No Mercy Business Podcast with Emily A Woodruff: Recent Episodes
Emily Woodruff
Business Coaching & Consulting with Emily A Woodruff for women in business who are ready to take their businesses to the next level.
In this episode, Emily is talking to the Fresh Princess of Email Marketing, herself, Liz Wilcox. Our Virtual Assistant (VA) series continues by talking specifically about outsourcing and how you can know it is the right time to do so.
As Liz and Emily discuss a mutual unappreciation of the word “solopreneur,” the sentiment behind that word is brought to light in detail. As Emily says, many entrepreneurs burn out quickly because they either try to take too much on themselves to accomplish, or have no idea just how much they are doing or what needs to get done for their business to be successful.
Liz offers great insight into how she realized it was time to outsource and when she could realistically do so for it to make financial sense for her situation. Listen in for more!
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Hiring a virtual assistant can feel like a big leap for small business owners. In this podcast episode, Mallika Malhotra, CEO of a brand strategy, mentorship, and speaking business, shares insights on the power of delegation and how hiring a virtual assistant (VA) can help entrepreneurs to maximize their business growth. Mallika discusses her experience of finding the right VA and the benefits of delegating tasks, enabling her to focus on her expertise and brand development. This episode provides practical tips and valuable advice for entrepreneurs on finding and hiring a virtual assistantthat is the right fit for their business. Tune in to learn more about how to leverage the benefits of a virtual assistant for business success.
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In this episode, we dive into the world of virtual assistants and photographers in the wedding industry. Our guest, Liz Cipriani, shares insights on how virtual assistants can help photographers save time and money, specializing in areas like Dubsado
hear from a photographer in the Baltimore-DC area who provides services such as social media graphics and blog posts. Liz emphasizes the importance of open communication and building relationships with clients to ensure customer satisfaction. Tune in to learn about the strategies that virtual assistants and photographers use to succeed in the wedding industry.
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Photographers, other creatives– like writers, real estate agents, online course creators, etc. are all businesses that can benefit from having a VA on their team. In this episode, Emily talks to special guest, Jen Mullen, to break down what it is that makes VAs so useful for the modern day entrepreneur. Tune in to find out more!
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Does anyone actually use Virtual Assistance anymore? Isn’t the virtual assistant market completely saturated? These are important questions, but they are not meant to discourage you from a rewarding career as a virtual assistant altogether, but rather equip you with the information of why virtual assistants are very relevant to today’s ever changing job market AND give you a creative idea of how to find clients as a VA.
In today’s episode, Emily is talking to boudoir photographer, Alexa Hallberg. Emily and Alexa discuss the pain points Alexa had when first deciding on whether or not to hire her VA, why she ultimately decided to make the investment, and the value she sees from that decision in her boudoir photography business today.
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In this episode of the No Mercy Business podcast, Emily is going solo and will delve into the topic of setting boundaries in female entrepreneurship. Women in business often struggle with the pressure to be constantly available and do everything themselves, but this approach is not sustainable and can lead to burnout. Emily will share her own experiences and the importance of setting boundaries in reducing stress and worry. She will also provide practical tips on how to establish boundaries, and explain how they can help women in business achieve more success while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Don't miss this valuable episode where Emily will share insights and inspiration to help you take your business to the next level while overcoming the anxieties so many of us don’t enforce the boundaries we set– or don’t have any at all.
Why did you decide to start a business?
“Duh, Emily– to make money.” rolls eyes
Money is certainly an important reason, but for most– it can’t be the only reason. I believe many of us would say, “I started my business to make a difference.” Whether that is to make a difference in the world or to impact those around us, our “why” is found in the core of who we are. So why are we talking about this?
Have you ever voiced the reason you went into business to someone else? To your audience? Have you ever seen such chaos or a problem– you wanted to voice your opinion, but just didn’t know how so you didn’t say anything at all? Emily’s guest today, Terina Maldonado, is a vocal empowerment life coach that helps her clients to speak up, speak out, and live authentically.
This can take many forms like the scenarios described above, but what about small-scale issues that we face everyday? Maybe you need to motivate your work crew? Steer your business in a new direction? Need to have an important conversation with a client? Terina and Emily latch on to the discussion of empowerment through the words we use. Tune in to find out more!
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You have your business (which you are totally crushing by the way). You are getting some consistent income coming in. You are even paying yourself– it is your business, after all.
But what the heck are you supposed to do once you have a strong financial foundation? Maybe you haven’t even had time to think about that, or it gets so overwhelming to think about it that you just put off the “f-word.” (Finances… what were you thinking?)
In today’s episode, Emily is speaking with accomplished financial consultant, mentor, and educator– Eunicia Peret. Taxes, leveraging your wealth, having your money work for you, financial empowerment; these are all topics that are discussed in the episode. The goal is to get you in a place where you are able to make empowered and educated decisions about the money you have worked so hard to get!
Are you resonating with anything you’ve heard so far? Tune in for the full episode!
Get the episode details at https://moxieassist.com/no-mercy-business-podcast/
Did you know that reading more books is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions? Of the individuals who make that resolution, did you further know that most would prefer non-fiction? Move over Brene Brown , but the point I’m trying to make is– what if it was your name on the cover of that book?
In today’s episode, Emily is talking to Lanette Pottle, an author and book coach for female entrepreneurs. “It’s like magic,” Lanette says, “writing your book boosts your authority.”
This makes sense, right? If you invest enough time to write an actual book about a particular subject, you must know a lot about it. You may not know it now, but you have a story to tell. Not only do you have a story to tell, but girl– it is worth telling. Your story can be a bridge that connects you to your audience on the most intimate level. Authors cannot help but be vulnerable with what they write. By telling your story, you are honoring your journey and creating a solid foundation of trust for your audience.
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Are you an overwhelmed, working mom? Are you struggling to feel like you can manage it all?
Valerie Recore joins us to teach us how to stop feeling pulled in too many directions as parents and how to take back the focus in our lives.
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You have to present a project in front of the class. Yikes!
You have an interview where people will ask you questions… and you have to respond. Eep!
You receive a phone call instead of a text! Faint
Why does the idea of verbal communication freak most of us out so much? Have you ever told yourself, “Well, I’m just not that great of a communicator.”
In this episode, Emily talks to Amanda Box, who has spent 25+ years in the field of communications. And Amanda is here to say that you can be an effective communicator, even if you have thought your whole life that it was never a talent that you could acquire.
Not only can you be an amazing communicator, but you can learn to be assertive with your words without sounding rude. If the idea of any kind of conflict makes you want to put your head in the sand, tune in for this episode as Amanda breaks down the idea of communication into a plan. After all, when we see something that scared us into a fit of anxiety broken down into manageable pieces, it becomes something actionable. Let’s take a Moxie mindset going into 2023 as we bolster our confidence and become the fantastic communicators we know we can be.
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How many of you changed your major in college? I would say most of us did for sure. Whenever we grow and learn, our choices and decisions often reflect that. That is why young adults in college are likely to change their major at least three times while getting their bachelor’s degree. If you have been in the entrepreneur game for any amount of time, you have probably undergone similar change. In today’s episode of the No Mercy podcast, Emily talks to special guest, Mandy Nicholson.
Mandy is a Creative Genius consultant who hosts retreats for women to recalibrate by unlocking their creativity.
You might say, “Emily, that sounds fantastic. I’ve just never been the creative type.”
And I would say, “I get why you might think that, listener– but I will challenge you to shift your mindset.”
Many people think that creativity is a skill that you are born with, or else, you just don’t have it. That really isn’t the case. Creativity is a skill that you practice. Just like you practice entrepreneurship. You get better as you grow and learn. It influences your choices that you make day-to-day. I would even make the argument that entrepreneurship demands a certain level of creativity. Otherwise– your business just won’t be able to adapt and meet the needs of your audience. After all, our audiences grow and change as well. It is our job to keep up… creatively ;)
Unknown Speaker 0:03
Well, hello, everyone. And thank you so much for being with me within for another week on the no mercy business podcast. This is your host Emily Woodruff. And I have Mandy Nicholson with us today. Mandy, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Unknown Speaker 0:20
I would love to thank you for having me first, Emily, to be here. So I am the creative genius consultant. I'm an artist. I'm an author. And I'm also a creative retreat owner, and I help creative women to launch grow and scale their businesses and make more money. I'm on a mission in the creative space to change things and to change the narrative of society around creativity.
Unknown Speaker 0:49
That's so great. So I love the retreat idea. We first of all, you're in the UK, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we should just get that out the gate. I love this idea, though, of of having a retreat space, or almost like a co working space for creatives, because there's so many, like here, there's a couple places locally, that are just co working offices. And it really limits you if you are a creative, I don't necessarily need a small desk, I might need a big giant room to be able to spread out and do different things when I'm working on design projects. Or if somebody has an art, something that they need to work on. I would love to see more of this. So how did you come up with this idea? Or where did this where was it born from?
Unknown Speaker 1:40
It's a big story. So I have got a big story all in all, but this idea My late husband, Gary gave me a nudge towards my creativity in 2018 and said, stop talking about it and just do it. So we I launched my creative business on Boxing Day 2019. And I was kind of like, right, I've launched the business, this is great. It was going well, what next, and I put a castle on my vision board. And I was like, I want to move to Scotland. I want to buy a castle. And I want to run creative retreats for women from around the world. That was my next big goal. Yeah. I always like to have a what next. And then obviously the pandemic hits was in March of 2020. And then my husband died in April at the end of April 20, which was necessary. Yeah. It's you know what, though, he had a life limiting condition. And that man knew how to live and he taught me how to live and how to go for your dreams and goals. And I was left then as you know, as a widow with this castle on my vision board. And I kept looking at it. And we were going through grieving myself and my kids. And we got to march 2021. I said to my son, do you know what my daughter is off to uni? I think I'll sell the house. And I think we'll move to Scotland. So I can manifest this dream of owning this castle. Yeah. Or fully because if we're in situ, if we're in Scotland, then I might be able to manifest it. And he was like, okay, Mom, no problem. He was 17 at the time. So I put the house on the market and sold it the same day. A better get local something in Scotland and a little house and I'd have a studio in the house. And I generate the income through my business to eventually get to this castle a 10 year plan. So I was looking for houses. And this one came up in between two that I was looking at. And it was an X bank that had been left to go to a bit of wrack and ruin and I walked up to it to view it. And I'd literally put it in between two viewings didn't really know whether I wanted to look at it. And I walked up to the front of it. And I thought that looks familiar. And I walked in it to view it and I thought that looks familiar. And what happened was it's like the universe gave me a miniature version of the castle that was on my vision board. Yeah. This was a seven bedroom, xx bank in the town of dalbeattie on the west coast of Scotland that needed someone to buy it, love it and renovate it. And I was like the universe has just given me the opportunity to do this now, not in 10 years. I need to just accept this and I bought the house and I've automated it over the last year. So I now have three retreat rooms based on artists. So I've got a Manet room, a Van Gough room and a Picasso room where women can come and stay here for four days or seven days. And they will work with me. I've got a massive studio, a walled garden. We're in the middle. We're surrounded by the forests in Scotland. And it's like we're hugged in this little town by forests. So the great, wonderful, it's wonderful and it's it's just you quaint little Scottish town. And in it is me with this like what I call my mini castle now. So it's an 18th century property with big 13 foot ceilings and cornices and the curved staircase, it's beautiful. So I've created a space now where women can come and escape life and really tap into the creativity so that they can elevate their lives and live to their full potential because I followed my dreams to do this and took a huge risk. I want to help people to do the same. So that's the story.
Unknown Speaker 5:39
I love that I've like, want to look up plane tickets right now. It sounds so great. I'm so so what kind of things do you like host? Do you host trainings or anything like that? Or is it more of like a just an artistic retreat for someone to do themselves.
Unknown Speaker 5:57
So no, it's an artistic retreat you come. It's it's an all inclusive artistic retreat. So we cater for all your meals, all your art equipment is supplied. And you will work with me, you got me 24/7 For the time that you're here, and I'm obviously a business coach with my coaching business. And I've got lots of other income streams and businesses as well. So I know what I'm doing in terms of business. But I like you to set a goal when you come to these retreats with what you want to achieve while you're here. I like to push people outside of their comfort zones when they come here. And I have guest experts come in to do particular things with people. So I have a lady that comes in and does art journaling for an afternoon and mindfulness and how you can use it for well being. But I'll have you in the studio covered in pain painting on canvases and painting items that I've salvaged from the house and creating projects. And I'll be in the forest with you teaching you how to paint the energy of the forest. And so it's it's a it's a real inclusive weeks, things that you will never think of doing as a creative you will be doing while you're here.
Unknown Speaker 7:07
Yeah, or things you dream of doing. But don't ever put pen to paper. That's so great. Um, I'm coming. I'm coming. So you've also you've been you're you're an author, you have a book that you just wrote, What is that about? A talk about?
Unknown Speaker 7:26
Yeah, that's my story is so it's the first of I'm signed on a three book deal with Austin Macauley publishers. So I've written book one, which is called the lie phi one. And it's a fictionalized version of my story. So in 2009, I was your typical creative, went to uni did my degree in art ended up in another job because I couldn't get one in the creative space and spent sort of 1520 years working in retail. built a really successful career was earning six figures had a company car but wasn't following my creative Sure. Rain. And in 2009 It's almost like the universe reset me. And I experienced a car crash and then a series of unfortunate events. And I lost everything. I lost my marriage. My dad died, I was made homeless, I ended up bankrupt, I lost everything. And I did a bit rock bottom living in a social housing. With my two kids and my two dogs. It's all I had left my kids, my dogs, a few bits of furniture, 30 pounds in my bank account and clapped out old car, but the opportunity to rebuild. And that's the book book. One is the life I won. So in losing everything, I realized what really mattered. And that that was the springboard for me to rebuild my life, which is what I did. And that's Book Two, Book Two is called the life I created. And I'm about halfway through it now. So
Unknown Speaker 9:03
I love that. That's great. That's really, that's a really cool story. I'm sure there's more to it. A lot more. Yeah. So what do you do? What do you do as a creative people? Do you sell like art pieces yourself or anything? What do you do if people don't like the things that you make? Or they don't respond well to them? How do you handle that?
Unknown Speaker 9:26
I don't care. I paint what I love to paint. So and if people don't like it, it doesn't matter. You can scroll on and find somebody you do like it really doesn't matter. So I'm not one of but I deal with a lot of women who do care and do struggle with this thing and it's getting from I'm very lucky. I've worked hard on my mindset. I paint what I love to paint somebody out there will love it. Something painted for one person, isn't it? It's yeah, yeah, there's the one person who's gonna go that's the thing. I love so I've done a series of paintings about women and empowerment that are not everybody's cup of tea. I also like to do really small landscapes of the minutiae of the landscape that everybody walks past the detail, the little shrimps and the dark places. So I do what I feel like doing as a creative. So my creativity comes out in painting, it comes out in writing, it depends on how I'm feeling were pulled towards it for us. As creatives, we're pulled to whatever, aren't we? Yeah. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 10:30
yeah. For sure. How do you how do you feel the most creative? Or when do you feel the most creative?
Unknown Speaker 10:38
Don't I suppose I feel the most creative when the ideas pop in. And that's where I'm pulled, then, you know, I can be relaxing and doing nothing. And then I'll be like, right, I've got an idea. And I literally go and start writing a book or writing something or creating a piece or I'm in the studio painting some flower at the moment that I saw that looked fantastic. And I snapped a photo off. So that's it? Yeah, it just creeps over me. And then I don't have a set time. I do kind of work in my business at set times. But if I feel creative, I'm also prepared to stopping what I'm doing right there and then go and do what I want to do creatively.
Unknown Speaker 11:21
Sure. That's the beauty of being able to manage your own business, right is you can say, Nope, I feel the urge. And I gotta gotta respond to it. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 11:31
that's why I created the business I've got, I wanted to create a freedom business that allowed me to go and do all of those things. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 11:41
That's great. So what are some it sounds like you've you've learned a few lessons throughout your life? What are some that you might share with a new entrepreneur, somebody who might be pursuing, pursuing a new business or pursuing a new avenue in their business?
Unknown Speaker 12:00
Yeah, I mean, that's what I do for women. And I say this to all my ladies, or whatever you start with, prepare for the fact that it's going to change somewhere along the line, because you won't, might not end up what you started out doing as an entrepreneur. Things change, and you change as you grow. And as you learn in business, I would say expect your business to take two to four years to really get on rails because nothing happens overnight. That's important, no matter what. And if you go in expecting to be making 10 grand months, in three months, you're going to feel like a failure, because you might get lucky. But generally 99.9% of people have to work really hard for that level of, of income.
Unknown Speaker 12:47
And I think that that is so important to talk about, because there's so many courses of courses online, and there's so many coaches who will say, I can scale your business to six figures in 90 days. That's fantastic, if you can, but it's hard. It's hard to understand how if that is not your entire life, you don't have friends, you don't have family, you don't have responsibilities, how it would be possible, and just with how many other people how saturated the market is not doubting it, I'm not saying it's not possible, but it just as I want to get rich in 90 days, you know, it hasn't quite happened yet.
