, we de-bunk these common obstacles to time-blocking and break down practical solutions to address them.
LinksMy scheduling tool, Calendly.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
A lot of us get into entrepreneurship because we want freedom and flexibility. We want to live lives of balance, freedom, and flexibility.
When we’re talking about work-life balance, we mistakenly believe that if things aren’t going well, it’s us at fault. But I will make the argument that the problem isn’t our ability, but a structural problem. Most creative entrepreneurs are trying to juggle their work and personal lives without making any intentional choices about how their time is going to be spent.
Solving this problem means having a structure for how you spend your time so that you can show up for all the different responsibilities you have in your life. For this week’s episode, I’ll be talking about a time-blocked schedule. Time blocking is a tool that helps you decide in advance how you are going to spend your time so that you can balance the different priorities you have in your life and business. We’ll be going through the basics of time blocking, specifically, 4 things you need to have in place to have a basic time-blocked schedule, which are:
- Office hours
- Client work vs. admin/internal work
- Meetings vs. No meetings
- Monthly and quarterly planning days, content batching
Links
Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Event planner and former TBB client Rebecca Waldrop joins us for this week’s episode, ending The Power of a Plan series. This summer series features current and former clients who share their stories of developing a real plan for their businesses and how this has impacted their growth in both their businesses and also their lives.
Becca is an event planner who started her business back in 2019. She had a lot of confidence in her skill set but she was struggling to put together a real plan for her business to be successful. After her time in Thrive Business Bootcamp, Becca was able to discover that she was missing two major components to help make her business thrive – a clearly defined ideal client and a signature service.
Today, Becca breaks down how she made the transition from being an event planning generalist to being very specialized in her industry. She talks about:
- Choosing a niche
- Why having a signature service is more helpful for clients
- How to plan for maternity leave as a business owner
- How to streamline your offers
Links
Learn more about Rebecca Waldrop on her website, or follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Jessie Barnes has been involved in the body confidence movement and built her personal following online around body-positive content until she decided to turn it into a business in order to make more of an impact in the space. However, she was stuck – no website, no knowledge on how to run a business, no credentials.
For the fourth episode in The Power of a Plan series, Jessie shares her journey in building her business. This summer series showcases my current and former clients and their experience operating from a real plan and how it has impacted their businesses and their lives.
Jessie walks us through what she went through building her body image coaching business that she started in February 2020, just right before the pandemic. She talks about:
- How she overcame an “all or nothing” mentality and decided to finally start the business with the resources and time she already had;
- A simple framework that she uses to articulate the value of body image coaching;
- The pros and cons of starting your business with a preexisting audience; and,
- The key to staying on track and focused with limited time to dedicate to your business.
Links
Discover Jessie’s body-positive content on Instagram or visit her (new) website to learn more about her work.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Wedding planner, stylist, and studio owner Elizabeth Carberry joins us this week for The Power of a Plan. This summer series showcases my current and former clients and their experience operating from a real plan and how it has impacted their businesses and their lives.
Elizabeth is a very busy woman. She owns multiple businesses, takes care of two small kids, and is pregnant with a third. In this episode, we’re diving into her story about learning to slow down and focus her energy as a business owner on the most important things. She talks about the value and benefit of slowing down and refocusing, and how this has helped her navigate her businesses and her family through the pandemic.
She goes into:
- How to make time blocking work for you when your schedule looks different from week to week
- The benefit of slowing down and staying focused even when business is booming.
- Learning to deal with the fear of failure and give yourself grace in goal setting.
- The importance of consistency in building your business and not trying to tackle too much at once
Links
Learn more about Elizabeth Carberry and her work by visiting her website or following her on Instagram.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
For the second episode in our summer series, The Power of a Plan, I’m interviewing Jordan Wilde, a current Thrive Business Bootcamp Client, who is a professional organizer. Her company, Wildely Organized, was started this year, in 2021, after just getting her first client on a whim.
Today, Jordan shares her journey from deciding to take the leap into entrepreneurship while having little kids at home. While feeling confident in her skills as an organizer, Jordan needed some help on the business side which she has been able to accomplish this year. She gets into detail about this, as well as:
- Two things that helped her get consistent about social media
- Overcoming the fear of rejection in networking
- Learning how to make time to work on your business even when you’re busy with client work.
The Power of a Plan series aims to share how creative entrepreneurs just like you are learning to operate from a plan in their business. I hope that this episode challenges you to think about how you can adopt some of the simple strategies and approaches in your business.
Links
Check out Wildely Organized on their website or follow their Instagram to learn more.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This is the first episode in a new series called Power of a Plan. I’ve invited my current and former clients to share their journey – from winging it in their business to operating from a real plan. We’ll talk about simple concepts and strategies that they’ve embraced to transform their businesses and lives.
My first guest in this series is Juli Smith, founder of The Garter Girl. She started her business in 2008, but fast forward to 2020 when Juli wasn’t enjoying her business anymore. She felt like a ping pong ball every day – bouncing between work and personal tasks, barely spending any time doing what she loved.
The way that she’s been able to drastically change her daily experience in her business is by embracing two simple, but not easy, strategies: time blocking and having clear priorities and goals. By doing this, she was able to:
- Operate from real work hours for the first time in 13 years of business
- Ditch her workaholic tendencies and start committing to just 3 tasks on the to-do list every day
- Learn to match the right projects to the right season of life so she can stop beating herself up for the things that aren’t getting done
LinksCheck out The Garter Girl’s website or follow their Instagram.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
As a creative entrepreneur, you’re full of ideas – new products, services, and offers that can help grow revenue, impact, and serve more people. A big proponent of building your business is having a signature service, but it’s also a great idea to have complementary offers. However, we’re faced with the difficulty of making these ideas happen because we can’t find the time and we’re not sure if anyone will be interested.
There are two things that hold us back from actually working on our ideas and creating offers. One is that we tend to over-complicate it, and another is our mindset that the first time has to be perfect. So we end up never launching our new ideas.
For this week’s episode, I’ll be walking you through the 4 steps of beta testing a new offer in your business. Whenever we create new things in business, we need to go through a beta testing process. This is where you create an offer to test on your clients, asking for their feedback and refining the offer so you can decide whether or not you’ll be keeping it as part of your business. Doing this makes it easier for you to launch new things and empowers you so you can make more money and serve more people.
Whether you’re brand new in business, still figuring out what your signature offer should be, or have an established signature service and want to test new offers, these 4 steps will help you beta test new offers in your business:
- Market research
- Outline the basics of the offering
- Minimum viable marketing plan
- Debrief
LinksGet 30% off your first 3 months of Bench Accounting.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Comparison is a huge problem in the entrepreneurship space, and can be a real confidence-killer for women. The problem is that everyone is struggling with it and no one seems to be able to help us really overcome the problem.
Here's the truth: there's nothing wrong with comparison. Comparison is neutral. The root issue is the emotional baggage that comes up for us when we compare ourselves to others. So for today’s episode, I want to have a more specific conversation around three negative emotions that come up for us when we compare ourselves to others. More importantly, I'm sharing practical strategies to fight these emotions when they come up.
Links
Get 30% off your first 3 months of Bench Accounting.
The Confidence Code, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
One of the ironic things about starting your own business with the intention of working less and experiencing more flexibility to enjoy life is that we find ourselves doing the exact opposite. We as business owners tend to work too much, overextend ourselves with too many clients and too many services. In the end, our businesses don’t serve our lives in the way that we originally planned.
The biggest reason for this is because we believe in the lie that if we want to get better results, we have to do more. That’s not the case. One of the best ways that we can start to simplify and streamline our businesses so that we can achieve that freedom and flexibility in our lives are to simplify what we offer with fewer products and services.
And that’s what today’s podcast guest, Ashley Gartland, is talking about in the episode. Ashley is a small business mentor and coach who helps business owners simplify and streamline their businesses so they can scale sustainably and run a business that deeply serves their life. She’ll be walking us through:
- How to know when you are ready to streamline your offers
- Designing services not just for the financial return but for the life that you want to live
- How streamlining can actually help you get more and better clients if your bookings are slow
Links
Learn more about Ashley Gartland and her work in her website or follow her on Instagram.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Business owners are starting to get some momentum and traction again. They are starting to think about the future – relaunching their businesses after COVID and coming back to social media after taking time away. And right now, we’re going into the summertime which brings a lot of disruptions and distractions. While most of them are good, there are still some business owners, particularly those with kids, who spend a lot of time feeling defeated about what they perceive as constant interruptions to their progress.
Taking time off isn’t going to break your business. There’s no problem with you or your business, you just haven’t approached the season with intention. However, when you do it with misguided expectations and without intention, you:
- Go into a season that’s going to look different without acknowledging that it’s going to need to look different
- Expect the same level of productivity from ourselves and from our businesses even though the season is different
- Feel defeated and like, “I just can’t get momentum”
- Expectations of what you can produce don’t match what your life actually looks like day today
We need to make a mental shift and acknowledge ahead of time that we are entering a different season. This will help up make the necessary internal adjustments in our business so that we can feel like we’re making progress without spending the whole summer working.