Unknown Speaker 13:31
Not possible. If you don't know how to do it, it really isn't possible. If you don't know how to do it, the marketing out there. It's a machine marketing, and you know, hitting on the right thing at the right time. It's like anything in life, isn't it, there's always the top 1%. And there's always that person that just has that wonderful idea at the right time when people are ready for it and it explodes. What you don't see is the 10 years of work that went into developing that idea and working behind the scenes on coming up with all the structure that goes with that idea. So there are no, there are no real overnight successes. And the people that are wealthy are the ones that are selling courses telling you that can make you a six figure business owner in 90 days because they can't. Because if you're not ready for that, they can't make you do it.
Unknown Speaker 14:19
Right. Right. That's the key right there, I think. Okay, I have one more question for you. And it's just about
Unknown Speaker 14:27
work that you've done in the past or some of your accomplishments. Do you have one creative accomplishment that that has given you the most satisfaction?
Unknown Speaker 14:40
I think the thing that I have loved doing the most and my biggest creative accomplishment is my creative Mastermind course because and here's why. I paid 10,000 pounds to a coach to teach me how to build an online business. And what I will It was not how to not do it. What it was was the best 10 grand I ever spent. And I looked at my creative mastermind, and I said, I want to build something totally amazing for women that isn't going to tank really, genuinely transform them, and build a system of how we bring the right people in, and we help them in the right way. And that's exactly what I'm doing. And I could have gone down that marketing route of telling everybody I could change their lives and make them millionaires. Most Creative. Women don't want to be millionaires. They just want to make it No. Right. So why would I market to that? And I think it's about really knowing your ideal client and building something. And guess what my ideal client is a version of me. And if I can help them to be as successful as me, then that is I love I get up every day happy because I've achieved this and created this thing. Women so that's my without a doubt my biggest accomplishment.
Unknown Speaker 16:04
That's great. So where can our listeners find you or connect with you online?
Unknown Speaker 16:10
Well, I am literally everywhere on every platform, but me on my website, which is www dot Mandi nicholson.co.uk or for the retreats, it's the Art Bank dalbeattie.com.
Unknown Speaker 16:25
Okay. Thank you so, so much for being here with us today. I really appreciate your time and it was great to talk with you.
Unknown Speaker 16:32
Yeah, I'm jus it's gone really quick. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Emily.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Episode 27 Title & Episode Description
Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!
If you are picturing Ross from Friends, then we can be friends. This word has almost become a cliché in business, but cliché or not, something that will always be true in owning your own business is knowing when to pivot and how to do so successfully.
Emily, what do you mean, “pivot in business?” Thanks for asking!
You remember the little pandemic that halted everyone in their tracks in 2020? Yeah, in this episode I walk you through the changes that my business has gone through the years. A prime example of pivoting, or shifting focus in business, was when the pandemic hit. Was it fun? No. Does it have to be painful? Also, no.
I’ve learned many lessons throughout my time as a female entrepreneur, but one thing that I have learned as my business has shifted, is that each shift is different– but no matter the difference, each shift was made easier with effective branding. As people, we do not just stay the same. We evolve, we grow, we change. Because businesses are run by these ever-changing people, it stands to reason that businesses might evolve as well. Join me as I talk about the importance of establishing your brand and knowing when to rebrand, especially when it comes to a timely PIVOT!
Title: Recovering in Business when Burnout Hits
Description:
Entrepreneurship can be a rollercoaster for your emotions, ammiright? For some, you may have started your business because you were feeling a bit… underappreciated in your old position? Maybe you even felt undervalued? Ringing any bells?? Maybe you just completely lost interest or the job didn’t spark your joy after a while. Or perhaps, you woke up from an autopilot-like state and realized… you never felt that “spark” to begin with.
If you have ever felt this way, don’t worry– you are in good company. Left unchecked, these feelings result in burnout. Burnout is not this magical feeling that only teachers, nurses, or social workers can feel. It can be any job for any of the reasons mentioned before. Dare I say… you can even feel burnout in your own business.
In today’s episode, Emily is talking to business specialist, Kylie Ota, who specializes in burnout recovery. For all the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, or CliftonStrengths enthusiasts out there, this episode is right up your alley. Kylie shows us her business expertise by explaining the four different archetypes that we, as female entrepreneurs, can display during burnout. But here’s the great news, not only does she give us these four different archetypes, but also how the burnout recovery can begin for each.
Want to hear more? Tune in to this insightful episode of the No Mercy Business Podcast with special guest, Kylie Ota.
BurnoutArchetypeQuiz.com KylieOta.com @kylie.ota Unknown Speaker 0:00 Hey. Well, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for being here for another week of the No Mercy business podcast. I am your host, Emily Woodruff. And I am super excited to have Kylie OTA on here today. Kylie, why don't you go ahead and tell us about your business and what you specialize in. Unknown Speaker 0:21 So thanks, Emily for having me on today. It was so great connecting with you initially, and just hearing about your podcast and a lot of the things that you've talked about regarding burnout, which is what I help people with. And your story about burnout really intrigued me. And so anyway, without further ado, my name is Kyle Yota. I'm a Business burnout coach for female entrepreneurs, and I help them really understand the root causes of burnout so that they can pluck it out of their lives and really heal and recover from it. Because my burnout journey was, it was a long, long process of recovery. The physical pieces were or I would say, easily healed, or I was rested, I took supplements, from my natural path. And the physical symptoms cleared up right away. But the part that really got to me was when my doctor was like, okay, yes. And you need to alter it, you need to make some lifestyle changes. Yeah, really need lifestyle changes, or this will just resurface again a year later, and you're gonna be back in the same spot. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 1:33 Okay, so Unknown Speaker 1:36 that was really hard to hear. I mean, before that, I started seeing my natural path for just increasing my energy, I was a shift worker for 19 years. And right, in oil and gas, manufacturing, and just working days and nights. All of that really takes a toll on your body. And when my life group leader introduced me to her naturopath, I was like, Oh, my gosh, she's like, my energy is up through the roof. And so the first thing that we did was, you know, really fix the eating habits and figure out my food sensitivity so that I knew what to fuel my body with, so that I could increase my energy. Yeah, a lot of people were going to see him for that special diet for the weight loss. And I'm like, Well, I did actually lose about 2025 pounds during that diet, but it didn't really matter. That wasn't really what I was going to see him for. It was energy that she had talked about. So my energy went through the roof. And I was I thought I was doing good. I was really, you know, eating clean. And then all of a sudden, I went through a really stressful season. And as I like I just my bodies hang out in a major project at work, and got remarried, we have a blended family. Unknown Speaker 2:59 So how can relate to that? Unknown Speaker 3:02 Yeah. And it for me, it was like I was still eating clean. I hadn't really I wasn't really working out. Well, who has time to work out when you're working 6070 hours a week? Yeah. But actually, I was planning my wedding. And in the middle of a major project at work like a multi, I would say million, almost billion dollar project at work. And so I was still eating clean because I was going right into my wedding. Yeah. Into my wedding. Yeah. But then the hours that I was working, there was one week or I had clocked in over 100 hours. And I only knew that because I couldn't actually type in a three digit code for that three digit number for that week. So I had to talk to HR and say, Hey, I actually worked, like over 100 hours this week, and it was just crazy. So really understanding how I was working. And what was really motivating me and driving me was really the beginning of understanding the burnout journey for not only myself, I became a health coach, you know, learned the health things, there was an adrenal protocol that that I, I studied under, and I learned and I was applying that to my health coaching clients. Then a lot of my health coaching clients, well, clients, colleagues, they saw all of the systems and automations that I was building in my health coaching business, and that's how we're gonna transition into business, the business side of things and helping people set up their technology and their automations because right, we're online business owners. You have to you have to have random social media presence, you have to learn how to have links and like, what's the lead magnet and set up in email thing? Unknown Speaker 5:05 And Unknown Speaker 5:06 because I was, I guess, I don't know, I love technology like, I love actually, I'm, I'm an early adopter for apps, and I love figuring things out. It's probably because of the oil and gas background where, you know, we will get technology have to install it. Those are a lot of my projects, like getting new technology and installing it inside of the plant and understanding how it would all work, and then having to teach my colleagues do the training and all of that to teach them how it all worked. And I love figuring things out. I love tinkering, you know, so if you're not familiar, oil and gas manufacturing, I was in the field. And so that meant I had coveralls had a tool belt. I had a hard hat. I had steel toed boots. So I was out there. It was yeah, in some office I was out there with no, like, I'm with all the dudes working. Yeah. Because I know you have some of that background too, right? I mean, Unknown Speaker 6:11 I do I do. I work for a commercial construction company. There's only two women in our whole company. And there's only been four women in the over 100 years that we've been around. So there's a very small group of us. Unknown Speaker 6:27 Right, but I get to where I Unknown Speaker 6:29 don't have to wear steel toed boots and don't have to wear, you know, the same things they do most of the time. But sometimes they yell at me, but you know, Unknown Speaker 6:38 so that's the other thing with the stress and all of that it's not only the physical stress that my body was under, but there's a lot of that psychological stress. And I was in the army, I joined the Army right out of high school in order to find my way through college, and it's, it's crazy, like almost the same type of I would say, like boot camp language. And locker room language is what happens in these industries. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of that goes on. And it, it really takes a certain type of individual to be able to sift through that. And it's like a different language. It is. Unknown Speaker 7:25 It is we so my husband is also in the construction field. And we like, from him. To me, we don't like swear with each other, which sounds I feel like a middle schooler when I talk about this, but like he and I don't swear to each other in our regular conversations for the most part. But if he's talking about things that like happened in a shop, or I talk about when I was in the field will notice it. And then we're like, Okay, I just called you dude. And I said the F word three times. And that is not how I talk to you, my husband, and you know, and we kind of just laugh and it Yeah, it really is a culture. And then when I go in the field at my work now, you can see the men physically like, thinking about the words that they have to say, because not only am I what am I a woman, I'm a woman from the office, so they feel like they have to alter everything. And I'm like, It's okay. As long as you're not swearing at me. I really don't care. Right, right. Talk to me like you talk to your your guys out here. I don't care. Just don't call me names. That's all. That's all I'm saying. You know, it's funny. Yeah, it's Unknown Speaker 8:35 so it's, yeah. And same thing, I met my husband on the job. So when we talk about work things. I mean, we still talk about work things because he still works in a field and then I he comes home, and we talk about things that happen and like, oh, yeah, bla bla bla bla. And, yes, yeah, it's just so weird. Like how the language shift the energy shifts when we talk about work stuff. And yeah, like we don't say we don't talk to each other a day. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 9:07 Yeah, I call I call like, the different conversations we have. I named them like, different personalities for him. So my husband's name is Dan. So when it's hunting season, I call him Deer Camp Dan. And like when he's outside, I, you know, he's like, work from home, Dan, and this is shop, Dan, and it makes me get less mad at him. Because I take it out of him. Make it someone else, you know, so. But yeah, it's just funny how we do that sort of thing. So I want to hear about how you you have developed this, this personality test. It goes through and kind of teaches you how to determine what your burnout type is kind of names, do an archetype and then teaches you some resources or gives you some resources on how to avoid that. Why don't you talk about that for a minute? Unknown Speaker 9:56 Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So it, if you're interested in taking and getting your own archetype, you can go to burnout archetype quiz.com. And just type that in and it'll take you through a quiz. It's super short. I mean, Emily, you just took it. So yeah, yeah, super short. And just go with your gut, the first, the first hit in your gut, just pick that one. And you should be in and out within 30 seconds to two minutes. Because if Yeah, thinker. And we'll get to that archetypes of I would say that the overthinker would be the perfectionist archetype. So there's four, there is the powerhouse, there is the popular archetype, the philanthropist and the perfectionist. So those are the main four. And each archetype actually has a different type of driver. So the we'll just start off with, from the top, the powerhouse archetype. And she is, I will say, fortunately, unfortunately, driven by money. So that's why you'll find a lot of entrepreneurs who are in the powerhouse archetype. Because if you're right, if you're in entrepreneurship, you are driven by sales, you are driven by making sales because if we're not making sales and not making money, then do we really have a business? Yeah, right. And then on the flip side of that, so what if you're listening audibly on the podcast, you can draw a circle, it's gonna look like a little clock, draw circle, cut it into four quadrants. And suddenly, from the upper left hand corner, T I M, E, so this is my time wheel. And each of the four archetypes correspond to the time wheel, and the time acronym stands for T's. Time, is ideas, M is money and ease energy. So the time so the money archetype. I mean, the powerhouse archetype is driven by money and success, not in a bad way. But that is her initial driver, that that's what drives her to keep going. And on the flip side of that, on the opposite side of the wheel is the time, which is the philanthropist archetype. And how, like God downloaded it, to me was when we're looking at our calendars, and we have a lot of appointments with other people, that that's why the philanthropist is connected into time. Because a lot of her time, money and energy goes into spending time with people and helping people. So she's a real supporter type of energy. And she's that person that will give the shirt off her back to someone who needs it, because that's just the giver in her right, a true like servant leader. And the other two ideas and energy, the ideas is the popular archetype. And she would be the social butterfly, the one that's always like, she has so many ideas, she really doesn't know how to capture them and how to execute them. And on the opposite side of that her the opposite archetype is the perfectionist, so the perfectionist she is I would say, you could put people in here that are very honestly, it's numbers driven, but they are like they're oriented. Yeah, he tell oriented love to cross the i's. cross the T's, dot the i's. Yeah, obviously, I'm not that person. But you know, in, in the oil and gas, I was that type of person, because I had to be because of the projects that I was managing. So I had to kind of put on that, that hat for a little while, but my natural tendency is a powerhouse and the popular. Okay, my top two. And, like, so, Unknown Speaker 14:00 when you're looking at the power house archetype, yes, she is driven by money. But what really what it really boils down to, she gets burnt out, trying to keep up with the Joneses. Just trying to keep up with her, her fellow entrepreneurs. And it's different from the popular archetype, meaning like, the popular archetype will see things that are happening out on social media, and whatever she's like, Oh, that's a cute idea. Let me try it. And she really suffers from shiny object syndrome. She's always trying to do things like oh, that worked for that person, then that should work for me. And how the powerhouse is kind of different is she sees the success path that other people are putting out on the internet, but she will kind of look at it and see does that that tactic or whatever, line up with her goal And yeah, yeah, cuz she's really driven by that success path like, will it get me to where I want to go? As the the popular archetype will be like, Oh, yeah. Will it get me to my goal she is not that she doesn't care about that. That's not her primary driver, her primary driver is visibility. So that's why you'll see a lot of the people in the popular archetype. No hesitation, will go live will do, you know, get on all the podcasts talk to all the people, right? Kind of, I would say kind of like a politician, where, like, she's out here, you know, shaking hands and kissing babies. She loves being in front of people. And that's what's really the driver of her business is getting in front of people. Like I love networking events. Okay. COVID. I was like, Unknown Speaker 15:58 very challenging, Unknown Speaker 16:00 was a very challenging for me. And I actually went into a little depressive slump. Yeah, we ended up getting a dog because of like, I was home alone. Yeah, my husband, he still works in the fields. Like he's out nights and weekends. I was like, Unknown Speaker 16:15 I'm alone, like, Unknown Speaker 16:16 I need. I need some things understand. Yeah. And, and it was really affecting how I was showing up online because I would say the popular archetype is like, what you see what you get, she wears her heart on her sleeve. And sometimes it's hard for that popular archetype to show up online, because she is 100%, authentic, vulnerable, like, you can read her like a book, she's not afraid to share how she feels. She's totally open book. And then on the opposite side of that would be the perfectionist archetype. who struggles to show up online? If she is not at her 100%, if that makes sense. Like she wants to always put her best foot forward. So that's kind of like her Achilles heel. She, she will not put anything out unless it is perfect. Yeah. Right. There's that 8020 rule, right? Just Unknown Speaker 17:19 yeah, Unknown Speaker 17:20 80% is good enough. Just put it out there. And those are the people that you'll see. We'll put out stuff and like, the graphics aren't perfect. Like, did they have perfect? No, no professional photo shoots. Landing Page like, did they test it? No, like, that's the person. But the perfectionist will go through like, check the landing page a couple of times, test it, like, tweak, copy, like, oh, I don't like how this looks. Let me go back and like change this word, change that word. Let me swap out the images. And she's analytical, sometimes over analytical when looking at those things, because she thinks that's what matters. But what really, for her to like, how to really overcome that Achilles heel is for her to just use that 80% rule. Just yeah, it's 80%. Good. Like 80% is a B? Yeah, it's not an F. Yeah, it's some B. So, you know, like putting a B work is okay. Yeah. Sometimes she feels judged. And I think a lot of the perfectionist have been judged a lot in the past, and they feel like they can't show up imperfectly. Because someone or somebody will say something. And then next thing, you know, like, I'm done. I'm not sure. Yeah. And they think they toss in the towel way early because of that. So anyway, that's I Unknown Speaker 18:57 work with a lot of women who fit into that category. And actually one of my very close friends, she is in the process of launching her up. She's an author. So she's launching a website to go along with it. And this has been in the work works. I kid you not for at least seven years. And she's to the point. Yeah, she's to the point and she's gonna yell at me because she listens to this, she's gonna yell at me when she hears this, but I tell her all the time, like you need to just go live, your website needs to be live. Even if you don't have it. 100% you need to have it active because you are currently losing in your business. You can go in every single day and make those changes that you want to and get it to 100% but you having a presence over having zero. That's, that's unfathomable value. You know, you have to be able to be out there and she just No, no, I'm going back to the drawing board and I'm going to do this again, and I need to redo this and I need this to be just right. And like, No, you don't, not in this day and age, you do not have to, I appreciate that you value what you do, and there is beauty in it, but you can't let it hold you back. Because it's never going to be perfect. Perfect. It's never going to be exactly right. You know, and to get to get stuck on that and to hold yourself back from it. She's she's doing a ministry, she wants to write children's Christian books. So for her to Yeah, so for her to not be able to publish those and get them in the hands of little kids. Those are little kids that are not reading her stories and that learned about Jesus just a little bit more, you know, not to no pressure Kendra, if you're listening, Unknown Speaker 20:46 love you can giraffe. So, so how we can combat that Achilles heel is. So I would say like the popular archetype will just turn on her camera, go live and be done with it. Yeah, but the perfectionist, like her main avenue for social media, I would say would be writing, right? So she can curate her photos, right? curate her photos. And take the time to like, write a post. Oh, and then edited a little bit. And same thing. 