And in this week’s podcast episode, I’ll be discussing the different areas that you will need to adjust in order to fit the summer season. Here are the 4 areas in your business that you need to adjust:
- Mindset
- Schedule
- Workload
- Marketing
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Authentic engagement on Instagram is a form of networking, and actually a pretty powerful one. A lot of us think about social media, specifically Instagram, primarily in the category of content. It’s a place where you publish content so that your ideal client is attracted to your business.
If your only social media growth strategy is creating good content consistently, you are going to struggle. Because creating high-quality content is only a piece of the puzzle - the other VITAL piece of the puzzle is engagement.
This week’s episode is the last in the 3-part series about building relationships through networking, and I’m spending it interviewing Shannon McKinstrie, an Instagram marketing expert who has been in social media marketing for 8 years and a background in PR and communications before that. She helps us understand:
- what social media engagement is
- how you can do it
- the impact engagement has on the growth of your social media account and businesses
Furthermore, you’ll be learning about:
- Marketing based on connection
- Social media agency
- How to spend less time on the platform to grow your Instagram audience
- The best way to start a DM conversation without being awkward
- Shannon’s 30-minute engagement routine for client growth
Links
Learn more about how to create authentic engagement on social media by checking out The Social Squad Society or connect with Shannon on Instagram.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Sometimes we think something can’t be natural and intentional at the same time, but it can. As entrepreneurs, we know that networking is foundational for our business’s growth however we feel awkward about it because we think that networking = pitching. If this is the way that you approach networking, you won’t be able to do it well, even if you work up the courage – it won’t work.
Remember that the goal of networking is to build relationships, and that takes time. It’s also not automatic. When you network using organic and authentic methods – networking with intention – you can build deep and meaningful relationships with your clients, peers, and others within your industry. And you will be able to see growth in your business as a result of those relationships.
In this week’s episode, part 2 of my series about networking and growing your business through building authentic relationships, I will be teaching you how to actually network. Today, I’ll be talking about the right ways in which to build relationships that is natural, organic, and intentional. Whether you’re at an event, engaging on social media, or just in your everyday life, these principles will hold up in any networking scenario:
- Knowing your goal
- Building rapport
- Making an ask
- Following up
- Playing the long game
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Getting enough of the right clients is something that is constantly on your mind as an entrepreneur. If you’re not able to get enough clients for your business, you won’t be able to sustain it for very long. It’s no question that you’re involved in many different ways to market your business, but there’s probably one thing that is the most important and most effective that you’re missing.
The most important thing you can do to market your business is networking. Marketing is not curating the perfect feed, having the most beautiful branding, or getting discovered by the right influencer. It’s not a magic trick. At the end of the day, marketing is about building relationships of trust with your audience, your customers, and your industry. Everything that you do in your marketing should be about attracting new people to your business, nurturing a relationship, and continuing that relationship as they become your customers.
In this week’s podcast episode, I will be discussing how networking – intentionally building relationships with people who can grow your business – can get the right customers coming into your business. Specifically, I’ll be focusing on who you should be networking with, who are:
- Your friends and family
- Ideal clients
- Peers in the industry
- Leaders in the industry
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
The right mindset will seriously impact your ability to take the right action to be able to build your business with the results you want. Many people make the mindset mistake of thinking that they “are not really a business person”. Engaging in this line of thinking will push you into a little bit of self-sabotage.
To combat this, for this week’s podcast episode, I’ll be helping you fully embrace the fact that you are a business owner. I’ll be sharing 3 areas you need to take seriously – for yourself and your business. Embrace the fact that you are a business owner and start making changes in these areas to get the results you want:
- Making smart investments
- Consistently working on your business
- Giving your full effort
Links
Take your business seriously and get all of your legal templates from Bobby Klinck.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Many creative entrepreneurs struggle with having a well-defined process for turning service inquiries into paying clients and projects. Most of the time the way it goes is that someone reaches out to you, you send over your pricing, some back, and forth emails, and then sending your Paypal link. This is a loose-y goosey process where most end up with a lot of inquiries, but not many sales.
It’s important to have a well-defined sales process for two reasons: you’re able to vet out the wrong clients and close the right ones. Having some steps in your sales process will allow you to filter out the people you don’t want to work with and convert your target customers. But how do you make them want to work with you? The answer is a well-crafted proposal.
In this week’s episode, I will be talking about how a proposal for your prospective clients and the 7 things you should include to help them make a decision to move on to signing the contract and payment. The 7 things you should include in your proposals are:
- Objective or goal
- Benefits
- Scope of Work
- Deliverables
- Client Expectations
- Scheduling
- Price
LinksUse this link for 30% off your first 3 months of bookkeeping with Bench Accounting.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
A lot of people struggle with social media, email marketing, and getting the attention of their ideal client because they are missing an important piece in their business – and that is having a clear brand message.
In this week’s episode of the podcast, I’m joined by Amy Schutte who is the owner and founder of Hudson & Co., a marketing and branding agency that serves impact-driven businesses and thought-leaders across the globe. We’re going to be talking about how to get started with defining a clear story or message for your brand. We also discuss:
- Why entrepreneurs struggle with marketing
- Using StoryBrand as a framework to help clients with their marketing
- What a brand message is and why it is important
- How to get started with defining your business’s brand message
Amy is a former journalist turned marketing professional, whose expertise lies in helping her clients get seen, get heard, and get results by using the age-old power of story, clear design, and human psychology. As a StoryBrand Certified Guide, she uses one of the most well-respected marketing frameworks in the industry.
Links
Visit Hudson & Co. On their website and Instagram for more marketing and branding. See more of Amy on her personal page.
Learn more about StoryBrand here.
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So many people are so hard on themselves when it comes to productivity. We all need to get more done. We’ve all got long to-do lists, many things that we want to accomplish. We act like the challenges that we have to productivity are the result of a character flaw. But most of the time, your productivity challenges are not because of your personality or anything about you.
You might be struggling with productivity because you haven’t given yourself enough structures, systems, or routines in order to help you be productive. Productivity doesn’t emanate from your personality. It comes from the structures and practices that you’ve put in place.
For this week’s episode, I’ll be discussing six productivity mistakes that you’re making, how you can fix these with a structure, system, or routine. Because staying productive is an ongoing process and it’s my goal to help you do better.
Here are the 6 productivity mistakes that you’re probably making:
- Not having project management software (System)
- Bypassing your project management systems
- Not getting to email inbox zero
- Overcommitting - doing too much
- Starting with the small stuff
- Taking too long to do things
Links
Getting Things Done, David Allen
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I was texting a friend of mine who is a mom. She has three kids who are home-schooled. She had asked about what I said one time on Instagram about questions to ask yourself when you feel overwhelmed. Another instance is with a coaching client. She is an established business owner but she is struggling with the crushing demand of her daily to-do list. So what makes these two conversations significant? Because both of these ladies – an established business owner and a home-school mom – feel overwhelmed.
But what does it mean when we feel overwhelmed? First off, it’s not because we are disorganized, lazy, or have some kind of character flaw, nor that we need more time or more help. It has to do with our priorities. And by priorities, I mean that you have a very clear understanding of what’s most important, right now, in your life and business.
And for this week’s episode of the podcast, I will be talking about the 3 reasons you’re feeling overwhelmed and how they are all related to the concept of having priorities. Because when you have clear priorities, and the right priorities, you can still occasionally feel overwhelmed but you will have the tools to combat it. So, let’s dive into why you might be overwhelmed:
- You might be overwhelmed because...you don’t have priorities.
- You might be overwhelmed because...you’re focusing on the wrong priorities.
- You might be overwhelmed because...you have too many competing priorities.
Links
The One Thing, Gary Keller
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When it comes to setting any kinds of goals, most creative entrepreneurs take one of two approaches:
- Dreamers – setting aspirational sales goals that are disconnected from the present reality of their business
- Doers – avoid setting sales goals because they don’t have a category for setting a goal outside of their control
As business owners, we have to accept the reality that our business has to perform financially to be a success. We didn’t get into business for the money but we have to make money to sustain it for the long term. If your business is under-performing financially, ignorance of that is not the solution. Your finances are one of the main indicators of the health of your business.
We need to get specific about defining success and take ownership of our actions to achieve our goals. Sales goals give us a very important mechanism to evaluate whether the things we are doing in business are actually working.
So for this week’s podcast episode, I’m diving into what information you need before you can set sales goals. I’ll also be sharing the different kinds of sales goals that you can set because not all sales goals are created equal. And these three sales goals are:
- Break-even
- Target
- Stretch goal
Links
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Anna Dearmon Kornick is a Time Management Coach, wife, and mom who helps busy professionals and business owners master time management so they can stop feeling overwhelmed and start spending time on what matters most.
A lot of creative entrepreneurs struggle with time management, myself included – most especially during pandemic life. So how can we manage our very limited time so that we can be effective at work without sacrificing what’s most important?
In this week’s episode, Anna shares some incredibly simple and practical strategies such as having a morning routine and a workday startup routine to be more effective and balanced. She also talks about two strategies you can start with for a better work-life balance. And lastly, Anna discusses how we can manage our distractions as busy entrepreneurs.
Links
See more of Anna Dearmon Kornick on her website, as well as her podcast, or send her a DM on her Instagram.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Emily Ley is the founder and CEO of Simplified, a brand that creates planners and organizational tools for busy women. She has what so many women dream about -- a team of 8 employees, a line of product with Target, written several books, all while being a mom to three kids. But 12 years ago, Emily was in a traditional 9-5 job that she didn’t love. She dreamed of doing something different with her life, something creative and fulfilling.
In today’s podcast, Emily will be talking about the idea of growth. Whether business or personal, growth doesn’t happen by accident, it happens by choice, by intention, by taking action steps. Emily also shares how you can start taking intentional action steps to grow into the person you want to be.
You can also find out more about Emily’s story of growth in her newest book, Growing Boldly, coming out on March 23. It’s available for pre-order now on Amazon.
Links
Pre-order Emily’s new book, Growing Boldly
Sign up for the free training, 4 Steps to Launch Your Business and Land Your First Client.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Marketing a business when you are first getting started does present some unique challenges, but it’s not impossible. Just some of the problems you may encounter might be:
- Not having enough clients to make the money you need to invest in your business
- Lack of experience and reputation
- Fear of being found out at your full-time job
The first thing that you really need to understand as a first-time business owner is what marketing is – it’s not just about communicating but creating offers that people want and delivering them well. And in today’s podcast, which is the 2nd part of the mini-series all about launching your business, I will be sharing the different ways that you can use to market yourself well when you are just starting your business (or even if you’ve been in it for a few years). These are the 6 things that everyone should be doing to market their businesses well:
- Understand your ideal client at a deep level
- Conduct market research
- Start building genuine relationships in your industry
- Leverage your existing network
- Serve the crap out of your clients
- Get their feedback on what you can do better
Links
Sign up for the free training, 4 Steps to Launch Your Business and Land Your First Client.
Read the HBR article, The One Number You Need to Grow.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Many people think that you need a ton of resources in order to start a business. I am a firm believer that anyone can start a business, even with limited amounts of time and resources. However, not everyone should start a business, unless they have properly formed expectations of what it’s going to be like. Before going on this journey, you must ask yourself:
- Do I really want to start a business?
- If so, is now the right time?
This week’s episode is part of a mini-series about launching your business. Specifically, we dive into the 4 signs that can help you determine if you are ready to start a business. You are ready to start your business if you are:
- Confident in your skills
- In a stable financial situation
- Willing to fail
- Ready to do the work
Links
Turn your dreams into actual action steps and make your business official by downloading the Service Business Startup Checklist here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Most creative entrepreneurs aren’t actually building businesses – they’re creating a job for themselves. People who are building a business are creating systems and employing people to run them. Those who are building their own job just do whatever seems right in the moment, not a lot of thought about its purpose, direction, or planning.
In order to build a business and a sustainable one, you need to have these 5 things:
- Long-term vision
- Marketing planning
- Products/services
- Systems
- Short-term planning
For this week’s episode, we’re focusing on one of the foundational elements in a sustainable business and that’s your core values. I discuss what core values are and how it impacts your business, specifically your day-to-day such as the people you hire, the marketing strategies you employ, and the products/services you will offer.
Links
The E-Myth, Michael E. Gerber
Ringlet Resources
Sign up for Bench Accounting and get 30% off your first 3 months of bookkeeping.
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Why did you start your business? Is it because you wanted freedom or flexibility? Is it because you want a different lifestyle? Whatever the case may be, we can all agree that we don’t start our business with a big vision in mind. And that’s okay.
However, if you want to stay in business long-term, you need to have a big vision of what you want to build. If you don’t have a vision for what you want your business to become:
- You won’t last because it’s too hard, too much work, and too demanding
- You won’t be able to have the lifestyle you want
- You might end up somewhere you don’t want to be
So for this week’s episode, I’m going to talk about having a clear long-term vision for your business so you can stay in the game long enough to be successful, build the business you really want, and know that your hard work is getting you somewhere. I’ll be discussing:
- What a vision is
- The elements of a vision
- Some questions and misconceptions
Links
Sign up for Bench Accounting and get 30% off your first 3 months of bookkeeping
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Sugar Taylor is a multi-media, multidisciplinary creative who has been an entrepreneur for over 10 years. Together with her business partner built a well-known event planning and design company in the DC area called Taylor and Hove. And on top of that, Sugar is a true artist and has done a huge range of creative crafts as part of her business-like branding, interior design, textile design, and other products.
In this week’s episode, I invited Sugar so she can share her perspective as a multi-disciplinary, multi-passionate creative who still manages to be incredibly profitable. We talk about the advantages of being a multi-disciplinary creative as well as best practices for being effective in being multi-passionate without burning out.
Sugar also announces a new project, exclusive here on the podcast!
Links
Follow Sugar on Instagram or check out her website.
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When it comes to content and social media, most people are focused on surface-level metrics, like:
- Clicks on your blog
- Podcast downloads
- Followers and likes
- Watches on your Instagram stories
But these metrics aren’t the definition of success because you don’t have complete control over them. They’re also not a good measure of whether your social media and content strategy is actually working.
This week’s episode is the last in the 3-part series about content. We will redefine what getting traction on your content means by measuring it quantitatively and qualitatively. I’ll also be talking through some reasons why you aren’t getting traction in your content. You might be guilty of:
- Too little selling
- Not using calls to action
- Inconsistency
- Being impersonal
- Not focusing on serving your audience
Links
Marketing: A Love Story, Bernadette Jiwa
Learn more about my first-ever Implementation Workshop which is happening on February 18-19, all about Social Media and Content Creation here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Many people are creating content online, however not very many of them are doing it well, or even consistently. Consistency in content creation helps build trust with your audience and improve your content. The reason you might be having trouble staying consistent with your content creation is that you haven’t built the structure in your business to support you being a content creator.
This week’s episode is part 2 in the 3-part series about content where I’m going to dive in and talk about building rituals in your business in order for you to create content consistently. I’m going to help you think through what can work best for you because everyone’s rhythms are different.
So, here’s how you can build your own content rhythms into your business that you can actually stick to (and it works for both short-form and long-form content):
- Commit to Your Content Publishing Schedule
- Create a Promotional Calendar
- Create a Content Creation Ritual
- Block the Time on Your Calendar
- Create a System to Capture Ideas and Inspiration
- Stay Consistent Even When You Aren’t Brilliant
Links
Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin
Get the free 90-day planning template so you can get focused on the most important things in order to grow your business.
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A lot of people struggle with social media. You might be one of those people thinking:
- “I don’t know how to market myself well”
- “I struggle knowing what to post”
- “I can’t be consistent on social media”
- “It feels awkward and uncomfortable to get sales-y and promotional”
- “What will other people think
The reason could be is that you haven’t figured out what your strategy is behind social media. You aren’t sure what you’re trying to accomplish so you don’t know what to do next. While I’m not a content strategist or a social media expert, I am an expert in being strategic and making sure that the effort you’re putting into your business helps make you more money.
So for this week’s episode of the podcast which is the 1st in a 3-part series about content, I’m breaking down what you should be posting on social media. I’m going to be sharing four categories of things that will help you brainstorm ideas and posts for your own social media and business. The categories are:
- Connect
- Challenge
- Teach
- Tease
LinksCreating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Salesforce, by Ben McConnell, Jackie Huba
Get the free 90-day planning template so you can get focused on the most important things in order to grow your business.
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What does it really mean when you work on your business as opposed to in it?
To put it simply:
- Working in your business refers to the things you do in your business like client work, creating content – basic stuff you do to keep things moving.
- Working on your business refers to the things that you do in order to make your business more profitable – to grow it, get it to the next level.
What most creative entrepreneurs end up doing is spending too much time working in their business – doing client work because it’s what makes them money. However, this isn’t the only thing that will let you earn money, especially in the long term.
In this week’s episode, we’ll be diving into what it looks like to work on your business. More importantly, I’ll be sharing different tips for how to create the time that you need in order for you to this. And these are:
- Staying connected to your big vision.
- Developing planning rituals.
- Time blocking
- Getting help.
- Streamlining your clients and offerings.
- Working with a coach.
Links
Get the free 90-day planning template so you can get focused on the most important things in order to grow your business.
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Last year in October, I was in LA for a conference with one of my business mentors, James Wedmore. And he walked us through this exercise where we wrote down all of the ideas that we had for our business—what we could do to grow? Then he posed the question:
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
The answer jumped out at me—the only thing that was holding me back from actually launching my podcast was fear.
Being challenged to move forward in spite of fear helped me build this podcast. I never would have done it if I hadn’t been specifically challenged to do something that I was afraid to do.
As you’re thinking about 2021, there’s probably an idea that you have that scares you. Creating a course, starting a new program, hiring someone, re-branding, or even starting your business in the first place. However, don’t let fear hold you back from doing something that could have a huge impact on your business.