80% rule like, set a timer, you can take however long you want to write that post, pick your photos, whatever. But go ahead and just put it out there and just hit post. And also for the perfectionist who are listening to this. You can always delete Unknown Speaker 21:40 post. Yeah, yeah, always delete. Exactly. If Unknown Speaker 21:44 not perfect. You hit post, and you read it. And you're like, oh, my gosh, is not perfect. One. There's an edit button. You can Yeah. And then number two, if you don't like it, or you're feeling some type of way about it, you can just delete it and wipe it off the face of the internet. And nobody will know. who've seen it. Sure. Yes. And could you? Yes, the ruminating thoughts like oh my gosh, they see it changing the school, right? Oh, my gosh. Unknown Speaker 22:16 You know, just Unknown Speaker 22:19 just better to get it out there. Yeah, Unknown Speaker 22:21 yeah, it's better to get it out there. And, um, and the thing with that is, you won't know what resonates with your audience or doesn't resonate, unless you start putting content out there. Right. You know, let your people tell you what they like and what they don't like. And yes, is there backlash? More Sure, of course. But as entrepreneurs we really, like if we're in this type of business, and we really want to get seen, we really have to go ahead and build a little bit of big skin. No, put on our armor, armor. All right, before we get online, and what I do is, I have issues I will i am the the popular archetype. So I can go ahead and press live and just be done with it. And I never watch it again. Like, right. I don't care if anybody watches it or whatever. But when I sit and I write something I don't like writing. So I'm like, an IT. I am. I am that 100 percenter when it comes to written polls, I'll just be honest. Sure, sometimes what I'll do for that is I will go in as like, Hey, God, what do you want me to share today? What do you want me to share today? And then I just hit like, whatever God puts on my heart to share on I guess. Unknown Speaker 23:57 flows, right. That's good. Unknown Speaker 23:59 Yeah. And then it flows. And so for those perfectionist who are listening, like just ask, like, what does my audience need to hear from me today? And if you've done that avatar work, right, a lot of it is it what does, where you name your avatar, you give her? You name her, you give her all the demographics psychographics and you you know, you build that already. It's even better. Like if we're talking to Dre right now, like, right, you name her and you pick it person from your audience that you're writing to. What does Kendra need to hear today? Yeah, about being a perfectionist. Yeah, that's a good example. And then what would you tell her how would you you know, educate her or exhort her? Wouldn't she need to hear today and that your website live? Okay. Unknown Speaker 24:58 So when Yeah, yeah. Why don't you go into why don't you talk a little about a little bit about what? Some of your clients like what what your engagement with them looks like having you as a burnout recovery coach? Sorry, that took a lot to say. No, yeah. Unknown Speaker 25:19 Yeah, so some of the things that we work on a lot of it first is identity, like, who are we, in Christ? And like, what is the message that we need to put out there? Because a lot of times, I'll be working with clients, and some are, you know, they built big businesses, but we keep going around a table, obviously, that was the perfectionist client, going around the table not being solid on offers, or rewriting copy, you know, things like that. And for for those type of clients, it's always about refocusing. And Ken Well, let's go back to your offer. Right. It's, we always start with the offer. Yeah. If we're, we're doing it anything out here that's not driving people back to our offer. That's what leads to burnout. Because you could be posting on social media, and be thinking like, well, what, what's really happening right now? Like, why am I not making any sales and it's like, well, you're not making any sales because you're not actually selling anything, you're not driving people back to your offer. So that's one way how we get the perfectionist archetype to start feeling burnt out and really focusing on what's really important, which is driving people back into your offer. A lot of times a perfectionist will get stuck in the details and like, well, I need to have an end strategy. Like I need to have X number of posts per week. What is my engagement percentage? What is that? What is that? Like? I'm sorry, I It's very cold here in California today. Unknown Speaker 26:56 Oh, goodness. What's the weather like out there? Unknown Speaker 27:02 It's cold and windy. But inside of the house. We don't have central heating. So it's like 66 degrees. The house Unknown Speaker 27:12 I'm laughing at I'm laughing at you because I live in Michigan. And it's 63 and I have a cut off shirt. Unknown Speaker 27:19 Yeah, and you're like, conditioning I'm in my car. And I'm gonna Lulu Hawaii's okay. Why? That's so funny. I have thermal. So funny. Have a turtleneck. Unknown Speaker 27:37 Hey, you do what you got to do. Well, thank you so much for being here with me today. Why don't you tell our listeners where they can connect with you online. Unknown Speaker 27:46 So Unknown Speaker 27:47 if you want to go to my website, which is not even at 100% but it's live, it's Kylie alter.com ky lie ota.com. And if you want to take the burnout archetype quiz and find out your archetype, and you'll get once you take the quiz, you're gonna get a little blurb that tells you about, you know, the plusses and minuses of each archetype and how you can use your architecture advantage to avoid burnout your business. Unknown Speaker 28:18 Awesome. The burnout archetype. Unknown Speaker 28:19 quiz.com Unknown Speaker 28:21 Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and you being here with us today. Unknown Speaker 28:26 Thank you, Emily. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Has Impostor Syndrome ever crept up and knocked on your door making you think something like this, “What makes me different from the others in my niche?”
Well let’s perk up those ears as we listen to today’s episode, shall we? Our guest today on the No Mercy Business Podcast is Jackie Sunga. Jackie is a conversion copywriter and brand voice expert specializing in sales copy and launch strategy.
*And no, we are not talking about the process of copyright with the little ‘C’ in the circle symbol.
Copy-writing is the practice of using words in a way that it motivates the reader to do something– like buy. Words can hurt and heal, but Jackie knows that words have the power to sell, too. Jackie takes it a step further and answers that question from the beginning for us. What makes you different from others in your area of expertise? The simple answer is you. Your story is unique. You may offer similar services as someone else, but your story (your voice) is ultimately what will connect with your audience.
Join Jackie and Emily as they discuss Jackie’s experience with her clients as she helps them highlight and find their brand voice and incorporate it into their websites, email sequences, landing pages, social media, and more!
Jackie Sunga is a certified master marketer, conversion copywriter, and brand voice strategist. She helps new and established online course creators, coaches, and creative service providers productize their knowledge and launch educational courses, coaching programs, and powerful brands with strategic messaging that scales their businesses.
Growing her own business to surpass six figures in one year, Jackie specializes in launching, sales copy, and brand voice to help her clients attract perfect-fit customers with customer-first messaging. Her approach to sales copy is strategic, data-driven, and fueled by deep customer empathy, so clients can sell from a place of integrity.
Jackie lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and two dogs.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackiesungaco
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackiesungaco
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelinesunga/
Website: jackiesunga.co
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackiesungaco/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jackiesungaco
Unknown Speaker 0:03
Well, hello, and thank you so much for being here for another week of the No Mercy business podcast. This is your host Emily Woodruff. And I have another exciting guest for you today. I have Jackie Sangha with us, Jackie, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you
Unknown Speaker 0:18
do? Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me on the show, Emily. I am conversion copywriter and I specialize in sales copy for websites and course launches as well as helping entrepreneurs with their brand voice architecture. I love helping course creators, coaches, consultants really bridge the gap between their expertise and their audience with customer first messaging. So whether I'm teaching new entrepreneurs or whether I'm writing for big brands, I really love helping my clients find the words that will help them attract their perfect fit people and sell with integrity.
Unknown Speaker 0:58
That's so neat. How did you how did you get involved with this type of work?
Unknown Speaker 1:02
Good questions. So I was a before starting my online business, I was a music teacher before. So my last year of teaching, I was a teacher for five years. And during that time, in 2017, I was I was asked to be a social media manager for a music nonprofit. And I knew I really wanted to have digital marketing experience. And back then my sister was also an entrepreneur, and she had also gotten into email marketing and copywriting. And she was like, you know that email marketing is more effective than social media. So I was like, Okay, this really motivated me to study it on my own. And so fast forward a couple years, I actually enrolled part time in grad school to be a therapist. And while I was in grad school, I met all these awesome therapists online who had really great accounts like social media accounts, wanted to I like would purchase there while I was still teaching, like I would, I would purchase some of their things. And I was like, you know, if there's anybody who I would love to write for, to help them really connect, like their expertise to more people, it would be the therapist. So then, I actually had one of my first clients was a therapist, and she was really excited that I was in grad school for her exact niche or degree too. And so that was one of my first paid projects. And I had ended up writing literally all of her copy, like it was her sales page, or sales, emails, her social media captions. And I plan everything in Asana too, and it ended up we ended up tripling her sales goal, which was so awesome. And I was like, Cool. I'm, I can definitely do this. I want to do this again. Yeah, like that. So that's my story. In a nutshell.
Unknown Speaker 2:52
That's so great. So what is you mentioned brand voice and brand voice guides, when we were talking earlier? What does that look like for your clients?
Unknown Speaker 3:03
Yeah, good question. So often, I find the, it's, I don't just work with therapists anymore. I love working with all different types, of course creators and, and experts. And a lot of the times not all the time, I see some of them who will invest in custom branding, like visual branding, and imagery, which is beautiful, right, but they often don't have the same thing for their words. And so where I come in my one of my services is creating a brand messaging and brand voice guide, so that they can really have and feel super confident and how they want their values to be expressed. And how to resonate with their perfect fit people in a way even though you know, if they have lots of different competitors, there's always a secret sauce. Right? And that always comes in through either, like the experience that they've had. And, you know, I I've had, I had one client who was a therapist, she was like, you know, so concerned, like, all of these people have the same certifications and the same degrees that I do. And I was like, well, nobody has your story, right? And then you have your framework that you've created based on the results that you can get your clients. And so I really love helping people find what is your unique framework? What is that unique process? And how can we explain that so simply and so easily so that you know nobody can copy that right nobody can copy your story ranking copy the way that you help your clients achieve results because you created it right so yeah, so my my brand messaging brand voice guide it covers a lot of like the messaging angles that you would put in marketing, but also the very like technical things like style and tone and again, stories and like the rhythm of your words. So to make it easier for everyone to remember my spring voice framework is star so it's style tone, anecdotes and
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Rhythm. That's so great. That's so cute.
Unknown Speaker 5:03
Easy to remember.
Unknown Speaker 5:04
Yeah, no, I love it. And I love I love. I just love all that I forgot what I was gonna
Unknown Speaker 5:15
you know how it goes? Um, I know that's really neat. And I really like how how it pairs with regular branding, like what you traditionally think of as branding. That's a really unique service. And I like how it incorporates your story, like you say, it's, it's kind of just hopeful that you're right, nobody else has your testimony, or has your has the walk that you've been on, they haven't seen the same things as you. That's something that I encounter a lot as a branding designer as well. How do I know that you're the right one for me? And I'm like, you don't? You don't know. It's just gonna take time for us to get used to each other and to sometimes you just don't jive perfectly well with someone else. And that's okay. And I like I like to tell people, it's okay. Like, it's not, you're not gonna break my heart. If I'm, if I'm not the branding designer for you, I obviously want to be. But if we can't talk to each other on the same level, if we can't connect, if we can't see eye to eye, I would rather you be with somebody who's going to make your world turn upside down, you know, and do the things that you Yeah, that can tell YOUR story the way that you want it to be told.
Unknown Speaker 6:30
Yes. And that's a rave too, right? Because it's like, you know, it's, there comes a point in business where like, if you're just getting started, and you're like, you know, I think a lot of new service providers will take on the, the they'll take on any client. And then as as business gets more mature and whatnot, and it gets a little easier to find clients, then it's it's easier to step into that courage. I definitely remember for sure, well, how how I would have those conversations in my head of like, should I take this client? Or should I? Yeah, I know. But it's always better to say no, for your, for your mental sanity and my opinion to Yeah, to you and what you value. And that will resonate with the customer, too.
Unknown Speaker 7:21
I totally agree. And I mean, you're mentioning values, like there's a lot of people who are, especially in Christian based organizations, I think are faith based organizations that you're scared to tell somebody No, because maybe their brand or their company doesn't align with what you stand for. I'm, I'm very much in favor of saying, Hey, I appreciate you so much for reaching out, I just don't think that we're a good fit. Yeah, and a lot of times, they will just say, I appreciate you being honest with me. Yeah, sorry that it didn't work out. But that's okay. And they want to work with somebody who believes in the same things as them too. So, right. You know, it's not as terrifying as it seems, I think. And I, a lot of people laugh at me, because like, I've only been doing my branding business for about a year. So when I share stories like that I'm not afraid to to turn people away. I've been an entrepreneur for over 10 years. So I've seen it in so many different ways. And professionally, we have to turn people away too. So like, I just, it's all the same to me, you know?
Unknown Speaker 8:34
I hear you, I hear you. So
Unknown Speaker 8:36
how do you use your faith within your business? How does that coincide? How you interact with clients and such?
Unknown Speaker 8:43
Yeah, great question. So I would say my, my business isn't necessarily like, I will only work with Christian clients. I, I got this from one of my friends from one of my dears mentors, who she's a therapist, and you know, her practice isn't, you know, it doesn't have the Christian like sign outside of the door. But you know, she, she embodies it so well. And that is always been my inspiration for things in terms of, you know, if I'm having a lot of anxiety, not, I remember, like, when I first first establish the business and just having remember, like really, truly having a lot of anxiety about about this girl and leaning onto my face during that time period was just so crucial. And being able to pray and like really develop a deeper sense of trust, not just in the Lord but also like in myself. Because it can be so easy or we don't realize when we're first just when we're starting out how much you know, it's really up to us to make all of the decisions, right. Yeah, it's like, you know, whether or not someone is hired a bit Just coach. I mean, it's kind of cheesy
Unknown Speaker 10:03
to say, but it's like the Lord is my business coach. Yeah, no matter who I hire, yeah, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like,
Unknown Speaker 10:14
we're human we can make, we can make decisions that can go either way. And the truth of the matter is, like, the uncertainty of it is, that's the only thing that's certain, right? The only thing that's certain is the uncertainty. And I incorporate my faith, the best is how I, how I cope with the uncertainty and how I, and how I'm able to manage that. And granted, like, I have hired some incredible mentors and business coaches in the past, but ultimately, you know, it's not really their job to tell me exactly like what to do, like, I want to make my make the decisions that feel best to me, you know. And so, I can not separate my prayer life from that at all. Because if I'm, like, super stressed or anxious about something, then I'm like, I know, I'm not going to be able to make the best decision for your my family, etc. So I could say a lot more about that. But
Unknown Speaker 11:17
that's no, I love it, I love it. And I think that's something too, that's a neat thing. I don't work specifically with Christians only, either. But there have been times where there's been clients that have approached me and I'm like, I, it's just not, it's so different from what I believe in that I just can't do it. So I'm not afraid to, you know, work with non Christians by any means. You know, just to kind of throw that disclaimer out there. But, um, I, I think that people forget, or don't realize, maybe when they're working with Christians, how involved we really get with our clients. And like you say, you can't separate your prayer life, from what goes on in your business we have, I have a partner that I work with on some web development things. And we have a client right now that has kind of said, I just need to be praying about this, I need to, you know, go to the Lord before I sign this contract. And we're like, hey, just so you know, like, we are both on the same page, we pray together over these things. Like, it's important, and I'm glad to hear it and want you to know that we're on the same team. And, you know, it's just really neat to see when people do and when they're bold about sharing their faith in their business, and I just love it.
Unknown Speaker 12:35
I love that. I love that too. And I think it's really special when you can find clients who really have this who have that boldness, as you're saying, and who are who feel comfortable to share that with you. Yeah, I and even with my clients who are not Christian, it's it's always really, it's wonderful when we can talk about that, and be human with each other. Yeah, really connects us together in in ways that's beyond the actual work. And I think that adds just a rich layer to the relationship because you ultimately, I want to have relationships that I can I can lean on for a long time, you know, yeah, I want to have clients that i i Come back to or that like we were having conversations beyond just our work together. Yeah. And it's beautiful when that happens. So I love it. I love it.
Unknown Speaker 13:34
So how do you like what is what's the first step that you would suggest an entrepreneur takes when they when they're considering rebranding their business?
Unknown Speaker 13:43
Yeah, so one of the biggest things is to make sure that you're making decisions from a place of rest, and not making decisions from a place of being stressed out or burnt out. Because your brain is not in the best place to think deeply about the future and how your decisions now are going to impact the future. And, you know, it can be hard to take time off, right? If we're so used to, you know, wearing all the hats and things like that if you don't have an assister if you have one assistant or whatnot, yeah. Having that capacity, and then really deeply thinking about the mission of your business, and how has that mission changed? And when you think about your business, if you're a personal brand, for example, right? It can be hard to be like, Okay, well, what does my business stand for? And can that mission be customer focused? Right, so I like to give an example of one of my favorite brands, which is a funny water company called Liquid death. Their mission is threefold it is to make Compute or get people to drink more water, make them laugh and kill plastic pollution. So it's super easy to remember. Right? Yeah. incise. And so I was, and so if if you're going through a rebrand, is it easy for you to state your mission statement like why your company even exists the purpose of its being right? Very simply because if you can't, or if you're, if there's something that's making it difficult to express concisely or clearly, then that means there's some a little bit of deeper work to be done there. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of people will say, like, think about, you know, your vision and what and, you know, what do you want your life to look like, that's so important, right, to allow yourself to dream. But I also like to make sure that we're, we're not, we're not divorcing our customers from that vision to and how to help their their lives get easier. And transform, I think it's a one sided perspective, when you hear some business coaches talk about like, oh, the vision for your life or life, your life. But you know, there are customers who are affected by those decisions. Yeah. So what is that new value that you want to bring to your, to your customers? And why is that important thing, just really coming back down to the why? Because then once that foundation is so solid, it's going to be so much easier to it's going to be easier for your marketing, it's gonna be easier for your messaging, your team onboarding, your operations, and your overall customer experience and the delivery of your services or products, right? So programs, too. So that was really a long winded answer. But it has to start there. And because you know, it will get so much easier to sell your services or the the rebrand of those service suite, whatever it is, right? It's going to be so much easier to sell and think about big revenue goals. Because you're tied to a deeper mission. I think that a lot of business owners even in their, you know, even even people who are older than you and I are right. And if they've been in business for a long time, right? It can be easy to be like, oh, yeah, like I've already done that. Right? Or like, Yeah, but but, you know, if I noticed that there was any hesitancy in terms of like, okay, like thinking about money and thinking about your revenue goals, and like the growth of your business in the upcoming year, it's probably because there's still a lot of like ourselves wrapped up into position and not other people. Let me think about serving other people it just gets so it then becomes like, stupid, easy, you know what I mean? Yeah, not talk about this, or how can we not serve in this way? So anyway, long winded answer.
Unknown Speaker 17:58
I know. But
Unknown Speaker 17:59
no, it's good. That's good. I'm glad it wasn't just a one word answer.
Unknown Speaker 18:04
Yeah, sure. Cool.
Unknown Speaker 18:07
What else? What else? Is there anything in particular that you would want our audience or our listeners to be able to know about you before we head out today? Oh,
Unknown Speaker 18:17
um, well, if you have ever made the mistake of not clarifying your your mission in that way, you're not alone. And to think about your brand identity as three fold, right? You have your values, which, you know, it's a really good test to see if your values are clear when you ask like an assistant or ask your customers or people who follow you on social media, what they are. So first, your values, what is your value identity? Is that clear? And then your verbal identity, your verbal brand identity? Is it clear what problems that you solve? What customer problems that you've solved? What is it clear what the transformation is? Is it clear how you speak to, you know, why or what is it clear how you speak to other solutions in terms of like your own positioning in the market, right? And then then when when it's easy to talk about that and your brand voice and how your own brand personality is expressed through words, then cohesively it makes sense to be like, okay, cool. Here's my visual identity. So it's a beautiful, like Venn diagram, if you can picture like three circles, your value identity, your verbal identity, and your visual identity to help you honestly create this brand that not only feels like you, but that also resonates with your perfect fit person. So my construe rebranding all of those are that's what I would say is the secret sauce.
Unknown Speaker 19:56
That's awesome. Where can our listeners find you and connect with Do
Unknown Speaker 20:01
so my website is Jackie sangha.co And you can also connect with me on Instagram at Jackie setup co no dot Hopefully that's not good evening. And for listening today your listeners can enjoy a brand voice freebie which I have over at Jackie center.co/brand-voice. So that's going to help you with your verbal brand identity in 90 minutes or less.
Unknown Speaker 20:31
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. It was really great to chat with you.
Unknown Speaker 20:35
Thank you so much for having me, Emily. It was my pleasure. Yeah.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Carrie Baquie (Bach-E-A) is a Chronic Illness Coach who empowers women who are sick & tired of being sick & tired to get unstuck so that they can reclaim a life they love even if they have been urged to accept the status quo. She partners with her clients to help them shift from surviving to their vision of thriving using a holistic approach that integrates wellbeing at the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. Socials https://www.instagram.com/carriebaquie
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Women Transforming Chronic Illness Facebook Group - A free, private community bringing together women living with long term health changes to give and receive support in transforming their experience of illness.
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for another week at the No Mercy business podcast. This is your host Emily Woodruff. And I am super excited to introduce you today to Candice Batista. This. I feel like I just butchered it right that I'm sorry. I asked and I practice. Candace, why don't you go ahead and just tell us about what you do?
Unknown Speaker 0:28
Yeah, so my name is Candace Betty's I am a wife, a mom, daughter of the king? I, yes, yes. By day, I am a school psychologist by night. I'm an author podcaster. And prayer warrior on the wall. So yeah.
Unknown Speaker 0:49
Awesome. So you have kind of a specialty, specialty type of work that you do. You work with people through their heartbreak? Yes. Why don't you talk about that a little bit?
Unknown Speaker 1:05
Yeah, so this, what I call my calling was kind of birthed out of my own heartbreak. I experienced that devastating breakup in 2015, which really revealed that I had a lot of healing work to do from my past, because that wasn't my first breakup. It wasn't my first heartbreak. So it made me really go down this road of true healing and what that really meant and growing closer to God, partnering with him, growing my faith during that time. And, you know, once I felt, you know, much better, obviously, emotionally, and just so much growth happen. I learned so much about myself, I learned so much about God during that time. But you know, I didn't know what would happen in 2015 2016. I just knew that I wanted to tell my story somehow. And I fumbled through that a little bit. I went ahead and tried the YouTube channel, I tried blogging, those things didn't really work out very well for me. And then sometime later, while I have my daughter in 2019, and at the, like, January 2019. And then like, December 2019, God was like, you know, you're gonna write a book. I was like, Oh, cool. So I didn't know it all, you know, didn't know it all that would entail. But I worked through that writing the book and just published a book. And this October, like two weeks ago, we went ahead and released it. Yeah, it's called Goodbye, heartbreak Hello, purpose. It's a 365 day journey that kind of journeys with you for a whole year through that whole process. And then also, I've just started some coaching because through some market research, I've realized that women are really struggling with their self worth after breakups. And that's kind of hindering the healing process. So we're actually I'm offering something called self worth sessions kind of work with women through that.
Unknown Speaker 3:01
That's awesome. So I know that this is kind of this is a little bit different for my audience. But I really like it because we all are, we are women, listening, and we are all, you know, at least in common in that way. But I think that heartbreak can be something that it doesn't have to be relational. It doesn't have to be a romantic relationship. I've experienced heartbreak in my business, and I've experienced heartbreak professionally, and just really felt like this might be able to tie well together. So if you're, if you're sitting at home, and you're like, why are we talking about relationships? That's, that's where my connection is. And I think it's a really neat opportunity. Um, so why don't you talk about how, how can heartbreak motivate someone to thrive? Instead of reverting or failing? Can you talk about that for
Unknown Speaker 3:54
a second? Sure. So I always say, you know, of course, that initial shock of the heartbreak that, you know, it's you have to kind of make it through that season, right. And it's different from person to person someday. Some people it could take weeks, some people it could take months, but you know, it's really important to go through that healing journey, just the healing of emotions, but after that, I would say, you know, a lot of people I don't want to say a lot of people but you know, there are people who become better and better some people just go right back to the same old thing. You know, it's really different. But I think you have a, you have an opportunity during the season to grow, right. You're, you're some people say they're buried, some people say they're planted, right? So if you do it the right way, as being planted, then this is your opportunity for growth and everything that's piled on top of you, you can say, you know, this is my fertile soil that will help me and catapult me and that's what I felt like I felt my heartbreak catapulted me into purpose. So and that's, you know, that's why I named the book what I did And so, yeah, so I just think that it comes with renewing your mind. You know, the Bible says in Romans 12 two that we have to renew our minds. And it's a daily process. And so you know, I'm very much a faith based woman. So I've very much believed that get in your word and see what God says about you about what he promised you what you can have, what you have access to what you have authority over, and you take authority and dominion over your life over your area over the things that he's called you to step into your power, you know, and that's what I try to tell women like, you know, I tell them, we develop a something called a power statement. And it's just one like punchy statement that says, who you are. And then when you say this to yourself, say it with conviction and confidence and like, roll your neck, snap your fingers. Say, yeah, really thin and just, you know, own it. Because it, like I said, it's a unique opportunity to really just learn about yourself, you know, we get so caught up in relationships, that we don't take time to sit with ourselves and learn, you know, who am I? What do I want? What do I like? What do I enjoy what I don't enjoy, and just really do some self discovery. And you'd never know what you would uncover as far as maybe a hobby and interest, you can uncover a ministry a business, you know, you really don't know. But you have to pick that time with yourself.
Unknown Speaker 6:30
I love that so much. And maybe it's a God thing right now. But we were talking about this in Sunday school. On Sunday, we were talking about it in church on Sunday, in renewing your mind and how it is a daily process. And it's not just your mind that has to be renewed. That's something that I love that I've taken out of my little study recently is that it's a commitment, and I'm going down the faith train, but that's fine. That's not it's not just a renewing of your mind, it's a renewing of how you use your mind, how you use your body, how you use your gifts, and abilities and things every single day. It's a whole life commitment every single day. And that's really powerful to me, because when you think I'm renewing my mind that just feels like I'm gonna look at the glass half full today. It's not that it's way more than that, you know.
Unknown Speaker 7:21
So that's just choices and decisions, you know, choosing to live differently, and walk differently and talk differently. And you know, I'm gonna go, I'm not going to do this specific thing today. And I'm going to do that, you know, like, it's really it's everything.
Unknown Speaker 7:35
Yeah, it's like, when people talk about lifestyle changes, you know, I'm not on a diet, I'm, it's a lifestyle change, you kind of tease each other about it. But you know, like, it really is you have to change your mindset and everything that you do, along with it in order to truly adapt to something like that. So that's neat. That was a neat little tidbit just to throw in there. So how do you how do you work with individuals through their own personal heartbreaks? What does that look like for you?
Unknown Speaker 8:05
Yeah, so with the one on one, you know, like that I the stuff that I do weekly, I show up on my podcast, and I like to definitely always give out tips and encouragement and things like that somehow tos and walking through, you know, process isn't everything. But the book is one thing, you know, I said, it's, it's kind of like me hand holding you through a whole year. But then also, I just started the coaching. And so I mentioned that I'm doing self worth sessions. And what I do through that is like we're developing, again, the renewing of the mind. So we are developing the biblical affirmations, we personalize and we go ahead and target like, what what are your top three, like negative thoughts that are plaguing you, like What's weighing you down? What's the thing that you're telling yourself, that you're being mean to yourself, you know, you're not being kind. And it's the thing that you know that I'm not enough, or I'm unworthy, I'm not loved those things like that. So as we can target those thoughts, then we were going to battle that. So that and we get the words to battle that. And we spend like an hour we go through that. And what I've realized that it's sometimes hard because women don't. And I say women because I work with women, but people in general just don't want to admit the thoughts that they have. Yeah, that's hard. It's hard to say, I can't believe you know, that I think this about myself. Yeah. So it takes a little bit sometimes to get to the root and to get the truth out, not because someone is maliciously lying, but just because it's just hard to admit. Yeah, we get to that and we come up with affirmations to really like Battle those thoughts. Like I said, we do the power statement. You know, my clients say they leave feeling refreshed. Yeah. And then we follow up with some you know, I give tracking a tracking sheet via like a Google Sheets. And we also do accountability. Be a follow up, I want to know, how's it going? I want to know, like, what was the best part of your day, the worst part of your day? What's, you know, all of those things are tracked in that tracking sheet. And I want to know, like, how often are you actually repeating these affirmations? Because it's, it's a battle, you know, there's a battlefield in our mind, and it's a battle. And so I'm working with them. You know, to me, that's the first step, knowing that you're worthy of healing, because some people just feel like they're not worthy of it. Yeah. And so if you're going to mend your heart, if you're going to heal your broken heart, the first thing you have to do is give yourself some grace, and be kind to yourself, as you walk through this journey.
Unknown Speaker 10:34
I love that. That was beautifully said. Yeah, what so what kind of advice could you give somebody who might be feeling defeated or broken or just run down by their business or by their, you know, their regular nine to five job? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 10:53
it's interesting, you asked that, because, you know, I feel like I've been in the non epi world for quite some time, but I'm very new to the business world, and I'm trying to, you know, balance the two right now. So I'm actually very much in that, that space of the roller coaster of it all. And so I feel like right now, I'm actually like, you know, being weighed down by the nine to five. But it's like, I said to myself, and I was like, God is showing me you know, as, and it's different for everyone what you're experiencing, but just to keep pushing, like to keep your head down, keep pushing, you know, give yourself time to rest, of course, but as you are working, like not looking to the right, not looking to the left, not comparing yourself to anyone else, not comparing yourself, your progress to anyone else's progress. Those things are so helpful, especially when you're starting out something new, when you have a business that's just not quite flourishing just yet. You know, giving it your all before you say, I'm gonna throw it out, throw in the towel, you know, those kinds of things, and really just praying over and speaking over, you know, I don't want to come off as hyper religious, right. But I believe in the power of prayer, and if you really just speak good things over your business, and you're planting those positive seeds. And so you know, and I believe that those seeds are going to flourish one day, so just go ahead and speaking life into your business, instead of saying, Oh, this is not working. Oh, it's, it's still failing, I'm not seeing the results. Say what you want to see until you see what you say, yeah. So that's my advice with that, as far as the nine to five, the way that I feel about it, you know, we are, you know, some people are called to that. And if that's your purpose, that's your passion in life. I mean, give it all that you have. For me, I am in a place where I am, I'm just trying to figure out how do I work my nine to five, and do what I have, what I came to work to do, and to make it work as best as I can for me, you know, you know, take care of my responsibilities, but definitely how do I make this work for me and my life, because I have small kids, I have a one year old, a three year old, and I also have a bonus daughter who's 19 years old. And you know, it's like, yeah, and you know, I still take care of my household, I still cook, I still, you know, we I show up in my household, and then I have to work nine to 540 hours a week and the business and a podcast. So it's a lot. And so give yourself grace, and do what you can do. And because you can't do more than that, yeah, you can don't beat yourself up. You know, be kind to yourself, once again, be kind to yourself. And that's, that's the best I got for you.
Unknown Speaker 13:36
That's great. That's great. So how do you because we encourage Christian businesses here? How do you in? I don't know how to say the word. Incorporate sorry? How do you incorporate your faith into your teachings with your clients? Like, how does that? How does that play out for you?
Unknown Speaker 13:56
Yeah, it's the basis of my business really, because I you know, it's a faith based business. It's based on the like I said, we're building affirmations but they are biblical affirmations. And so you know, we're going through like, what does God say about you and who you are? Let's get in there. So you're having what we kind of thought of you? You haven't you're not loved. Well, John 316 says, God so loved the world. I'm like, yeah, just want to get their son for you, their child because I'm not giving my son Right. Right, somebody's gonna give their son for you, then you better believe that they love you, you know, that? Yeah. worthy of love and goodness and grace and everything that that he says you can have, so that you're going to combat those thoughts. And I believe that that is just so essential. God's word, and your faith to believe in His Word is like essential. And, and, and beyond that, you know, again, like I said, I speak life into my business. My business is small. It's the baby. I don't know what it's gonna be, you know, like one of my children. I don't know what There's got to be so I am praying for the business and I'm praying for it to grow and flourish and be healthy. And so you know, not only am I working with my clients on the faith base component as far as like building affirmations and renewing their minds, but I'm also incorporating God because I'm like, Look, this is your business. Actually, it's not mine, right? We're a business and I want you to be the head. I want you to be all up in it. I want you to be part of the team, right? You just tell me what you want me to do. I want you to give me the strength to do it even when it's may not be the popular belief or what people are normally doing. Just yeah, he's all up in there. That's awesome.