This week marks the 1-year anniversary of The Game Changer podcast. To celebrate this, we’ll be going through the highlights of my most popular episodes of 2020. Feel free to dive deeper into the episodes or check out the show notes for more information about the guest or topic discussed.
- Growing Your Business with Instagram with Tyler McCall
- Getting Started with Defining a Niche
- Branding Beyond “Pretty” with Web Designer Amanda Shuman
- 5 Principles to Attract Clients with Your Content
Additionally, I’m going to have a little giveaway as an expression of my gratitude. I’m giving away a $100 Amazon gift card. All you have to do to enter is leave a review of the show.
Take a screenshot of your review and email it to me at katie@wussowconsulting.com. If you’ve already left a review, you’re still eligible to join. Just screenshot your previous review and send that too.
Links
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Strategic goal-setting is setting the right priorities, the right kinds of goals for each, and the right actions that will help you make progress on those goals. This type of goal-setting helps you avoid just making a random to-do list. You won’t risk losing motivation and end up making a difference in your business because you set strategic goals.
Moving from last week’s episode which was about sharing what I’ve learned in 2020, this week is all about letting you know about my vision for my business this coming 2021. I’ll be talking about my priorities and hopefully give you examples that you can follow for your own business. So, for 2021, I will be:
- Spending WAY more time coaching
- Focusing on implementation
- Engaging in audience growth – quantitatively and qualitatively
- Working on my thought leadership
Enroll in Thrive in Five here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
In order to get you and your business ready for 2021, I will be taking you behind the scenes of my own business and sharing the biggest lessons I have learned from 2020. These are also going to help me pave the direction I’ll be taking for the next year.
The fourth in the series of episodes about strategic goal-setting, this week’s The Game Changer is all about my top lessons for the year. I’m letting you in on how I’m thinking about my own business, what I’ve learned, and where I’m headed.
Before coming up with these, I went through a process of reflection in order to learn what I needed to learn from the past year:
- I looked at the data
- Trusted my gut about where my business should go
- Asked wisdom from the Lord
And for 2020, my top lessons were:
- The power of shared values
- You can’t build an audience if you aren’t serving an audience
- Marketing isn’t magic
- Simpler is ALWAYS better
- Scalable doesn’t have to mean impersonal
Enroll in Thrive in Five here.
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An HBR article wrote about some goal-setting methods that managers should avoid and one of these is to stop setting S.M.A.R.T. goals. It only tells you how clearly written your goal is, not about if it’s actually a good idea. A goal can be S.M.A.R.T. but not strategic; smart, not wise.
The purpose of goal-setting is not to predict the future perfectly. Instead, it’s to get you focused on the right things. Which begs the question: how do you know if you’re focusing on the right things?
This week’s episode is the third in a row on the topic of strategic goal setting. Today, I’ll be sharing principles to help you understand how to make sure you are setting goals that aren’t just SMART, but also strategic. For 2021, you should be setting goals that are:
- Aligned with your priorities
- Reflective of your desired outcomes for your business, not just a list of tasks
- Attainable – something you can achieve for the year
- Challenging
Enroll in Thrive in Five here.
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HBR: 3 Popular Goal-Setting Methods that Managers Should Avoid
Before stepping into 2021 with your new goals, learning lessons from the past year is the very first step you need to take. And what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur is an incredible amount of discipline. And by discipline, I mean the discipline to self-evaluate and self-assess.
If you happen to have the discipline to evaluate your business, you also need the wisdom to draw the right conclusions. However, most people tend to over-correct for the things that go wrong in their business. The reason for this is because we don’t want to feel hurt when we fail.
Because 2020 has brought more disappointment and failure than usual, we might be at risk of over-correcting. So for this week’s episode of The Game Changer, I’m going to provide 4 principles you can use in order to have the wisdom to learn the right lessons from 2020. These are:
- Collect the right quantity and quality of information;
- Put everything into the right context;
- Don’t try to force things to be black and white when they are gray; and,
- Get an outside perspective
Links
Enroll now in my brand new goal-setting course called Thrive in Five to get early bird pricing here until December 13.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
It’s almost the end of the year. Which means it’s time to start thinking about what your business is going to look like next year. And that means setting goals. But it’s possible that you may be making the mistake of not setting goals for your business in the right way. You may even be guilty of being in these two extremes of goal-setting which are:
- Aspirations or “manifesting” approach – make lofty goals; think of your wildest dreams
- To-do list approach – goals are a list of actions you want to do instead of outcomes you want to achieve
If you set your goals this way – you’re doing it wrong. You’re just turning them into a list of all the things you wish you have time for. In this week’s episode, we’re going to challenge these flawed approaches with a new goal-setting approach, which is strategic goal-setting. This comprises outcomes and the related action steps you’re going to take in order to achieve them.
Also, before you go about setting strategic goals, here are some of the mental shifts that you need to take:
- Shift 1: I don’t know what’s realistic.
- Shift 2: I don’t want to fail.
- Shift 3: I don’t have time.
- Shift 4: I know my plans will change.
- Shift 5: I don’t have any control over the outcomes.
Links
Get the free 90-day plan template here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
As business owners, we do our best to follow the law by doing things the right way like getting written contracts in place. But when you do everything yourself, it can be tough to cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s.
This is why today Attorney Christian Williams joins us to talk about the basic legal stuff that we as business owners need to be thinking about so that we can protect our business and brand.
Introducing Christian, she has an insane resume – undergrad at Yale and law school at Harvard before joining a prestigious law firm in DC as a corporate attorney. Before long, she realized the corporate thing just wasn’t for her, started her own law firm serving small businesses and creatives.
In this week’s episode, we cover everything from copyright, trademarks, contracts, and more.
Links
Get Bobby Klinck’s FREE privacy policy here.
Shop for contract templates here.
Learn more about Christian on her website. You can also follow her Instagram @bevellaw and Facebook page.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This is a question I get constantly – how do I build an audience for my business? Talking about this topic, a lot of people have misconceptions about this:
- What it really is – focusing on building their audience instead of building their actual business
- Why it matters – do you have the right people in your audience and are they interested in buying your product/service?
- How to do it – not by focusing on building an audience but by serving your audience
Having an engaged audience of people who meet the description of your ideal client and are excited about your stuff is a valuable asset to have for your business. And for this week’s podcast episode, we’re moving past the misconceptions and talking about 6 tips to follow in order to build an audience. To do that, you need to:
- Define who you serve
- Focus on serving your ideal clients
- Create more than just how-to or educational content
- Be consistent
- Engage with people in a personal way; and,
- Provide a way to go deeper and engage more with your workflows
Links
Sign up here for the free training, 4 Simple Steps to Launch Your Business and Land Your First Client.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
In this episode we are walking through the life cycle of your service packages and offers in your business. Not knowing where you are in your offer life cycle can lead to frustration and focusing on the wrong things.
The five phases of an offer are the:
- Sidehustle phase
- Beta testing phase
- Market testing phase
- Growth phase
- Elevation phase
Links:
Service Business Startup Checklist
Free Class: Four Steps to Launch Your Business and Land Your First Clients
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
The biggest thing that I have had to adjust to as an entrepreneur was things not working the way I want them to. Fellow business owners can also relate to this – trying to get your business off the ground and it’s just not working the way you thought.
Failure is a way of life. What we don’t want to do as entrepreneurs are overreact to our failures and setbacks by quitting or pivoting too soon. So for this week’s episode, I’ll be introducing a way to respond to failure in a way that’s constructive and keeps you on the path to success. It’s a five-step process that you can use when something doesn’t work – big or small.
These are:
- Feel your feelings
- Gather the facts
- What IS working
- What ISN’T working, what didn’t work
- How will I attempt the solve the problem
LinksGrit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth
Book a call to discuss the upcoming group coaching program, Thrive Business Bootcamp.
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Building a successful business is hard. You can make all the right decisions and do all the right things and still fail. In turn, you look at other people instead to tell you what to do. However, there’s a difference between learning from others and getting insights and expecting them to make your decisions for you. No one will be able to tell you the right decisions for your business – they can only give guidance, share what’s worked for them, as well as useful principles.
You aren’t building confidence in your own decisions because you only ever do what other people tell you to do.
In this week’s podcast episode, I’m going to help you start taking complete ownership of your business and make the decisions on your own. I will be sharing 5 things you should be thinking about and staying in alignment with when making decisions. These are:
- Vision
- Values
- Strategy
- Priorities
- You
Links
Sign up here for the FREE training on November 3.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Where most business owners feel at a loss is getting ENOUGH clients and marketing their business effectively. Most people are doing what they see other people doing or what they are told they are SUPPOSED to be doing instead of figuring out what works for themselves. However, this is not good especially for the long term because:
- You can’t imitate someone else’s tactics if you are using a different strategy
- Other people’s marketing won’t work because your business is just different
There are a million and a half ways that you could be marketing your business by doing what works for you. So for this week’s episode, I’ll be discussing 4 filter questions you can use in order to choose the right marketing tactics for your business. You can use these questions to filter through the many marketing ideas you have and choose the right one by asking:
- Does it make sense for my ideal client?
- Does it make sense for what I sell?
- Does it leverage my strengths as a business owner?
- Do I enjoy it?
Links
Sign up here for the FREE training on October 27.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Alli Worthington is a well-known speaker, author, and business coach who spent 4 years working with Cristine Caine starting a ministry called Propel Women. But Alli was really thrown for a loop when she sensed that God was calling her to leave the ministry and re-launch her coaching business. Her latest book, Standing Strong, tells the story of what that was like and gives so much practical wisdom on how to deal with adversity and struggle as an entrepreneur.
In this week’s podcast episode, Alli shares how she got her start in business with 5 little kids, a broken laptop, using free WiFi from McDonald’s. We also talk about:
- How to cope with fear and self-doubt
- How to cope with seasons of struggle
Links
Buy Alli’s latest book, Standing Strong.
Learn more about Alli on her website or take her free 2-minute quiz, What’s Your Superpower. You can also follow her Instagram @alliworthington and check out her podcast, The Alli Worthington Show.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Trying to get your business off the ground and to a point of consistency and reliability is difficult because it feels impossible to decide where to focus. There are too many decisions to be made and you may not trust yourself to make them because they might be wrong.
And the underlying problem that’s happening here is that these business owners don’t have a plan for what they’re trying to accomplish. When you don’t have a plan, things can get hard really fast where you fall victim to:
- Only ever responding to things at the moment instead of proactively making progress
- Other people’s agenda for your business
- Working really hard without knowing how it all comes together
- Not making enough money
For this week's podcast, I’ll be discussing how a business plan can help you overcome feeling overwhelmed, not knowing how to make decisions or where to focus and be able to make enough money. I’ll be talking about:
- What a business plan is and isn’t
- Who needs it
- What the different elements are in a business plan
Links
Sign up here for the FREE training on October 27.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
So many people are so burned out and discouraged by their use of their social media. This might be due to:
- Not fully embracing the fact that you are now a content creator, not just a content consumer.
- Spending a lot of time trying to make everything look pretty but not really knowing how it all fits into your business’s overall marketing plan.
If you don’t know why you’re on social media and how it fits into your overall marketing plan, you’re going to be really frustrated and burnt out. If you know why you’re on the platform but you’re acting more like a content consumer rather than a content creator, it’s probably time to take some time off to re-calibrate.
And in this week’s episode, I’m sharing the things I learned by taking time off of social media These are:
- Finding out that I had way more time
- Feeling disconnected from my clients
- Feeling easier to be content
Sign up here for the FREE training on October 27.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Krystal Clark is a Workflow Strategist helping service-based creatives organize their back office so they can save time and serve their clients with more ease. For this week’s podcast episode about workflows and automation, Krystal explains the symptoms to look out for that you may not have good processes and workflows in place for your business, as well as the obstacles preventing service-based creatives from developing workflows.
She also gives us tips on how to:
- Choose the right CRM;
- Start with workflows, and;
- Elevate the client experience.
Lastly, she shares what will become possible for your life and business when you have good processes and systems in place.
Links
Learn more about Krystal on her website or join her Facebook group. You can also follow her Instagram @krystalclarkcreative.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Several times a year, I start feeling a little bit lost. Scattered, unfocused, and reactive in my business. Maybe that’s how you feel right now – all of the ideas but unable to make progress on any of it. Too many people don’t give themselves the gift of stepping away from the day to day operations of the business and looking at the bigger picture.
To combat this, I’ve adopted akeystone habit of stepping away for one full day every quarter to reflect on and plan for my business – and this is my 90-day planning process. This keystone habit helps make so many other aspects of my business easier like:
- Creating consistent content;
- Knowing how to focus my time well;
- Seeing my progress clearly, and
- Being able to step back and evaluate and decide on new ideas for my business.
In this week’s episode, I’m going to walk through my 90-day planning process. I’ll be sharing the logistics involved as well as the different steps I take during that time which are:
- Reflecting and looking back at what happened
- Reviewing my financial results
- Reviewing annual goals
- Setting 90-day goals
- Making the Action Plan
- BONUS: Adding anything else that makes sense to do on a quarterly basis i.e. content and social media planning, taxes, special promotions
Links
The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This week's episode is a special one because we're welcoming back the first repeat guest of the show -- Amanda Schuman! Amanda is an award-winning website designer and brand strategist. She is a true artist and helps take clients' visual brands to the next level.
In today's show, we go behind the scenes of my rebrand and website launch. You'll learn valuable insights about:
- The rebrand creative process;
- The decision-making involved, and
- What goes on in the collaboration between client and designer
Links
Follow Amanda on Instagram or check out her website and her FREE Facebook branding group.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the BRAND NEW website to learn more about her work.
Fall is a time when people generally refresh their schedules. But due to the current situation, the lines between life and work are blurred way more than they have ever been before. Right now, so many of us feel like we have too much to do and not enough time to do it.
Add to this the mistake most people are making is not having a structure when you have a lot to do. This leads to being completely overwhelmed, as well as other consequences like:
- Not being effective
- Missing deadlines
- Not doing your best work
In today’s episode, I’m sharing my strategy on how I manage everything during this season of COVID – and that’s Time Blocking. I’m talking about three steps for how to block your time effectively, which are:
- Step 1 – Set your work hours.
- Step 2 – Define your zones.
- Step 3 – Design your perfect schedule.
And some general tips to actually make it work, like:
- Learning to say no; and,
- Staying flexible
Links:
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Ashley Ebert is the founder of The Simply Elegant Group, once a one-woman operation that grew into one of the largest wedding planning companies in the country with a team of 40 employees with over $3 million dollars in sales and climbing.
In this week's episode, Ashley shares her knowledge and experience with sales, specifically how to navigate an effective sales conversation so that you can turn inquiries into clients.
We discuss:
- How to turn away the wrong client without being a complete JERK
- A conversational yet professional framework for navigating your sales conversations from the first hello to the signed contract
- How to pivot to the “pitch” part of your sales conversions without being sleazy and inauthentic
Whenever we talk about having a big-picture marketing strategy, oftentimes we use the analogy of a funnel.
Different stages of the funnel represent different phases of your client’s journey with you. And you as the business owner have different goals at different stages of the funnel.
In this week’s episode, I’m going to break down, in a very simple way:
- The different phases of your marketing funnel,
- What your primary goal is at each phase as the business owner, and
- Some examples of tactics you can use at each stage of the funnel.
Links
Register for FREE for The Fall Business Reboot Training Series at http://programs.katiewussow.com/businessreboot
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Charge what you’re worth”. The big problem that I have with this philosophy is that it unhelpfully ties your pricing to how talented you are and how confident you happen to be about yourself. Your prices should be directly related to the value you are creating for the client. You shouldn’t charge what you’re worth, you charge what the WORK is worth.
If you really want to create a valuable service that you can charge a lot of money for, you have to do more than just show up and be talented. You have to create a process and experience for your client that is incredibly valuable.
In this week’s episode, we’re gonna get practical and talk about 4 ways you can add value to your service so you can charge more.
By...
- Eliminating friction,
- Taking things off of your client’s plate,
- Communicating proactively, and
- Creating a thoughtful off-boarding process
...you will be able to create amazing results for your clients but also be in a position to confidently raise your prices.
Links
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
Register for FREE for The Fall Business Reboot Training Series at http://programs.katiewussow.com/businessreboot
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
The concept of a signature service is to revolve your business around one offer that meets the needs of your ideal client. It represents the best possible solution that you can offer to solve your client’s problem.
For today’s podcast, I’m interviewing Tiffany Tolliver who has successfully used this approach to grow her web and branding design business to over six figures. She also teaches other graphic and branding designers to grow their business with a signature offer.
In this episode, we break down the benefits of creating a core offer and how you can create an elevated experience for your client that allows you to charge a premium price point. Frankly, it takes more than fancy gift baskets to create an elevated client experience. We talk about the importance of things like:
- Automating what happens for the client after the conversion;
- Elevating the way that the client interacts with your deliverables;
- Keep your client satisfied throughout the experience of working with you.
Tiffany also shares her thoughts on strategy-first branding and why your brand needs to be more than pretty to be effective.
Links
Follow Tiffany on Instagram (@theemmaroseagency) or visit her website www.theemmaroseagency.com.
Access the free mini-course, Price for Profit.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
We love to talk about entrepreneurship and the freedom and flexibility that it brings, but there are some basic skills that you as an entrepreneur need to learn in order to be successful.
If you:
- Don’t want to do sales
- Don’t want to deal with finances
- Can’t function without accountability
- Need conditions to be perfect
...you might be better off doing something else besides starting a business.
But I don’t actually want you to quit your business. My motivation for this week’s episode is to expose some areas where you are not understanding what is going to be required of you to be successful and help you focus on the skills that you’re going to need to stay in business and make a solid income doing what you love.
LinksAccess the free mini-course, Price for Profit.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This week’s episode is a continuation of an important conversation that has been happening in the small business and creative community around racism and racial justice. Doing this as a business owner can present some unique challenges because many of us have single-person businesses.