Unknown Speaker 15:38
That's so great. I love hearing that. Is there anything else that you would want to share with our listeners today that they should know about you?
Unknown Speaker 15:49
I mean, they can reach out they can connect with me my podcast is goodbye heartbreak. Hello, healing. The book is good by heartbreak Hello purpose. Everything really is that Candice ate baddies.com I'll give you all of that to put in the show notes. That way they can know how to spell my name. Right and and if anyone is interested in self worth sessions, they can email me at goodbye heartbreak. Hello purpose@gmail.com
Unknown Speaker 16:14
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It was really great to have you on.
Unknown Speaker 16:18
Thank you Emily. I really enjoyed it.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
First and foremost, Kandice is a daughter of the king! She’s a wife, mother of 3, Nationally Certified School Psychologist, and a Christian Mindset Coach. Kandice is the host of the top 1.5% globally ranked podcast, Goodbye Heartbreak, Hello Healing, and the author of the newly released book, Goodbye Heartbreak Hello Purpose: A 365 Day Devotional. Kandice helps Christian women move forward from heartbreak through emotional healing, spiritual growth, identity work, and building their self-worth so that they are confident to walk into their next stage of life. Kandice's mission is to see women healed, whole, and thriving.
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Website
http://www.kandiceabateast.com
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Unknown Speaker 0:03
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for another week at the No Mercy business podcast. This is your host Emily Woodruff. And I am super excited to introduce you today to Candice Batista. This. I feel like I just butchered it right that I'm sorry. I asked and I practice. Candace, why don't you go ahead and just tell us about what you do?
Unknown Speaker 0:28
Yeah, so my name is Candace Betty's I am a wife, a mom, daughter of the king? I, yes, yes. By day, I am a school psychologist by night. I'm an author podcaster. And prayer warrior on the wall. So yeah.
Unknown Speaker 0:49
Awesome. So you have kind of a specialty, specialty type of work that you do. You work with people through their heartbreak? Yes. Why don't you talk about that a little bit?
Unknown Speaker 1:05
Yeah, so this, what I call my calling was kind of birthed out of my own heartbreak. I experienced that devastating breakup in 2015, which really revealed that I had a lot of healing work to do from my past, because that wasn't my first breakup. It wasn't my first heartbreak. So it made me really go down this road of true healing and what that really meant and growing closer to God, partnering with him, growing my faith during that time. And, you know, once I felt, you know, much better, obviously, emotionally, and just so much growth happen. I learned so much about myself, I learned so much about God during that time. But you know, I didn't know what would happen in 2015 2016. I just knew that I wanted to tell my story somehow. And I fumbled through that a little bit. I went ahead and tried the YouTube channel, I tried blogging, those things didn't really work out very well for me. And then sometime later, while I have my daughter in 2019, and at the, like, January 2019. And then like, December 2019, God was like, you know, you're gonna write a book. I was like, Oh, cool. So I didn't know it all, you know, didn't know it all that would entail. But I worked through that writing the book and just published a book. And this October, like two weeks ago, we went ahead and released it. Yeah, it's called Goodbye, heartbreak Hello, purpose. It's a 365 day journey that kind of journeys with you for a whole year through that whole process. And then also, I've just started some coaching because through some market research, I've realized that women are really struggling with their self worth after breakups. And that's kind of hindering the healing process. So we're actually I'm offering something called self worth sessions kind of work with women through that.
Unknown Speaker 3:01
That's awesome. So I know that this is kind of this is a little bit different for my audience. But I really like it because we all are, we are women, listening, and we are all, you know, at least in common in that way. But I think that heartbreak can be something that it doesn't have to be relational. It doesn't have to be a romantic relationship. I've experienced heartbreak in my business, and I've experienced heartbreak professionally, and just really felt like this might be able to tie well together. So if you're, if you're sitting at home, and you're like, why are we talking about relationships? That's, that's where my connection is. And I think it's a really neat opportunity. Um, so why don't you talk about how, how can heartbreak motivate someone to thrive? Instead of reverting or failing? Can you talk about that for
Unknown Speaker 3:54
a second? Sure. So I always say, you know, of course, that initial shock of the heartbreak that, you know, it's you have to kind of make it through that season, right. And it's different from person to person someday. Some people it could take weeks, some people it could take months, but you know, it's really important to go through that healing journey, just the healing of emotions, but after that, I would say, you know, a lot of people I don't want to say a lot of people but you know, there are people who become better and better some people just go right back to the same old thing. You know, it's really different. But I think you have a, you have an opportunity during the season to grow, right. You're, you're some people say they're buried, some people say they're planted, right? So if you do it the right way, as being planted, then this is your opportunity for growth and everything that's piled on top of you, you can say, you know, this is my fertile soil that will help me and catapult me and that's what I felt like I felt my heartbreak catapulted me into purpose. So and that's, you know, that's why I named the book what I did And so, yeah, so I just think that it comes with renewing your mind. You know, the Bible says in Romans 12 two that we have to renew our minds. And it's a daily process. And so you know, I'm very much a faith based woman. So I've very much believed that get in your word and see what God says about you about what he promised you what you can have, what you have access to what you have authority over, and you take authority and dominion over your life over your area over the things that he's called you to step into your power, you know, and that's what I try to tell women like, you know, I tell them, we develop a something called a power statement. And it's just one like punchy statement that says, who you are. And then when you say this to yourself, say it with conviction and confidence and like, roll your neck, snap your fingers. Say, yeah, really thin and just, you know, own it. Because it, like I said, it's a unique opportunity to really just learn about yourself, you know, we get so caught up in relationships, that we don't take time to sit with ourselves and learn, you know, who am I? What do I want? What do I like? What do I enjoy what I don't enjoy, and just really do some self discovery. And you'd never know what you would uncover as far as maybe a hobby and interest, you can uncover a ministry a business, you know, you really don't know. But you have to pick that time with yourself.
Unknown Speaker 6:30
I love that so much. And maybe it's a God thing right now. But we were talking about this in Sunday school. On Sunday, we were talking about it in church on Sunday, in renewing your mind and how it is a daily process. And it's not just your mind that has to be renewed. That's something that I love that I've taken out of my little study recently is that it's a commitment, and I'm going down the faith train, but that's fine. That's not it's not just a renewing of your mind, it's a renewing of how you use your mind, how you use your body, how you use your gifts, and abilities and things every single day. It's a whole life commitment every single day. And that's really powerful to me, because when you think I'm renewing my mind that just feels like I'm gonna look at the glass half full today. It's not that it's way more than that, you know.
Unknown Speaker 7:21
So that's just choices and decisions, you know, choosing to live differently, and walk differently and talk differently. And you know, I'm gonna go, I'm not going to do this specific thing today. And I'm going to do that, you know, like, it's really it's everything.
Unknown Speaker 7:35
Yeah, it's like, when people talk about lifestyle changes, you know, I'm not on a diet, I'm, it's a lifestyle change, you kind of tease each other about it. But you know, like, it really is you have to change your mindset and everything that you do, along with it in order to truly adapt to something like that. So that's neat. That was a neat little tidbit just to throw in there. So how do you how do you work with individuals through their own personal heartbreaks? What does that look like for you?
Unknown Speaker 8:05
Yeah, so with the one on one, you know, like that I the stuff that I do weekly, I show up on my podcast, and I like to definitely always give out tips and encouragement and things like that somehow tos and walking through, you know, process isn't everything. But the book is one thing, you know, I said, it's, it's kind of like me hand holding you through a whole year. But then also, I just started the coaching. And so I mentioned that I'm doing self worth sessions. And what I do through that is like we're developing, again, the renewing of the mind. So we are developing the biblical affirmations, we personalize and we go ahead and target like, what what are your top three, like negative thoughts that are plaguing you, like What's weighing you down? What's the thing that you're telling yourself, that you're being mean to yourself, you know, you're not being kind. And it's the thing that you know that I'm not enough, or I'm unworthy, I'm not loved those things like that. So as we can target those thoughts, then we were going to battle that. So that and we get the words to battle that. And we spend like an hour we go through that. And what I've realized that it's sometimes hard because women don't. And I say women because I work with women, but people in general just don't want to admit the thoughts that they have. Yeah, that's hard. It's hard to say, I can't believe you know, that I think this about myself. Yeah. So it takes a little bit sometimes to get to the root and to get the truth out, not because someone is maliciously lying, but just because it's just hard to admit. Yeah, we get to that and we come up with affirmations to really like Battle those thoughts. Like I said, we do the power statement. You know, my clients say they leave feeling refreshed. Yeah. And then we follow up with some you know, I give tracking a tracking sheet via like a Google Sheets. And we also do accountability. Be a follow up, I want to know, how's it going? I want to know, like, what was the best part of your day, the worst part of your day? What's, you know, all of those things are tracked in that tracking sheet. And I want to know, like, how often are you actually repeating these affirmations? Because it's, it's a battle, you know, there's a battlefield in our mind, and it's a battle. And so I'm working with them. You know, to me, that's the first step, knowing that you're worthy of healing, because some people just feel like they're not worthy of it. Yeah. And so if you're going to mend your heart, if you're going to heal your broken heart, the first thing you have to do is give yourself some grace, and be kind to yourself, as you walk through this journey.
Unknown Speaker 10:34
I love that. That was beautifully said. Yeah, what so what kind of advice could you give somebody who might be feeling defeated or broken or just run down by their business or by their, you know, their regular nine to five job? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 10:53
it's interesting, you asked that, because, you know, I feel like I've been in the non epi world for quite some time, but I'm very new to the business world, and I'm trying to, you know, balance the two right now. So I'm actually very much in that, that space of the roller coaster of it all. And so I feel like right now, I'm actually like, you know, being weighed down by the nine to five. But it's like, I said to myself, and I was like, God is showing me you know, as, and it's different for everyone what you're experiencing, but just to keep pushing, like to keep your head down, keep pushing, you know, give yourself time to rest, of course, but as you are working, like not looking to the right, not looking to the left, not comparing yourself to anyone else, not comparing yourself, your progress to anyone else's progress. Those things are so helpful, especially when you're starting out something new, when you have a business that's just not quite flourishing just yet. You know, giving it your all before you say, I'm gonna throw it out, throw in the towel, you know, those kinds of things, and really just praying over and speaking over, you know, I don't want to come off as hyper religious, right. But I believe in the power of prayer, and if you really just speak good things over your business, and you're planting those positive seeds. And so you know, and I believe that those seeds are going to flourish one day, so just go ahead and speaking life into your business, instead of saying, Oh, this is not working. Oh, it's, it's still failing, I'm not seeing the results. Say what you want to see until you see what you say, yeah. So that's my advice with that, as far as the nine to five, the way that I feel about it, you know, we are, you know, some people are called to that. And if that's your purpose, that's your passion in life. I mean, give it all that you have. For me, I am in a place where I am, I'm just trying to figure out how do I work my nine to five, and do what I have, what I came to work to do, and to make it work as best as I can for me, you know, you know, take care of my responsibilities, but definitely how do I make this work for me and my life, because I have small kids, I have a one year old, a three year old, and I also have a bonus daughter who's 19 years old. And you know, it's like, yeah, and you know, I still take care of my household, I still cook, I still, you know, we I show up in my household, and then I have to work nine to 540 hours a week and the business and a podcast. So it's a lot. And so give yourself grace, and do what you can do. And because you can't do more than that, yeah, you can don't beat yourself up. You know, be kind to yourself, once again, be kind to yourself. And that's, that's the best I got for you.
Unknown Speaker 13:36
That's great. That's great. So how do you because we encourage Christian businesses here? How do you in? I don't know how to say the word. Incorporate sorry? How do you incorporate your faith into your teachings with your clients? Like, how does that? How does that play out for you?
Unknown Speaker 13:56
Yeah, it's the basis of my business really, because I you know, it's a faith based business. It's based on the like I said, we're building affirmations but they are biblical affirmations. And so you know, we're going through like, what does God say about you and who you are? Let's get in there. So you're having what we kind of thought of you? You haven't you're not loved. Well, John 316 says, God so loved the world. I'm like, yeah, just want to get their son for you, their child because I'm not giving my son Right. Right, somebody's gonna give their son for you, then you better believe that they love you, you know, that? Yeah. worthy of love and goodness and grace and everything that that he says you can have, so that you're going to combat those thoughts. And I believe that that is just so essential. God's word, and your faith to believe in His Word is like essential. And, and, and beyond that, you know, again, like I said, I speak life into my business. My business is small. It's the baby. I don't know what it's gonna be, you know, like one of my children. I don't know what There's got to be so I am praying for the business and I'm praying for it to grow and flourish and be healthy. And so you know, not only am I working with my clients on the faith base component as far as like building affirmations and renewing their minds, but I'm also incorporating God because I'm like, Look, this is your business. Actually, it's not mine, right? We're a business and I want you to be the head. I want you to be all up in it. I want you to be part of the team, right? You just tell me what you want me to do. I want you to give me the strength to do it even when it's may not be the popular belief or what people are normally doing. Just yeah, he's all up in there. That's awesome.
Unknown Speaker 15:38
That's so great. I love hearing that. Is there anything else that you would want to share with our listeners today that they should know about you?
Unknown Speaker 15:49
I mean, they can reach out they can connect with me my podcast is goodbye heartbreak. Hello, healing. The book is good by heartbreak Hello purpose. Everything really is that Candice ate baddies.com I'll give you all of that to put in the show notes. That way they can know how to spell my name. Right and and if anyone is interested in self worth sessions, they can email me at goodbye heartbreak. Hello purpose@gmail.com
Unknown Speaker 16:14
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It was really great to have you on.
Unknown Speaker 16:18
Thank you Emily. I really enjoyed it.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Dawnette Palmore is the founder and owner of Your Money On Purpose Coaching where she empowers professional and entrepreneurial women who make great money but don't know where it goes to gain control of their finances without sacrificing their lifestyle so they can live a financially stress-free life. Dawnette is committed to helping women to thrive in their business and life instead of just surviving.
Through her own mistakes with money, she discovered how to keep vision focused instead of budget focused which has allowed her to get out of debt, save and invest in her future all while enjoying the things she loves.
Since 2015 Dawnette has empowered hundreds of women to create a thriving and profitable business, live their life on their terms and be at peace with their money. When she is not empowering other women, she can be found spending time with her family and friends.
https://www.instagram.com/yourmoneyonpurpose/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/yourmoneyonpurpose/
—----------------Transcription
Unknown Speaker 00:02
Well, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for being here for another week of the No Mercy business podcast. This is your host Emily Woodruff. And I am super excited to have done at Palmer with me today. Donna, why don't you go ahead and tell us about your business?
Unknown Speaker 00:17
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on this call. And so, like you said, my name is Dawn at Palomar. And I am the owner and founder of your money on purpose coaching. And what I do is I empower women entrepreneurs and professionals, to hopefully you can edit this out, just lost my train of thought. Okay, I empower professional and entrepreneur women to gain clarity, control and confidence with their money, so they can run a thriving business, live a financially stress free life without sacrificing what is important to them. Awesome.
Unknown Speaker 01:00
So what why do you think that female entrepreneurs need a money? Coach?
Unknown Speaker 01:06
That is a great question. And something I always recommend is that we get wise counsel around us, right expecially as business owners, these are people like tax professionals, we obviously need someone to help us with the tax code, because it's forever changing and what we can we can we need an insurance broker, you know, to make sure that we're being covered properly. Coaches, so there's many coaches, we have like business coaches to make sure that we have our systems and processes in place. And, you know, thinking about any other type of coach or professional that pertains to your industry type. And then we have money coaches, and you would hire a money coach to help you become wealthy, and to continue to increase that wealth. And our businesses are our greatest source to create that wealth. Coaches also help you to talk through things, sometimes you just need to bounce things off of people and really talk through and get an unbiased opinion or view of, of whatever it is situation you're in or decision you need to make. They also hold you accountable. So those are really important aspects to have around you and thinking about a client last year, having a coach she grew her business by 97%.
Unknown Speaker 02:31
Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Unknown Speaker 02:35
Right? So it really does make a difference because coaches can help you focus in on what's important, what's going to be bring growth to your business, which is what we're all trying to do.
Unknown Speaker 02:47
Yeah, no, that's great. How did you start to get involved in in this realm of work?
Unknown Speaker 02:54
So seven years ago, I started my business. And before that, I have been a small business owner myself for over, gosh, it's been 22 ish years now. Okay. You know, we can get caught up in the day to day we do get caught up in the day to day just, you know, family life, all this stuff. And we were making really great money. But we were always like, when money came in, it was great, but when it was it, you know, when we're waiting for the check to come in, we're freaking out. Yeah, cause stress it cause relationship problems, because not only are we married, but we're in business together.