To help us with this conversation are Nikita Montgomery, founder and owner of Hazel O. Salon in Old Town Alexandria, and Dr. Andrea Holman, a psychologist, and professor at Huston Tillotson University in Austin, Texas.
In this episode, we talk about what it really takes to create a diverse business, including:
- The importance of representation and why it matters for people of color;
- The subtle difference between trying to look like you value diversity versus actually valuing diversity, and;
- How to use your business’s platform to bring marginalized people to the table
- The pitfalls to avoid for white entrepreneurs engaging in anti-racism work
Links
Follow Niki on Instagram or Twitter.
Check out Hazel O. Salon in Old Town Alexandria, VA, or follow them on Instagram.
Follow Dr. Andrea Holmon on Instagram or visit her website. Watch her recent webinar about responding to social injustice.
Getting clients is top of mind for both beginning and established creative entrepreneurs. However, most people make the mistake of copying what other people are doing when marketing their business.
You can’t market a business by copying the tactics someone else is using – it won’t work. Unless you understand what they are doing and why it works:
- You won't be able to troubleshoot when it doesn't work;
- You can't adapt the strategy to fit your unique business and unique strengths.
- And, even if it ends up working for you, if it's not incorporated into your marketing strategy, it won't be effective.
The focus of this week's episode is going to be on three ways you can attract your ideal client. I'm going to help you understand how these approaches work on a strategic level and from a marketing standpoint to be more equipped to experiment on a tactical level.
The three ways are:
- Traffic
- Content
- Networking
Links
Join my free training, How to Launch Your Business and Land Your First Clients
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Fanette Rickert is a French food photographer specializing in shooting sustainable and vegetarian products based in DC. Before finding her focus, she struggled with:
- Working with too many clients
- Having impostor syndrome
- Undercharging services
- Lack of efficient structures and systems
In today’s episode, Fanette shares with us how she was able to overcome her struggles and uplevel her entire business and make more money with fewer clients – by niche-ing down and focusing on a single ideal client.
In order to achieve this, she talks about:
- The mindset shifts she made in order to go from a frustrated freelancer to a thriving entrepreneur;
- How to stand out from the competition and turn more of her inquiries into paying clients;
- The key to booking higher-paying clients is to STOP focusing so much on the price;
- Leveraging Upwork – a freelance platform – to get her ideal client.
Links
Upwork, Freelancing Platform
Follow Fanette on Instagram or visit her website.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Since starting my business in 2017, I’ve always created content centered around “how to work from home in the summer with kids”. But this summer, the situation is more dire.
In these strange times, I have noticed two approaches that business owners that have children are taking:
- Taking a step back and saying, “I’m just gonna come back to this later”.
- Take no prisoners – “I’m gonna keep going as if nothing else is happening in the world because anything less than my 150% effort into this business is failure”.
Both of these approaches are rooted in PERFECTIONISM which is being used as a coping mechanism to avoid negative feelings. But this is not the time for perfectionism.
There is a third approach that you can do to pursue business growth with your kids at home for the summer or the foreseeable future – healthy striving.
In this episode, I discuss three practical strategies you can use to embrace healthy striving in your home with your kids this summer. These are:
- Embracing prioritization.
- Creating mental boundaries.
- Incorporating more rest.
Links
Dare To Lead, Brene Brown
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This week’s episode is a continuation of talking about foundational business topics. Last week, we talked about defining your niche. On today’s show, we’re focusing on the next step which is putting together a singular core offer that will actually sell.
Packaging and pricing services are at the top of the list of challenges that creative entrepreneurs experience when getting started in business. They get stuck and approach the topic the wrong way by organizing and packaging services for some idea of affordability.
But making your service smaller and cheaper doesn’t make it easier to sell. In order to have a profitable business, you need to be thinking about how to make your service packages bigger.
I’m here to give you three principles to help you create a service package that is seamless and easy and effortless to sell to your ideal client because it’s so appealing:
- Position yourself as a specialist in helping a certain type of person.
- Focus on the outcomes and results that people will experience when they work with you.
- Consider how you can create value instead of minimizing the price.
Links
Get on the waitlist and avail of the Business From Scratch presale by emailing katie@wussowconsulting.com or sending a DM on Instagram.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
If you ask the average creative entrepreneur what their biggest challenge is, 7 times out of 10 they will say either 1) getting more clients or 2) making more money.
Most people think in order to get more clients, you need to do MORE: offer more services at more price points for more types of clients. But the do more approach comes with some serious drawback
- You end up spread too thin across too many small projects.
- You struggle to attract clients as a “generalist”
- Your processes are challenging to manage inside of your business.
The way to make more money and consistently attract the right clients is not by doing more but doing less. That’s why it is critically important to have a clear niche for your business.
A niche is a description of who your business helps and how you help them. In this episode, I’m walking you through how to get started with defining a niche. We are talking about:
- A simple framework for defining your niche
- An exercise to help you discover where you should focus
- How to know whether your niche is the right choice for you
- Frequently asked questions from creative entrepreneurs defining a niche for the first time.
Links
Building a Storybrand, by Donald Miller
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Today’s guest Tyler McCall came on my radar about two years ago when I was incredibly frustrated with Instagram as a business owner. I felt like all of the advice I was getting from so-called “experts” wasn’t helping me grow my business.
Tyler’s approach revolutionized the way I approach Instagram but also marketing in general. His program helps clients develop their own, customized Instagram marketing strategy so that you can stand out and make sales.
In this episode, he is sharing his one-size-does-NOT-fit-all Instagram approach. His insights might blow your mind, such as:
- The difference between being a content consumer and content creator.
- How to be results-oriented with your Instagram strategy instead of focusing on vanity metrics (likes and followers).
- Why you should eliminate the phrase “link in bio” from your vocabulary.
- Why he personally doesn’t give a rip about whether his engagement goes up or down – and you shouldn’t either.
Links
Visit www.tylerjmccall.com/free to take Tyler’s masterclass, How to Sell More Products, Programs, and Services on Instagram (without obsessing about your follower count or posting every day.)
Follow Tyler on Instagram.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This is the third episode in a three-part series about adding a digital product to your business. Today’s show I’m sharing a dead-simple launch strategy that will help you:
- Validate your product idea before you sink time, money, and energy into them
- Customize your products to the needs of your buyers
- Get paid to create your digital product
This launch approach is called Monetize Before You Make It. The basics steps are to:
- Validate or “tease” your idea
- Clarify the offer
- Launch the offer
- Deliver the offer and serve your buyers
Links
Sign up for the Rise of the Digital CEO video series here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
This is the second episode in a three-part series about adding a digital product to your business. On today’s show, I’m breaking down the kinds of digital offers you can create so that you can start getting an idea of the kind of digital offer you can add to your business.
If you’re interested, but don’t know where to start, this is where to start.
First, let’s talk about questions you can ask if you aren’t sure whether creating a digital offer is right for you.
- Are you creating a course or digital offer because you think it’s going to fix your struggling business?
- Do you enjoy teaching and sharing knowledge with others? Would you be happy to have that be part of your long-term business vision?
- Can your business afford for you to spend time, energy, and money developing a digital offer?
Next, I’m breaking down the different kinds of digital offers and the pros and cons of each. They are:
- Group coaching
- Courses
- Memberships
- Templates
Links
Sign for the Rise of the Digital CEO video series here.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
There is a lot of interest in growing your business through digital products. We see so many people in the creative space growing their income and impact through courses, memberships, templates, and other digital offers.
This interest has been amplified because of Covid-19. Since we have been prevented from working in-person, many of us have gotten scrappy and created virtual offers.
While we know there is a huge opportunity in the digital space, we also know that creating and selling digital products is not as easy as it looks. Many people have been frustrated by launching things that no one buys, by how much work it takes to create a digital product, and the technology that causes insane overwhelm.
This episode is part 1 in a 3-part series about how to add a digital product to your business. Specifically, in this episode, we are talking about the biggest mistakes most entrepreneurs make when they start selling digital products and offers.
Before we get into what you should do, we have to address what you shouldn’t do.
Mistake #1: Trying to sell your digital products the same way you sell your services
Mistake #2: Creating what you think people need rather than what they want
Mistake #3: Getting discouraged when you don’t meet your own unrealistic expectations
Mistake #4: Trying to figure it out on your own
LinksJoin the waitlist for Business by Design by going to katiewussow.com/james.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
On this special bonus I’m doing something I’ve NEVER done before. I’m taking you behind the scenes of my most recent launch of Thrive Business Bootcamp.
There are two major reasons why I wanted to share this launch debrief with you. The first reason is that most entrepreneurs don’t have a process in place to evaluate what they are doing in business. But as business owners, we have to learn how to do that!
The second reason is that I learned a lot from this particular launch and it’s leading me to create something new. You will be the first to hear about it!
I’m walking through my four-step launch debrief process and sharing the actual results from my Thrive Business Bootcamp launch.
Step 1: Gather Data
Pull together all of the qualitative and quantitative information that you gained during the launch.
Step 2: What Worked?
List the things that worked well during the launch.
Step 3: What Didn’t Work? What Can Be Improved?