Unknown Speaker 03:31
Right. Right.
Unknown Speaker 03:33
We had a double whammy Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 03:36
Why love my husband, but we can never
Unknown Speaker 03:41
it's a tough situation. It's so you know, just getting you know, one day I just got tired of it. I was like I've had enough we should be a long more in our financial life in our relationship. And so I began to do some research on what can we do I mean, I It feels so overwhelming to think about finances and all the things that we need to do in the first place. You know, we have Okay, we got to pay our bills. Well, that's a given. Kids need to go to college we need you know, birthdays and holidays and, and in a business on top of it and trying to just figure all that out. And I just felt really overwhelmed. So I found a system and process that brought me hope. And I was like, I gotta share this with people because we need to be able to see oh, I can do this step by step by step. I don't have to do everything all at once. It's great. Then I burst my company, which was I had it originally was proverbs financial coaching. And the last few months I just rebranded and now it's your money on purpose coaching.
Unknown Speaker 04:43
Great. That's really neat. So what about why don't you share about some of the bigger mistakes or like common mistakes that you see entrepreneurs making with their money?
Unknown Speaker 04:54
So one of the biggest which I know it's the biggest because I did it Is commingling our business and personal finances. That is one of the biggest things I see that happened or is happening.
Unknown Speaker 05:10
I agree 100% I have a handful of friends and clients that have just always kept their money together. And I'm like, how do you function? It doesn't make any sense to me. Like my brain just does not work that way. There's no way for me to feel like I have peace or clarity on how my business is doing. If it's intertwined with with my other finances, there's just no way.
Unknown Speaker 05:37
And that exactly, no, totally 100% What you just said, no peace or clarity.
Unknown Speaker 05:44
Yeah, like, I just I can't handle things like that. I need to know. I'm very analytical. I'm very, like, cut and dry. I don't want to have to piecemeal through things I want to know. Every second how much is my business? You know, and that's great for
Unknown Speaker 06:00
you. Yeah. Yeah, I think what happens is, you know, maybe we started it as a little side hustle, or we were just making a little bit of money. Yeah. And then it just started growing and growing. And again, especially with women we met, we wear so many hats. And we're juggling so many things at once that we just think, okay, I'll get to it later. Okay, I'll get to it later, or a fine, and we never get to it because we're trying to do all these other things. And I think that's, that's really what happens. It's not something we do intentionally.
Unknown Speaker 06:35
Totally agree. I got a little lag here. Sorry. It's raining where? The internet's not great. Where are you? I'm in Michigan. Where are you at?
Unknown Speaker 06:44
Okay, I'm in California. Okay, so it's nice. Oh, yeah. This week, it's supposed to be, you know, in our 80s. So last week, we had thunder and lightning storms.
Unknown Speaker 06:56
Well, it snowed yesterday. So Michiganders are pretty happy right now.
Unknown Speaker 07:04
A little bit early for that.
Unknown Speaker 07:06
It is we're not happy. Well, great. Um, so what about some, some practical tips that you can suggest to our listeners to get on the right foot and, you know, start things out the right way?
Unknown Speaker 07:19
Yeah, so I always say, and this is so important, even when we're starting business. And I think again, we just get caught up in starting the business, getting it going. And then life happens is really to go back to our why. And evaluate why we started our business. What we're trying to accomplish with our business, you know, did we start it for extra income? Did do we want to quit our nine to five? And, and, you know, time freedom. I mean, that's huge for us. Right? Yeah, think about that, and why we started and then focus on making a plan. That's great. Really, right? The, the secret sauce, right and in anything, right, that's where it should be starting. But it will give us more of that clarity, that confidence and that peace moving forward in our business, and even in our personal lives. And so what do we have to do? We got to start with our personal because when we're commingling these things, if we start with our personal finances, you know, getting on a plan with that being more intentional with our money, where is it going? Where we want it to go? And what is our lifestyle really costing us? And we really need to look at that. Do we need to make some changes? We need to have honest, honest conversations with ourselves. And when we do that, that we know what what our business needs to pay us, because we need to get that. Yeah, we need to be paid. Yeah. That's screaming, right. We ended up running our personal expenses through our business or vice versa. And so we think we're really not making money. So if we go back, start with our Y, get our, our personal finances in order, and then do the same thing in our business. And just ask ourselves, you know, these questions, what does it keep to keep our doors open? Right? If we brought nothing in? What does our business still have going to cost to run? Right? And, and again, that includes paying yourself right, so not just, you know, our everyday business expenses, but what is our you know, our financial responsibility to ourselves? Yeah, costing as well.
Unknown Speaker 09:35
There's a lot of people that forget that, like you leave your nine to five, you leave your traditional job. And you think that it only costs the management the, the what's the word that I'm looking for the overhead fees to run your business? Yes. Yeah. But it's, it's definitely got to include you on your payroll because Why did you leave your job in the first place because you could be more profitable somewhere else, being your own boss, your nine to five wouldn't have forgotten to pay you. You wouldn't be struggling to do this, that you would never be in the situation in your regular job. Why is it even on the table? For you in your business to not get a check?
Unknown Speaker 10:15
Exactly. And if your nine to five didn't pay, you wouldn't stay?
Unknown Speaker 10:18
Right. Right. I could talk about that for days. You know, the boundaries that people place between a traditional workplace and in the flexibility they give themselves in their own small business. That's a whole sermon.
Unknown Speaker 10:36
It truly is. And we're really doing a disservice to ourselves and to our business and to our families and our purpose. Yeah, we don't run our business like a business and become thinking, Okay, this is a business and we need to run it as so.
Unknown Speaker 10:53
Yeah. I had somebody on earlier this summer, and she said that exact thing. Well, I said, What is what is the day in the life of you as a small business owner? What does that look like? She said, Well, I run my business, like a business. And that was so profound to me. I try to run my business as a business, but just to hear it put so plainly, like that changed the way that I looked at things. And I loved it. I loved it.
Unknown Speaker 11:21
Yeah. And we forget to do that. You're right. We do. And and it really is that simple.
Unknown Speaker 11:27
Yeah, we try to overcomplicate things so much. And it's just it's not that hard. You know, I mean, there's hard things I'm not not displacing Matt. But yeah,
Unknown Speaker 11:38
yeah. You need to, you know, take a step back. And, and like you said, remember why we went into business and what we're trying to accomplish and, and that pain ourselves, you know, you hear it from all, you know, the financial gurus to pay yourself first. Yeah, that is paying yourself first. Yeah, we need to keep the door open. But we also need to keep food on the table. Yeah, we're not doing that, we're not going to be able to keep the doors open. And it's, it goes hand in hand. And that's why I always say go start back with your why. And then get your personal finances in order, so you know what your lifestyle is costing you. And then you can go move into your business and know what your business needs to keep the doors open. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 12:22
it's like the the airplane analogy, you know, that if, if you're an emergency, the oxygen back drops down, it's written on the instructions, 15 different times, put it on yourself, first, you have to take care of yourself, before you can take care of someone else. And I don't know what it is about Americans and you know, taking care of ourselves in this self hatred. I know that self love is really popular right now. But it's really because self hatred is so popular, and is so imminent. And I don't know why we lower ourselves to all these different bars that we shouldn't ever, we shouldn't ever be at, you know, we have to take care of ourselves before we can care for others. So that like statement,
Unknown Speaker 13:11
no, no. 1,000%. And I think it goes back to, you know, what does self care look like? Yeah, I mean, I've been told for so long not to be selfish, you know, putting everybody before us. And I think it's almost become natural for us to put everything before us. Yeah, before ourselves. And then we're trying to pour from an empty cup at a business on top of it. And we can't function that way any more. It's not. It's not working. And so we really have to take a step back and and reassure women that, you know, self care, putting ourselves first paying ourselves first is not selfish, right? Actually, when we don't do that we're, we're doing a disservice to the people that we love. So I think we just need to rewire and rethink the way that we have been programmed. Yeah. And it's been a slow process, but we're getting there.
Unknown Speaker 14:12
I think we're on the right path.
Unknown Speaker 14:15
We are on the right path.
Unknown Speaker 14:17
That's great. Well, what are Are there any other things that our listeners should know about you and your business? Or what's something you would want to leave them
Unknown Speaker 14:23
with? So one thing that I think is important that sets me apart, I would say two things, but one of them is that I don't offer a cookie cutter process. I really teach my clients how to do value based spending. And that's again, taking a step back what is my why what is important to me, and then creating a plan from there. Because we don't want to give up what's important to us and nor should we. And then, you know, also, I do spending plans based on yearly spending and Not monthly. So this really gives us a better picture of what life is costing us. And when what I mean by that is, you know, we think, Okay, we have these monthly bills, and that's it, then I have all this leftover, I don't have this leftover or whatever. But look at the whole picture. We spend throughout the year we spend on things like insurance, sometimes that's a monthly expense. Sometimes it's once a year or every six months. We have property taxes, business taxes, we have events, holidays, memberships, I mean licenses, and we can go on a whole rest with that. So when we take a step back and look at that picture, then we can actually plan for those things in advance. And that will give us a foundation of what we're spending throughout the year, make it come into a monthly spending. So we're setting aside, we're doing what I call a short term savings. Then we know from there what we need to make or what we have left over so that we could reach our other goals. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 16:07
That's great. That's great. Well, thank you so much for being here if you want to share where our listeners can connect with you online.
Unknown Speaker 16:16
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I always have fun. I love to make money, a fun topic. And I really want to take the taboo out of money so that we can open those conversations, but you can find me you know it all the places that Instagram LinkedIn, YouTube, it's your money on purpose. You My website is all your money on purpose.com. And you just type that in. I'll pop up.
Unknown Speaker 16:42
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It was great to have you today.
Unknown Speaker 16:45
Yeah, you as well. Thank you so much. I had a great time. Thanks.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Ashley Carlotta resides in Mckinney, Texas with her husband and 3 kids. She believes that it is absolutely possible to lose weight without being on a diet. As a Certified Health Coach, Ashley has held hundreds of women accountable to eat well and exercise while living in moderation and practicing mindfulness. She is the founder of Better Health by Accountability, coaches women all over the world, and believes that daily accountability support is key to reaching your health and wellness goals. Her accountability coaching provides daily communication, check-ins, guidance and continuous reminders. Ashley’s clients are successful with her direct, no excuses, fun loving coaching style. One of her greatest passions is helping others succeed in finding confidence in their bodies because for so long, she hated her own. She knows all too well how awful it feels to be stuck in a vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting and how freeing it feels to be on the other side of that. Ashley will rarely turn down a girl’s night, loves to dance, and thoroughly likes a good reality show like Married At First Sight.
Links: *Website: https://www.betterhealthbyaccountability.com/
*Landing Page for Freebie: 5 tips to living your life like a normal person
(while still losing weight): https://mailchi.mp/7a19321b2678/eirqg8yry4
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betterhealthbyaccountability/
*Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betterhealthbyaccountability
*TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@accountabilitycoachash?lang=en
*Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleycarlotta/
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
If you're a female entrepreneur and you're looking for community, encouragement and empowerment in your journey as a small business owner, this is the podcast for you. Tune in with me as we interview women from all over the world on different walks in their business journey. We'll hear about their highs and their lows, their struggles and successes. They'll share tips and tricks and tutorials on how to grow your business. So pull up a chair and turn the volume up as we share the nitty gritty of female entrepreneurship with no filters, no scripts, no judgment on the no mercy business podcast.
Unknown Speaker 0:49
Well, hello, everyone. Thank you for joining me once again, on the no mercy business podcast. This is your host, Emily Woodruff. And I have a special guest with us today. Ashley Carlotta is here. Why don't you tell us about your business, Ashley?
Unknown Speaker 1:03
Hi, Emily. Thanks so much for having me today. Yeah, so I am an accountability health coach. And I guide mostly women men too, but I guide people to lose weight in a sustainable way without dieting. And without feeling FOMO on their weight loss journey, for lack of a better word fear of missing out is what that means. Because I know a lot of times people start on these restricted diets, and they don't stick to them. So with my coaching, what I'm doing is I'm having my clients send me pictures of what they're eating. And I'm giving them suggestions and guidance along the way, helping them make sure that they're getting enough calories, not eating too many calories, and watching their macros and things like that. I also plan their workouts for them, if that's something that they want to have done, and I hold them accountable to get those workouts in. Without making excuses. I am sending reminders throughout the day, I am making sure that they're eating on some sort of a schedule, sending nudges to drink their water. And sometimes it also turns into like helping them make sure that they go to bed on time with a nudge in that area, you know, or maybe they want to be good about having a daily devotional or meditation in the morning. Really, I'm just the support system to make them make healthier choices. Because ultimately, that's that's what they want. And so yeah, that's my business in a nutshell.
Unknown Speaker 2:30
I love that. So when I first kind of read your bio, I thought it was all health focused, which is really cool. But it's really neat to hear about the, like you just said like a devotional or just daily reminders. I have a friend right now that I'm, I'm doing some things with some medical things in my personal life. And there's a certain thing that I'm not doing every day and I need to and she's like, I'll help you. I can do this great. She hasn't done it once. I knew what she meant, whatever.
Unknown Speaker 3:03
No, I'm telling you, do you have any friends? Or how many times and me and my friends like throughout the years have said, Okay, let's make sure that we don't have any sugar this week or something. And then by the time Thursday rolls around, they're like, Okay, I really want to go to happy hour like do you want to do and it's like, alright, let's throw in the towel. So it really does help to invest in somebody who's like, really going to keep you on track versus somebody who like, wants to make you feel good too. Because I can tell you that like if I tell my husband to be like, okay, don't let me have any ice cream for this week. And the moment he looks at me funny, like on Wednesday when I'm gonna be like, Ah, don't judge me. I'm your wife. You love me however I am.
Unknown Speaker 3:47
Yep, exactly. Exactly. Get it? So how how did you start to get involved with us? What is your backstory with it?
Unknown Speaker 3:57
Sure. So it kind of fell into place in a very natural, random way. I I have had body insecurities from like the age of six years old, where I like looked around me and I realized that like little girls were like a lot smaller and skinnier than me. And I had to put on a leotard and tights for this Nutcracker show. And I was crying and I was telling my mom I didn't want to go out there because I felt like I looked fat and from six years old that truly breaks my heart. I yo yo dieted through my teens and my adult years like in my 20s for sure. I was never satisfied with the way that I looked and I didn't know how to lose weight but again, like I said in the beginning I did it in a very restrictive way. So that by the time I got back to my goal of where I wanted to be like at my wedding, for example, well, then it just it got it came right back. Yeah. So after I had my My second child, meanwhile, let me back up for a second. So I was an accounting and tax professional for years. And all the personality tests and things that I would take because I love taking those tests and stuff it so yeah, you should be a life coach. And you know, you should work with people, I'm extroverted. But I was always sitting behind a desk doing taxes, but yeah, security for me. And at the time, I lived in California in the Bay Area, and I just, there was no risk factor to where I could be like, I'm just gonna quit my job and become a lifeguard right, sir. Plus, I didn't even know what that looked like. So anyway, after I had my second child, I had gained 50 pounds with each pregnancy, and I didn't lose it enough from the first, I was determined to figure this crap out. I was so tired of just not liking the way that I looked in the mirror. I was tired of going on another diet. And so what works for me is, I did have a friend that that actually held up to her part in this is I would send her like my food diary log at the end of the day, we would do it together. And we did that for a long time, because that was just a part of her daily life. Anyway, she was already at her goal and had maintained her goal for years. And so I just kind of started watching what she was doing. I started asking people a lot of questions. I think the problem was that I was never fully vulnerable about it. But once I started to say, I really don't know what I'm doing, like, what do you eat for lunch? You don't I mean, what snacks are you having in the afternoon, because clearly, I'm not choosing the right ones. Or I learned that you're not supposed to restrict before you go out to dinner, like that's the worst thing you can do. But a lot of us tried to like save up our calories because they're going out for a meal. So slowly, but surely, I lost the weight from those two pregnancies. And I just, I felt amazing this time, specifically, because I was incorporating the strength training, I was exercising regularly. And I had done it slow enough to where I felt like, I think I can actually manage it this time. And I did for two solid years, I maintained within like a three to four pound range, which I had never done in my life. Yeah. And then we had another baby, which was a choice I wanted to, but I find myself back at square one, like, Okay, I didn't gain as much weight. But I was like, you know, you just you gotta get back into the motions, and you got to get back to like reining it in. And
Unknown Speaker 7:28
so what I did is I had moved to Texas in the meantime, like as I had my third child, and I wasn't doing the accounting anymore, I had taken a break, and I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do next. So I posted my journey of my weight loss on Instagram, like every normal person, right? But I was like, You know what, if I want the ultimate accountability to actually do this, and not wait for Monday to like, just come around again, then I'm going to do this. So I was logging it. And people just started asking along my journey, what are you doing? What program are you doing? What are you eating? What workouts are you doing? And I was like, I'm not doing any program. Like I truly am just doing this the way that I know how I know what to do. I just wasn't doing it. And so having you all watch me is holding me accountable. And people were like, can you like, can you help me? Like, can you give me tips and stuff like that. And so I slowly but surely I started just like coaching people like friends on the side. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this might be able to become a business. So I started charging people a little bit. And as I saw that it was working. And I even started to have like repeat clients like they'd be with me for 12 weeks. And then you know, they'd go through a season of something, you know, there's things that happen in your life, you have a family member who dies, or you're going through a really hard parenting time or whatever it is, I saw them start to come back like no, really what works is having the support and the accountability to do it because I know what to do. So that's where this came into place better health by accountability. And I truly believe it's the missing piece for most people. I mean, there's nutrition guidance in there, obviously, and workout guidance, but for the most part, it's just having that angel on your shoulder that's there for you and not letting you quit because it's so easy to quit after like three days. Yeah. So that's my long story of how it came to fruition.
Unknown Speaker 9:20
No, it's great. It's important. It's good to hear the whole thing and it's, it makes it makes you more relatable and makes you feel like somebody that we've you know, might resonate with us a little bit but I'm sorry, I'm not getting my words out. Well tonight.
Unknown Speaker 9:35
Later and I'm on the same page as you it's like it's the end of the day, but we can fit this in
Unknown Speaker 9:40
today has been a base. So you work you work a lot with women, moms, entrepreneurs, that's kind of your specialty.
Unknown Speaker 9:50
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And it's just it I work with mostly people who have really busy schedules Whether it's through their work, or what their kids are doing both, and it just feels so overwhelming to them, if they've been out of this healthy lifestyle for so long that they need somebody to come in and be like, Alright, what do I do? Tell me what to do, you know, take the thinking out of it a little bit for me. Now, granted, I do make you think. But for the most part, it's just like, I try to make it easy for them so that they can do this. So they don't see oh, I have to go do an hour workout at the gym every single day. Like that's just not going to work for a lot of people. So if you can get 15 minutes and that you weren't doing yesterday, that's better than nothing. If you can maybe get a vegetable on your plate today that you didn't eat any yesterday. That's better than nothing, right? Sure.
Unknown Speaker 10:42
Yeah, for sure. So why don't you talk about how you see nutrition and fitness and how they affect your productivity and your mental wellness? And how that can look in your, your personal and business life?
Unknown Speaker 10:58
Yeah, so as women in general men too, but as women, we can be very emotional. And I don't mean that by Boothbay. Yeah, no, I know. But a lot of times we are eating, because we're trying to comfort ourselves in some area, sometimes we're celebrating, sometimes we're sad, sometimes we're depressed, right. And I have found that with productivity in not only just your business, but just in running your life, you know, we have to like plan our day. And all of those things like if you have a foggy mind, because you're eating just like crap. And by crap, I mean, that doesn't even necessarily mean eating like a bunch of us food or anything. But if you're not fueling your body properly, you are not going to be running like a well oiled machine when it comes to your thought processes and getting things done. And you're also just not going to feel strong. I know a lot of us want to have, you know, a firm or a muscular body composition. And if you're not lifting any weights, or you're not making time to go out and go for a walk and make time to breathe and take those breaks. Yeah. And you're just sitting because I don't know about for you, Emily, but like when you have your own business, it's like, you could always be doing something, oh, yeah, I had a to do list a mile long. And I could just keep adding to it. And I could choose not to get up and go to my workout, I could choose not to get up and fill up my water, or put together a lunch that really is probably only going to take me five minutes. But in my mind, it just seems like I have so much to do. Yeah, you will feel better, you will sleep better. And you will have more energy in the day, if you're taking care of yourself. And so that's why I just think it's so important. And me as an entrepreneur myself, I have to hold myself accountable to do those things and make sure that I'm asking myself, when I'm craving chocolate, or when I'm craving something like chips or things like that. It's I have to pause. I always suggest pausing. Why is it because you haven't had a good meal and a couple of hours? Is it because you're feeling an emotion, like and you're just really mad at your partner and you need to like call your friend or your mom or like take the roads or get in the bath or whatever it is right? Like, I can promise you that most of the time if you are binge eating, or you're gravitating to things such as like not just choosing one cookie, but six cookies. Because something else internally is going on, maybe you're really stressed at work. I know that was a trigger for me in the tax accounting office to like during those busy seasons. At the time, I used to just stop everything, it stopped my health journey, essentially because it's like, well, Work comes first and you get in the office at 7pm and I mean 7am And literally like I'd have to make myself leave to come home because the work Yes, for stops. But I always hated it because I knew I needed more balance in my life. But it was just the profession that I was in. So I did like I did have to start setting boundaries. I did have to start putting on my calendar from 11am to 1130 I'm walking I'm gonna go out and walk because I know I'm going to be here forever and I need to get some air. I mean and you know if you take breaks, you can come back feeling refreshed and get more work done. But if you're not you it's just you feel rundown and yeah, you know how it is? It's yeah, a lot. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 14:41
I so I have a regular nine to five job also. So I sit at a desk all day long today was I said today it was a day and it's because meeting started at eight o'clock and ran until the first one ended at almost 11 which is a really fun way to start your De Yeah. And then I had to listen to a recording from a meeting two days ago, that was two and a half hours long. I didn't get a lunch hour, and we had a bid do so we have all these things that I can't, I literally am not supposed to get up from my desk. I, you know, I wear like a smartwatch or whatever, and it'll buzz at me and tell me, Hey, you haven't moved in a while, then like, but I'm in a meeting and I'm, I'm checking bids, and I'm checking emails, and I literally can't do anything different. And then when I get little 10 minute bursts, I almost am like running down the hallways trying to like, I just have to move, I just have to do something, you know. So it's really difficult for that. And because I live so far from my house, or from my live so far from my work, I'm in the car for two extra hours every day. So I'm sitting, and it's just, it's so difficult. And then you get home. And it's like, well, I have all these things to do. But I know that I need to go for a walk or I know that I need to do this. And it's, I can just relate to this a lot.
Unknown Speaker 16:05
And you are so not alone. Like that's really a lot of us are living in that same world. And I understand like, it's an you got to go to work, and you got to get there and you got to sit in the car to get there. Right. Yeah. And it really is a lot. And that's why I believe in making things easy for you. Yeah, making sure that you know, like, for example, what protein filled lunch you're going to have, and you're going to make it easy. And you know, you're probably going to make that every single day. And that doesn't even need to be like meal prepped on Sunday, because that's not something I would ever do. I'm kind of more of a spontaneous, spontaneous person. But it's like, if you know, you're not gonna be able to get up for your desk for hours. And you might be stuck on a call or a meeting or whatever, you better believe you need to have like a drawer of like some nuts and some protein bars, or whatever. And you need to just be you know, I mean, we all need to eat, we all need to go to the bathroom. And it's like, you have to start setting those boundaries there too. And I'm not saying that you have to block out like full 30 minutes. Yeah, they're, even if that means that you're going and you're scarfing down your salad real quick, I hate that because I want you to be mindful of it. You know, you also need to make sure that you have snacks in the car so that when you come home, you're not like ravishing through the pantry or Yeah, picking up takeout that, you know is like not the best thing. But by then you're so burnt out, and you're hungry, and you're tired. And you don't want to think and so that's where I come in to really help you to be like, Okay, do you have some turkey meat in the fridge? Like, let's roll it up into a tortilla, put some fruit next to that and like call it a day for dinner? If like, if if that's what it is, if you don't have time to cook, you know? And yeah, I know it is. It's hard. If you're coming home and you're like, cool. I haven't worked out yet. And you're just but I can promise you that if you do again, even for a short amount of time, like a 10 minute strength video or something. You're all of a sudden, gonna have more energy to complete anything else that you need to do that evening. Yeah. But it's just about actually doing it in. Yeah, like, well, I'll do it tomorrow.
Unknown Speaker 18:11
Yeah, well, and in some other things I can kind of speak to a little bit is that so I have PCOS. So I fight with a lot of other things on top of my regular health struggles, you know, just dietary struggles and things but so I've been really trying to drink like a protein shake. I'm not somebody I don't like fruit. And I don't know if I am ready to put that on the internet. But I just I don't eat it. I just have never liked it. But if I can have a protein shake, I can guarantee that I get fruit every single day. And I eventually once I'm more consistent with it, I can start sneaking vegetables in there. And I can I've done this before, and I've lost tons of weight really fast really easily. And now. So here's the funny thing. We have kind of a small hobby farm. And we just got goats last week. Yeah, so now they're my goats too. So I have to go out there every single day, which seems like it's not a big commitment. It's really not that far. But it forces me to get out of the house. And I don't usually come home and just sit down. But it forces me to walk further. And to run around in the pen with the goats and let them climb on me and put you know, just the things that I do interacting with them. I already noticed a difference in just little things like that, you know, right? Yeah, like just the walk out there. I hit my step school during the week. And normally I come in like 800 Steps short of it like so I'm always close but now I do it every single day. And if nothing else, it just makes me like yeah, I can.
Unknown Speaker 19:53
Like I have a purpose and I have to go do something you know they need you to yeah I'm super cute. We work with a lot of clients that have PCOS. And it's even more important, I know you don't want to hear this. And I know you've heard it already, it's even more important to focus on your nutrition, making sure that you're having really balanced meals with enough protein, especially in the morning. So that's great if you can put all the fruit in that you can in there and get it in and granted you I mean, really like two servings of it, it's fine. Anyways, I would rather have more vegetables. Sometimes our clients find it helpful to be gluten free, when you have PCOS. Sometimes it works, sometimes others don't really see a difference. Yeah, unfortunately, it's just it is what it is weight loss is slower, it just and which is reason why you need to be even more consistent and not have it be a race, it's got to just be a lifestyle. And that doesn't mean that you don't have you know, a glass of wine in your piece of cake. And you don't have to be like so strict that. But you have to be consistent with it and you have to eat throughout the day. You can't go from nine to five and then be starving and have a huge meal after that. Like that's not how your body works. And not Yeah, your metabolism.
Unknown Speaker 21:17
Yeah. And then that is something for me personally, that I'm trying very hard to I'm trying really hard right now to add steps to my day. And because it's beautiful fall weather, we have really great weather right now. So and I'm, I'm Ginger skin so I don't love being in the sun in the summertime. So I usually will walk on my lunches. And that is super helpful for me. And then I'm trying to do like the shakes thing. And then shortly here, I'll add something else into it. But yeah, anyway, yeah, that's just me and my little journey. But what I don't think
Unknown Speaker 21:49
that's important, I think it's important to not change everything all at once. Because otherwise we won't stick to it, I think that it's good that you're choosing like, Okay, I'm doing this first, then I'm gonna add this in. And then when you're consistent with that, you can add another thing in.
Unknown Speaker 22:04
Yeah, and I know too, I know that winter is coming. So some of some of those habits will just naturally change because it's going to be like below zero, and the wind will hurt my face. And I don't want to be outside walking for that. So once hopefully by that point, I will be so used to it that it will feel natural for me to want to go downstairs and use our treadmill and you know, do it in other ways. But yeah, so for people who are not me, what are some other tweaks or some additions that you would suggest somebody add to their daily, your morning routine?
Unknown Speaker 22:37
Sure. I think it's important to not grab your phone first thing in the morning. I know for me, that's something I used to do. And I would stress myself out because then my kids needed me. But then I needed to respond to something and all of a sudden, like my mind was all worried and anxious. So I think getting up for me personally, I like to read a Bible verse of some kind. And I mean, when I say meditate on that, like, I'm literally talking like a minute, like, I'm not asking anybody to do like 20 minutes, but it's just like, think positively. You know, for me, I like to thank God for whatever it is that's going on in my life that's going well at that time. And then you know, a lot of times a little prayer will be like, alright, Lord, help me through this day. You know, I'm not a morning person. So a lot for me to get out of bed. Yeah, I think it is important to make sure that you're drinking enough water throughout the day, people just, they neglect that a lot. And the reason is, is one it can help speed up your metabolism, it's not going to make it go in like you know, a crazy way or anything like that. But it helps but it also makes you think about whether or not you're actually hungry or if you're just dehydrated. So I always drink a big cup of water before my cup of coffee in the morning. And I also recommend not just having coffee without having some kind of food with it as well. Because it can also it can be like acidic for your stomach and it's just it's good to pair with that and and just make sure to eat breakfast a lot of people do fasting. It's not wrong. It's just not what I teach my clients to do. Because I know for me like if my if I'm in a good routine, like if my stomach's not growling by 9am I know like something's off, right? Yeah. And making sure that you're not drinking too much alcohol. I know that's like a party pooper thing to say. But really, if you're drinking wine into the late hours of the night, yeah, and I just wake up feeling groggy and yucky. Right so watching that. But also in the morning. I just I really believe in just prepping somewhat for your day like I would I hate it sometimes when my clients are so rushed that it's like, okay, you made your kids lunches. You did all these things. You got them to school yet you left and you didn't bring any thing for yourself. Like, we have to treat ourselves like children too. And we have to take care of ourselves because we're needed in the world, whether or not you have kids or not, it's like to be just like a good human. You need to eat or else you're just gonna be an irritable angry person is
Unknown Speaker 25:16
so good. That's so good. That's so real. Because I'm sitting here like, Yep, I packed my husband his lunch most days, not, not every day. Do things for him, I make sure our kid has some of them before we get out the door and make sure everybody's got their bags. And then I'm like, Oh, crap, we're five minutes late, you know? And, okay, I guess I'll stop at the gas station and get something and it's just never, you know. I mean, I get like goldfish, so it's not like anything horrible, but it's not great. You know?
Unknown Speaker 25:45
Well, I mean, Goldfish are horrible, but they're definitely not feeling you. I can tell, you know, some goldfish. I'm going to be hungry in about 20 minutes after that.
Unknown Speaker 25:54
Yeah. No, that's great. So do you have any, this is just kind of a sidebar. But you mentioned having something like with your coffee, is there anything in particular that you would suggest?
Unknown Speaker 26:07
Yeah, so for my clients who get up, and they like to have a cup of coffee and not eat like a whole meal before going to the gym. For my early workouts, I usually recommend like having like a half of banana and a piece of toast, or just a handful of almonds, you could do a half of a protein bar, I just like you to get something in your system. Now, if you're not a, you know, morning work router, then I really would suggest trying to wait to have coffee until you're ready to eat your breakfast. And I feel like it goes together. So I mean, what am I favorite breakfast is is avocado toast, which is like so basic, right? But I do that a few things on the site. It's so good. It's so nice. Some people don't like avocado, and we can't really be friends if you
Unknown Speaker 26:54
don't like what's great.
Unknown Speaker 26:57
I also like to do oatmeal with berries, and I put like some collagen or protein powder in it too. Just what am I trying to put up a little bit beefy? Thank you. Yeah. And, um, Greek yogurt, or cottage cheese with berries are really good options. I mean, there's a lot like, even the I don't know if you've heard of the Kodiak brand, but they have that for pancakes and waffles like so you can eat what you want. You just have to make sure that it has protein in it. And I promise you that healthy food is good food, I think a lot of what to do. And we think like, Okay, I need to have spinach. And it's like, okay, yes, spinach is good. And yes, put it in a protein smoothie. That's another thing that you can have as you're drinking your coffee. But it doesn't have to be boring. And it doesn't have to be difficult, like I give my clients a lot of meal ideas and healthy recipes. And I can tell you that if it weren't easy, I wouldn't do it either. So I had to make it easy for myself. And you do have to make it a priority though. Like you the you do have to put some work in.
Unknown Speaker 28:00
Yeah, no, I think that's great. I think that's awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. This is really great. Where Where can our listeners find you online or connect with you?
Unknown Speaker 28:10
Yeah, well, my website is better health by accountability. You'll see me and my coaches on there, and it'll explain a little bit more about what we do. But go grab your freebie. It's like how to eat like a normal person without dieting and to lose weight. So go grab the freebie, but mostly I hang out on Instagram at Better health by accountability. And seriously, feel free to reach out and ask any questions. I'm on there a lot. And I like to chat so
Unknown Speaker 28:36
awesome. Well, thank you so much. I I really enjoyed this.
Unknown Speaker 28:41
Thanks, Emily. I really appreciate your time and you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 28:45
Thanks. Before we go, I just wanted to reach out real quick. A lot of you have talked about starting your own podcast and you're just not sure where to start. I wanted to let you know that Libsyn is an awesome platform. And right now they have a great deal for you to join if you use the code Woodruff WOD Are you Ff you can get in at a great rate and get started today. Feel free to shoot me an email or send me a message if you have any questions. I would love to walk you through starting on your own
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
After working in HR for 20 years, Ana Maria recently quit her 9-5 job to go full-time in her coaching business, Coach & Bounce. She was born in Venezuela and have lived in Aruba and the Netherlands. Ana Maria is a mom of two girls, living currently in Aruba. She has experienced different challenges in life that led her to become a Women's Empowerment Coach. She helps women go from being stuck and overwhelmed to more energy, clarity, and confidence so they can manage their life better and hit their goals. Her entrepreneurial journey has been scary and super exciting at the same time. She started with what she thought was important (logo, name, and website) unit the point that it was obvious that what was holding her back were her fears. She has focussed on healing some core wounds to be able to show up with confidence and create the results that her clients desire.