List the things that you need to work on in order to improve your results in future launches.
Step 4: What’s Next?
Write down the adjustments you will make and the date of your next launch.
LinksSign up for Your First 100 Leads by going to katiewussow.com/james.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Rebecca Smith is the founder and CEO of Better Life Bags, a former Etsy shop turned direct-to-consumer company that has a mission to provide jobs for women with barriers to employment.
In this episode, Rebecca is sharing her story and wisdom of building Better Life Bags through a series of slow, intentional, and obedient steps. She shares:
- How to feel more confident turning a hobby or side hustle into a real business, even if you don’t have a business background.
- What it looks like to take small steps toward a dream even when it isn’t the right time to go all-in.
- Her specific strategy to manage the hustle of running a business while being a mom to 4 kids.
- Surprising advice for entrepreneurs who are just getting started with their business.
Links
Follow Rebecca on Instagram and Better Life Bags on Instagram.
Learn more and shop at https://betterlifebags.com/
Buy Rebecca’s book, A Better Life.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
On this very special episode, I’m interviewing my business coach, James Wedmore. I joined James’s signature program, Business by Design, in August 2019 to support me as I made the transition from 1:1 coaching to an online group coaching model.
A lot of creative entrepreneurs are interested in selling digital products – like courses, memberships, and even templates – but they aren’t sure where to get started. But even worse, most entrepreneurs don’t have the practical tools or the appropriate mindset to make their hard work pay off online.
In this episode, James is sharing with us some of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to creating and selling digital products. He shares:
- Why “what do I want to create” is the worst question you can ask when you are getting started online.
- The simple way to decide what you should teach, sell, or offer to your audience.
- A mind-blowing method for selling your digital product before you create it.
Links
Register for James’s free training, Your First 100 Leads, by visiting www.katiewussow.com/james.
Follow James on Instagram or listen to his podcast, Mind Your Business.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work.
Lauren Ramirez is the founder and CEO of Lauren Ramirez Styling and Interiors in Austin, Texas. When she started her business, she was a solopreneur with no formal training in design who struggled with imposter syndrome. But now, only four years later, she is a sought-after firm of choice for C-suite executives and other professionals in Central Texas.
Lauren did what many creative entrepreneurs only dream about – she built and scaled a profitable business to the point of having a team. In the interview, she shares how she did it, including:
- Practical strategies that helped her take herself seriously early-on and overcome imposter syndrome.
- How she defines her ideal client and vets the wrong clients before she starts working with them.
- The role of community in her life and business.
- How she knew when she was ready to hire a team and focus on business growth.
- What is helping her stay motivated and engaged as a business owner during Covid-19.
Register for my free training, 5 Step-Framework to Build a Profitable Business
Follow Lauren on Instagram or click here to learn more about their work.
Follow Katie on Instagram or visit the website to learn more about her work, www.katiewussow.com.
We all want our pricing to reflect our true value. The problem is, it’s not enough to know your value; you also have to be able to communicate your value. As many of us have experienced, it doesn’t matter if we “charge what we’re worth” if clients aren’t willing to pay.
Learning to articulate your value is both a challenge and an opportunity. It’s a challenge because articulating your value is one of the hardest skills you have to learn as a service-based entrepreneur. However, if you can learn to do it well, you’ll have no problem booking clients at premium price points.
If you want to articulate your value in order to justify a higher price point, you should emphasize these four things:
- Your person – the type of person that you specialize in helping.
- Their problem – what is the problem that you help your ideal client solve.
- Your process – what steps will you take to solve the client’s problem.
- Their promise – what is the tangible outcome or result that your ideal client will experience from working with you.
Links & References:
Get the FREE mini-course, Price for Profit.
Building a Storybrand, by Donald Miller
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Learn more about my work at katiewussow.com.
Pricing is a huge pain point for creative entrepreneurs. In this episode, we are talking about pricing mistakes creative entrepreneurs are making that are keeping them overworked and underpaid.
Many of the pricing mistakes people are making come from the same root issue: you think pricing drives your sales. I can understand why you think that pricing drives sales. Oftentimes when people say they don’t want to work with you they say the reason is money.
But, if people walk away from working with you based on price, it’s probably not because you chose the wrong price. It’s likely because you have a problem with your marketing.
Believing that pricing drives sales lead creative entrepreneurs to charge less for what they do and continue to be overworked and underpaid freelancers instead of thriving entrepreneurs.
Here are the four mistakes we talk about on the episode:
Mistake #1: Pricing based on what other people charge
Alternative #1: Pricing based on your own revenue needs
Mistake #2: Pricing based on your own time and effort
Alternative #2: Pricing based on the value you create for your clients
Mistake #3: Using discounts to drive sales
Alternative #3: Using bonuses and add-ons to drive sales
Mistake #4: Creating mini-packages to drive sales
Alternative #4: Focus on selling your signature service
Links & References
Get the FREE mini-course, Pricing for Profit.
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Learn more about my work at katiewussow.com.
Many early-stage creative entrepreneurs are more like frustrated freelancers than thriving business owners. They struggle with:
- Not understanding their value and how to communicate it.
- Working crazy hours without making enough money.
- Lacking the confidence to charge their worth.
Amber Crudup is a brand designer and business coach who helps creative entrepreneurs build structure in their business so they can have more profit in their business and more freedom in their lives.
On this episode, Amber shares:
- Why services are much harder to price than products, and how you can begin to understand and communicate your value.
- A simple way to know how much your work is worth.
- How structure breeds confidence in your pricing, your process, and your marketing efforts.
- Why not having enough clients probably isn’t the biggest problem preventing you from being profitable.
Links & References:
Connect with Amber on Instagram
Learn more about Amber here.
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Learn more about my work at katiewussow.com.
Many creative entrepreneurs are using content (blogging, podcasting, youtube, and social media) to attract clients into their business. Unfortunately, too many people are spending their precious time and energy creating content without a good strategy!
Your content should be effectively bringing new clients into your business. In this episode, I’m sharing five principles to make sure your content is strategically and intentionally attracting the right clients into your business.
- Address all of your content to your ideal client. Your content should address the problems, pain points, struggles, and challenges that your ONE ideal client is experiencing.
- Release content on a consistent schedule. When it comes to content, consistency and quality are more important than frequency. Releasing content on a consistent schedule builds trust and credibility with your audience.
- Create content that prepares your ideal client to buy from you. Instead of using content to give away your valuable knowledge and expertise for free, create content that leads customers on a journey toward the solution you offer.
- Use calls-to-action regularly. Give your audience a clear next step.
- Gather feedback from your audience. If you don’t know what topics to address, survey your audience and review your analytics.
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Learn more about my work at katiewussow.com.
Many creative entrepreneurs struggle with selling their services, for example:
- Getting ghosted after the discovery call
- Sending out your price sheet and never hearing back
- Getting pushback or objections to your prices
Jereshia Hawk is an entrepreneur and high-ticket sales coach who specializes in helping service providers raise their prices, articulate their value, and confidently sell service packages that cost between $1,500 and $15,000.
On this episode, Jereshia shares:
- How an employee mindset prevented her from making money early on in her entrepreneurial journey
- The biggest mindset shift you need to make before you can become effective at selling high-ticket packages and programs
- How most entrepreneurs are emphasizing the wrong things in their sales conversations, proposals, and website copy (and what you should be emphasizing instead)
- How she is helping women overcome entrepreneurial poverty and teaching them how to not just generate income but build wealth
- What it looks like for her to walk in faith as a business owner and obey God in the big and small business decisions
Connect with Jereshia on Instagram
Learn more about Jereshia here
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Learn more about my work at katiewussow.com.
Almost every aspect of our lives is radically different than it was a week ago. On this show, I’m going to address a common mistake I see people making when they are responding to the COVID 19 crisis. That mistake is making decisions from a place of panic and not thinking about the big picture.
I want to introduce a new way of thinking about the current circumstances, and this concept is called the Stockdale Paradox. This term was coined by Jim Collins who wrote a book called Good to Great, and he found in a multi-year study of large corporations that those who adopted the Stockdale Paradox drastically outperformed their competitors.
The Stockdale Paradox is a mindset that tries to do two contradictory things at once:
- Confront the most brutal facts of your present reality
- Maintain hope that you will succeed in the end.
If we can learn to do this, not only will we get through this crisis, but we will be able to succeed in ANY environment.
Here are three practical ways that you can confront the brutal facts of COVID 19.
- Take some time to reflect and consider what’s working and not working in your business.
- Figure out a plan to generate revenue in the short term. Make a plan to ensure that your basic needs are covered.
- Take care of yourself and recognize you may need extra rest and self-care in the coming weeks.
Here are three ways you can demonstrate unwavering hope in your long-term success and position yourself well to come out of the crisis.
- Ramp down, don’t tap out. Resist the urge to put your business on pause.
- Work on your business instead of in your business during the slow season.
- Take the opportunity to build relationships and create goodwill with your customers and industry.
Links & References
Good to Great, Jim Collins
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A lot of people dream of starting a business, not that many people actually leave the comfort and security of the corporate world to chart their own path as an entrepreneur.
In today’s episode, one of my former clients Catherine Andrews shares her experience transitioning from her cushy job in corporate communications to being a full-time life coach. In the interview, Catherine shares:
- The baby steps she took in the direction of entrepreneurship even while she was still working in her corporate job.
- What she wishes she did to prepare for the transition out of her 9-5, even besides having a financial cushion.
- The importance of building accountability structures for ourselves and staying away from busywork.
- Three tips for dealing with intimidating business tasks that are way outside of our comfort zone.
- How being an entrepreneur has been a personal development accelerator.
Catherine’s story will encourage anyone who is considering taking the leap out of a traditional job as well as those who already have.
Links & References
Sign up for the free training, 5 Profit-Killing Mistakes that Keep Creative Entrepreneurs Overworked and Underpaid
The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron
The Game Changer Podcast, Episode 11 -- I talk about how it took a year to really define my niche
Catherine’s podcast, The Sunday Soother
Catherine’s website, catherinedandrews.com
Follow Catherine on Instagram
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On today’s show, I interview Jessie Khaira, a designer of luxury Indian weddings who got started in the industry 17 years ago when she decided to rent the chair covers she had bought for HER OWN wedding.
Like many creative entrepreneurs, Jessie really struggled with confidence and under-pricing her services when she was getting started. But through strategic moves and mindset shifts, she has been able to establish herself in the luxury market and charge literally hundreds of thousands of dollars for wedding design.
In the interview, Jessie shares:
- How she went from charging $20 for one-off centerpieces to six figures for the design of entire events
- The “aha” moment that led to her doubling her rates overnight without losing business
- Why having higher prices actually made it easier for her to book clients
- How a conversation with a complete stranger helped her get clear on her niche
Jessie’s story is one of resilience, I know you’ll love hearing her honesty, tough love, and contagious laugh.
Find Jessie on Instagram or visit her website jessiekhaira.com.
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Many early-stage entrepreneurs discover that growing a profitable business is hard. When you’re in the early stages, it’s tempting to look at other people’s business and try to reverse engineer success based on what we see other people doing.
It’s not the external things that allowed others to build profitable businesses. Businesses don’t make money because of the external things you can see, but they make money because they are built on a strong foundation that you can’t see.
Building a business with no foundation is like building a house but spending all of your time and energy picking out the paint colors and fixtures. You have to make sure the actual structure of the house is sound!
To have a strong foundation as a creative entrepreneur, you need 5 things
- Vision: You need to know what you want the business to become in 10 years
- Marketing Plan: You need to know and understand your ideal client and how you are going to reach them consistently.
- Financial Plan: You need to price your services adequately to cover your expenses, taxes, personal salary, and yes, profit.
- Systems to Scale: You need to take a systems approach to everything you do in your business so that you can grow and scale.
- Short term goals: Be specific about what you are trying to accomplish in your business right now and map out the action steps that are going to get you there
References and Links
E-Myth, Michael Gerber
Sign up for the Thrive Business Bootcamp waitlist by visiting katiewussow.com/waitlist.
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A lot of us KNOW that we need to get some help on the business side of things. But we feel overwhelmed because there are 1,000 ways to get help. Between courses, memberships, coaching, masterminds, and conferences, we oftentimes don't know which is the best option for our unique situation.
Successful people don't get overwhelmed and shut down when they need help; they identify the best solution and go with it.
In this episode, I'm giving an overview of four different kinds of help you can get for your business, why they're great (because they all are), and how you know which one is right for you right now.
In this episode, you'll discover
- How to know if a particular digital product (course or membership) is perfect for you
- The question you should be asking before you buy a course or membership (hint: it's not, "can I afford it?"
- The key differences between group coaching and 1:1 coaching and how to know which is best (hint: 1:1 isn't always better)
- The role of masterminds and why the heck they're so expensive
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Many creative entrepreneurs really struggle with feeling like they have way too much to do, and not enough time to do it.
- They feel pulled in a lot of different directions.
- They have incredibly long to-do lists that only ever get longer.
- They wear a lot of different hats in the business and don’t know the best way to allocate their limited time.
- They easily lose focus and motivation when life gets in the way.
Most creative entrepreneurs are relying on brute force and caffeine to get things done instead of systems and structures. One of the neglected systems and structures is PLANNING.
In this episode, I walk through five steps to plan your work week so that you can stay focused and productive. This is an overview of the exact process I use to plan my own week as well as the process I teach inside of my signature program, Thrive Business Bootcamp.
The five steps are:
- Review your goals. Look at your annual or quarterly goals and remember the big picture of what you’re trying to accomplish.
- Review last week’s progress. Make note of your wins, what’s working, and what’s not working so that you can adjust accordingly.
- Review your projects, tasks, and calendar. Before you make your list for the week, remember what’s on your plate.
- Make your list for the week. Write down the things you want to get done and pick your top three priorities from that list.
- Time block what’s most important. Block off time on your calendar for things that you know you will struggle to find time to do.
Sign up for the Plan Your Perfect Week workshop here.
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Today we’re talking about time management un-hacks. Why un-hacks? Because these things aren’t gimmicks or tricks or secrets. On the contrary, these are the things that successful people do so that they can be truly productive.
And true productivity is measured not by how many things you can get done. It is measured by the impact of what you get done.
The three time-management un-hacks are to:
- Define your priorities: You have to decide what’s most important and let everything else be less important.
- Allocate time to your priorities: We talk about ways to intentionally allocate time to what’s most important on a daily and weekly basis.
- Protect your priorities: We talk about ways to put boundaries around your priorities so that you can stay focused and on-track.
Sign up for the Plan Your Perfect Week workshop here.
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On today’s show, I interviewed Tamera Darden, who is a friend of mine and also my brand photographer. Tamera is the creative director of Darden Creative, a digital content creation agency for beauty, wellness and lifestyle brands, and professionals.
Since starting in 2016, She's worked with almost 50 brands & influencers, including Base Butter, Harper's Bazaar, & Macy’s, creating content for their social media platforms & websites. In addition, her work has been featured on Good Morning America, Shopify, Rolling Out and other digital publications. She is originally from New York City and is now based right here in Washington, D.C.
Tamera’s journey as an entrepreneur has been far from easy. She is an incredible example of perseverance, hard work, and grit. On the show today she talks about:
- How she started her business as a professional photographer with only an iPhone for the first 18 months
- Best practices for staying committed to your business while still taking on part-time jobs to pay the bills
- The biggest mindset shift that allowed her to start filling her pipeline with clients.
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You can find Tamera’s work here and follow her on Instagram here.
In today’s show we talk about how to make wise investments in your business. It is so tempting to look to others to tell you how to spend money, but as the business owner, you need to be empowered to make these decisions yourself!
In this episode, I cover the dos and don'ts that can guide your investing decisions. You’ll discover:
- How to overcome your fear of spending money on the wrong thing
- How “magic bullet” thinking can sneak in and sabotage your investment decisions
- The biggest temptation to avoid when it comes to outsourcing, and what to do instead
- The most important thing to do before you spend a penny
Sign up here for my free live training on February 3 and discover how to make real money from your creative business…so that you can keep doing what you love while balancing a full life.
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On today’s show, I interview Amanda Shuman, branding and web designer and founder of Carry Love Designs. Amanda’s “science-over-art” approach to branding and web design creates not just pretty websites, but financial results. In today’s episode, she explains how she uses branding and web design as a tool to grow her clients’ businesses.
In the interview you’ll discover:
- The most important element of your website (hint: it’s not your logo, your photography, or even your portfolio)
- How you should approach your website in your first year of business
- The biggest mistake I’ve personally made on my website, and what I wish I would have done instead
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On today’s show I review five of the biggest mistakes I see creative entrepreneurs making when they set business goals. I talk about:
· Why setting too many goals can leave you frustrated and overwhelmed
· How to break down your big-picture dreams into strategic 12-month goals
· How to avoid setting goals that are safe and comfortable
· How to stay committed all year to your goals
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This time of year everyone is talking about their New Year goals. And I'm all for it. But, looking ahead without learning from the past is a big mistake. There are three questions you need to ask yourself before you set 2020 goals.
- What went right?
- What went wrong?
- What did I learn?
Next, I'm sharing my biggest takeaways from 2019:
- Do the thing
- Consistency is king
- I have a personal brand
- Profit is more than just money
Last, I'm sharing how my takeaways informed my 2020 goals and focus areas.
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As we head into a new year, we all have a lot we want to accomplish. As creative entrepreneurs, it's easy to feel like we have too much to do, and not enough time to do it.
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking busy-ness equates to progress in business, but it doesn't always work that way. I'm walking through three ways I see creative entrepreneurs staying stuck in busy without getting results. These ways are:
- Overpreparing
- Using tactics with no strategy
- Doing too much
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In this episode, we talk about what imposter syndrome is and how to deal with it effectively. But we aren't talking about cheap memes and mantras, but actionable and practical strategies you can use to build your confidence so you can build your business.
Links and References:
- Akimbo by Seth Godin, The Great Pretender
- The Confidence Code, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
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