Aja Vancica is an entrepreneur, business consultant and podcast host who believes that using simple and sustainable business growth strategies is the pathway to success and sovereignty for female solopreneurs. Aja invests her time in sharing her highly valuable concepts and knowledge on her podcast that her listeners can use to grow without ever having paid her a dime!
After seeing countless women struggle with decision fatigue, and confusion around what their next best steps were, trying numerous strategies they see online professionals use and being left feeling incompetent and insufficient that they would never be able to reach their goals- she realized her superpower for goal setting, strategy and creating a plan of action. The Scale to Simplicity Podcast with Aja Vancica Consulting was born from this.
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Marissa is a farm wife, mom and business
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Hello. Thank you so much for being here with me another day, another week, I am so excited to chat with you today. I wanted to pick up where we left off the other day about setting business boundaries. And I know we kind of started talking a little bit about what that even means and what that could look like in your daily business life.
So, in, in my world, I encounter a lot of people who are, yes, men. Yes, women , they are people pleasers. They want to do everything they can to make the other person happy. And it doesn't matter. If that puts their business or their time or their family at risk. And that's what I wanna talk to you about. So setting business boundaries, this can seem like a huge challenge for so many of us, especially when we run service based businesses like graphic design or social media managers, or.
You know, web developers, content, creators, a photographer, anything, a, a salon owner, anything along those lines, anywhere that you're providing a service where you are giving yourself as part of, as part of their, their final item, their final product, it can seem so difficult to have to cut ties in some areas and to.
Absolute boundaries. So here's, here's just a look into that. I, I just wanna discuss that with you today. So it's really easy to, first of all, it's really easy to overlook your own needs while you're in the process of trying to fulfill the needs of your clients. And that is why it's so important to protect your time and your energy as a service provider.
Setting boundaries doesn't mean you're turning down opportunities or letting down your clients. It doesn't mean that you still can't provide a memorable experience while also protecting your time, your mental health, your space, your energy, your everything setting boundaries is vital to your business.
As someone who owns and operates their own small business, not only are you responsible for your own. But you have also been tasked of managing client expectations. Um, you might find yourself saying yes to requests, even if they don't really align with your goals or your services, just because, you know, it'll make the other person happy.
If you lack boundaries, you're probably gonna find yourself in a place where you might compromise your own values and that. Can lead us into a whole different discussion. You might end up letting the clients take the lead and letting them dictate which way your project is gonna go. And that is most likely going to end in your deadlines being lost and off the rails and off the charts and unmanageable.
When you set boundaries that work for you. You end up creating a sustainable business that can make an impact on your clients and yourself. It allows you to stay passionate. It allows you to stay eager and excited to keep doing the work, and it helps you to build a better relationship. Helps you to build trust helps you to create memorable client experiences, and it helps you to manage your time easily.
Boundaries help your business survive and thrive your clients. Appreciate your commitment to providing a streamlined experience for sure. A lot of times. And we kind of touched on this before. A lot of times it's mostly just our fear of setting boundaries that, that holds us back. There's something inside of us that tells us.
It's not okay to stand up for what we want. It's not okay to stand up for ourselves. It's not okay to, to declare work hours or to say, no, I'm not taking this on today. That's not true. That's a lie. There are several times. And I've, I've shared about this before. Um, in my virtual assistant work that. I'm very upfront.
If we have family things going on, or if I get home super late or recently I've been dealing with some medical things and I I've just had to say, I just can't today and I'm not gonna be able to be here for you. I'm not available tonight. If it's an emergency, please let me know. But aside from that, I'm, I'm just not available.
And every single time they're AC. As long as you stay in the know with the other person, they usually don't care. So I wanna talk to you about some signs that your boundaries aren't strong enough, as you know, there's definitely some warning signs for when your boundaries aren't strong enough. And the most obvious one of those is just the overwhelming feeling of stress. It doesn't mean you have to be completely burned out.
It doesn't mean that you have to be going haywire. It just means that stress and anxiety might become more frequent in your day to day at your job than it used to. That's a really good indicator that you need stronger boundaries in your business. When you don't set these boundaries, you are telling your client that they are running the show when your client gets to make decisions for you.
And when your client makes, makes the schedule and determines how often you're gonna work and, and expects you to do things, whether they're within your scope of work or not, you're letting them run the. You're saying yes to every single demand and this really results in overwork on your end, unrealistic expectations and never ending projects.
It's really important to remember that your client hired you for a particular reason. And just in case you didn't know it wasn't to spend their time running your business for you. Setting realistic client expectations before you work together is vital. So something you can do is create a welcome packet.
You can establish boundaries and determine if you guys are a good fit. I highly recommend having a conversation before going into a contract with them, like a real conversation, not just emails back and forth, or a text message here or there. Sometimes just talking with each other is enough to establish.
whether you guys are a good mesh or not. I always suggest letting people know what your preferred contact method is. I am somebody who I have multiple jobs. I'm pretty busy. um, I do not accept work via messenger or text messages. I need everything to be in an. Because I'm always in different places like physically in other places, I can't always be at my computer.
So when I do come, come back and I have time to work and I'm sitting down to do my work. All of my tasks are laid out for me in my email. That way in that way, I know that our most recent string of conversations, if there is an action item, it's in an email, one of my clients. Frequently forgets that I, I just don't accept work requests via messenger.
I have no problem going over little things or checking in with each other on messenger. That's actually preferred like to chat and just clear some things up, but work requests have to come through email. So she will send me a message and I'll say, Hey girl, , I'm not gonna share their names. Um, Hey, you know, This sounds great.
Please send me an email, a detailed email with what you're requesting from me. I, I don't wanna be responsible for, for losing track of it. If it stays in this message, please email me. And every time it's like, oh right. I'm so sorry. I forgot. It's in our contract. Most of the time they'll do it. And most of the time they appreciate it because they know that they're setting you up for success too.
They are typically the one that is asking you outside of what your contract has already laid out. So you're just reminding them of a boundary that you have in place. And that is a good thing. When you, when you lack strong boundaries, a lot of times it's gonna lead to you losing profits. You're gonna end up spending extra time, extra money.
You're gonna shortchange your other clients and you're gonna end. Not coming out on top because of it. It's really great to wanna go above and beyond for your clients, but you have to do so within reason, a lot of people follow the principle of under commit and over deliver. And I'm all for that, but you have to do it within your means.
You can't over commit every single time to every single client and expect yourself to not be burned. Or expect yourself to gain extra money because you're giving more than what they paid for. You are an expert at what you do, giving away too many things for free can undervalue your work. And you're setting a precedent for future clients who expect the same exact perks.
A lot of different types of services are they're. They're very well perceived. If you can define packages like service packages based on what your clients frequently request more of anything that requires more than what your service packages have laid out will be issued a fee, unless you plan on offering extras or bonuses to sweeten their experience.
My philosophy is usually to have everything completely laid out and. Here's package a, B and C a includes, the smallest amount B has a little more C has a little more, if you need anything past that, here's my hourly rate or, or task rate, because certain things I just don't do hourly rates for, and they can expect that.
So that, so then if there is something that comes up and I say, Hey, you know, I know that things have been tough for you, or I. This is a really exciting time for you. I just wanna do this for you as a gift. Here you go. I can say that. And they had already expected to pay me. That's what sweetens our client experience.
If I'm able to just say no, I'm not gonna actually send you an invoice for that. That's where an impact can be made. So another indicator of, of having loose boundaries. Is not having enough time to work on your own business when you are constantly catering to your clients. It's really easy to get caught up in the day to day tasks and forget what your vision is.
As a business owner, building your business matters just as much as building your client's business, you need to focus on your business growth in order to get clients in the first place. If you need help auditing your business and evaluating what needs the most attention, shoot me an email. I would love to work with you on this, focusing on where you should be pouring your energy is really important and it's the only way that your business is gonna grow.
So now that we've talked a couple talked about a couple of indicators of what loose boundaries might look. Here's here's a couple of ideas on how to set better boundaries in your business.
The first one might seem really obvious setting office hours. And that doesn't mean that you,
it doesn't mean that you can't work outside of these it limits when people can reach out to. For your services setting office hours sometimes only means these are the times that I'm available to clients. I know as entrepreneurs, part of the reason that you're an entrepreneur is because you don't wanna wake up at 6:00 AM or because your kid has a play at school today at one 30, and you wanna be able to go and not have to take a vacation.
To go to a 45 minute presentation where little Jimmy's not even looking at the right person and he forgot the right color shirt. You shouldn't have to miss out on a paycheck because your kid is doing something. Setting office hours strictly can mean. This is when I will accept work requests from my clients.
You can set auto responders. You can, if you have a Facebook page, you can and should indicate your office hours on there. You can simply reply and just say, Hey, I will get back to you in the morning on this. Thanks for reaching out. That's an incredibly polite way of saying I'm not available. I'm appreciative of your work.
We'll talk in the morning. This doesn't matter if you have an in person environment, or if you work from home online business owners need an need office hours more than anybody. And this way your clients know when to reach you and they don't expect anything outside of your, your written schedule. It's okay.
If they reach out, it just means that you don't have to respond.
Some people even put it in like. Their signature in their email. Thanks for reaching out. I allow myself 24 hours to respond to any service requests, something along those lines. Super easy, super informal, super informative. Another way to toughen up your, your boundaries is to use email templates. A lot of times you might notice yourself slipping up on boundaries based on your mood or circumstances that your client is in flexibility can really cause you to create new policies just out of thin air, which in turn undermines your personal boundaries can email responses or pre-written email template templates.
Can keep you from making exceptions for clients on a case by case basis, you can use things like onboarding email templates. You can set up responses for uncomfortable client situations. You can set up sales emails, and then a workflow of those to go on past that they really help to create structure in your business.
And they also hold your clients accountable and they protect you from sneaky clients who are trying. Get you to do more or to bend your policies in a way that you're not comfortable with.
So another way to, to protect yourself and protect your business from loose boundaries is to clearly establish your role when you welcome team members. When you welcome clients, another really great way to set business boundaries is to clearly establish your role. Protecting your time and energy really means to identify your, your ability to be the expert in that area and assigning everything else to the next person you would trust the next person who is best in your business.
Once you have clearly identified your key roles in your business, you can start outsourcing. Other important tasks, or you can start delegating them elsewhere, identify that you can, you can start doing this by identifying the areas where you need the most help without compromising your expert time. Make sure you make a list of non-negotiables so that you make sure that you don't regret not having them later.
Make sure that you respect the boundaries. Of the person you're hiring because they are running a business too. The best way to do this is to make a list. You'll probably hear me say that a lot, make a list of the most important tasks of your business and categorize them by things that only you can do versus things that somebody you trust could do for you spend as much possible time doing the tasks that only you can do.
It makes you even more. So you've taken my advice and you're ready to see what's gonna change. Here's the things that can happen when you have strong boundaries. When you have strong boundaries in your business, you make a space in your business for the things that set your soul on fire, you'll become more profitable and more purposeful when it comes to serving your clients.
Founders give you the space to keep client work in a separate container. And that really makes it easier for you to manage the hours that you can build to them to manage the service that you are providing to them. And it just really helps you to keep track of everything. Overall, you'll start booking the right clients for your services.
By having boundaries. Also, something that I learned that's really important is to, to understand that not every person is your ideal client and you don't have to work with every person that comes your way. There are many times as a photographer. This feels funny to say out loud and to even really admit, but there are, there were many cases that, that I, I felt morally wrong by accepting certain clients.
Um, and I guess that's not even true in just photography, something that I, if I don't feel right in my heart and in my. That working with a client is beneficial or it is morally sound. I don't feel bad about doing that. And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I usually will tell people straight up.
Hey, I appreciate you so much for reaching out to me. I am thankful for your inquiry. I'm so glad we got to talk. I just don't think that we would be the right team to work together. And I think that's enough to say I don't like your product. I don't like your lifestyle. Um, I don't like your, it doesn't mean that you don't like something it's I don't agree with, but you're still doing it in a really respectful way.
And you're still protecting your values and your business, and you're not compromising on. And it, it cuts things off in an early professional way so that they haven't wasted time with you, um, or set their hopes too high either. And I think that's okay because honestly, if I worked with somebody and they felt like my business, wasn't something that aligned with their beliefs.
So like, let's talk about my OI photography business. I have, I have a lot of friends. I have a. Um, business contexts that do not work with BWI photographers because they don't agree with it. They, they have moral objections to it. And I think that's awesome. I think it's fantastic that they are so strong in their beliefs and they're so strong on their morals that they don't want their name to be tied to something that could possibly question.
That's an example just of, of me being somebody who has been told. No, no, I'm not gonna work with you because I don't, I don't agree with that type of business. Um,
you'll learn, you'll learn more who your ideal client is, and you'll start to book more of the right clients more frequently.
It also is gonna help you to. The right services and pro I'm sorry to provide the right services to your client. Most of the time, your clients don't know what they need. They need you to guide them in the best way to make sure they're getting the, the, the best for their money
and setting business boundaries is gonna help you to find work, find time to work on your business. With the right boundaries in place, you can, you can start to differentiate between client work and your own work. The best part is once you're comfortable with your boundaries, you can start being more flexible here and there.
You can start time blocking and content batching, and making sure that you have time blacked out for special, important dates. To make sure that you're able to do all the things you need to. These are, these are really simple examples of how you can manipulate your business to work for you when you have solid boundaries in place.
The time to start setting boundaries is now at the end of the day, setting boundaries means you need to get serious about what really matters to you as a business.
Here's a couple other things. Um, just to keep in mind, as you are taking this advice in and working it into your own everyday business, remember that you are not success. I'm sorry. Remember that you are not responsible for the success of someone else's business, you, social media really plays into. How much other people think that hiring someone else on will just drastically change their business.
You are responsible for your piece of the work and the deliverable that you are providing them, but you are not responsible for the reach that their social media posts get. You are not responsible for the website clicks that their new logo brings to them. You are not responsible for what happens when somebody moves off of Instagram, you don't control the responsiveness of their website unless you're a web developer.
there's a lot of factors can, that can go into whether someone converts and you are only responsible for making sure that the top of your, your sales area performs the way that it is supposed. And not to mention the humanness on their end, if they deviate from the strategy and the, the tips and advice that you have given them, you can't guarantee the results of the content or of that service if they aren't carrying it out.
So just something to remember is that you are not responsible for the success of their business. Another super easy thing to implement is to not give your personal cell phone number out. A lot of people find this difficult, especially as entrepreneurs, because most of us work in our living room or, you know, a corner of our toddler's room or something, and don't keep a work phone and a personal phone, but there are tons of freeway to get a free phone number that can.
Convert over to your number. So you don't have to physically give out your actual personal phone number,
making sure that they know they don't have access to you. 24 7 is vital and not having your personal cell phone number is a great way to protect that if somebody wants to get ahold of you, they can do so during business hours in one of the methods of communication that. Offer and prefer. And then the last thing I would say is just to make sure that they know you can't be more passionate.
You can't care more about the project than they do. You cannot care more about their business than they do.
This seems unreal to even process because I know how much I care about the projects that I work on. And I know how much I care about my clients and the success of their brands. Once I'm done working with them, I will move calls around, I'll move appointments around. I will, you know, I'll do everything that I can to accommodate my clients because I care.
What came up with their families. And I care about what came up with X, Y, and Z. I think about the projects that I have on my plate. The second I wake up and until the second that I fall asleep, I strategize and dream and follow their content on all of my social media pro profiles in hope, for the best for them.
I pray for them. I want them. To achieve success, but I can't care more than them. I need them to partner with me on growing their business. I can't force them to use the branded content that I provide them. I can't force them to stop using 17 different types of fonts. I can't force them to only take on their ideal.
I can't, I can't be their mom, but if you want to see the best results, I need you to participate enthusiastically alongside me. And I need you to care more than I do.
I hope that this has been so clear to you. That boundaries are not just about me and my wants or you and your businesses wants. They can be, and they are about protecting your mental health and your longevity as a business owner, but they also protect your clients and your working relationship with them.
They protect your energy in a way that allows you to show up as your best, most effective self for the people who have trusted you with their business blank, whatever that service is, it enables you to have the most respectful. And productive business relationship as possible. And this is why setting boundaries and enforcing boundaries is so important to me.
So I'd love to know what kind of boundaries do you set in your business? Is it something that you struggle with? What could you work on? I would love it. If you would send me an email at hello, Emily, a woodruff.com or shoot me a DM on I. I'd love to know more about how any of this has impacted you. And I'd love to just follow up with you a little bit.
Thank you so much for being here today. I hope that you have an awesome, awesome day.
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Suzanne Scullion of GRACE Fianancial Coaching joins us for another week on the No Mercy Business Coaching Podcast
We talk about gaining financial freedom through paying down personal debt and more. Lets dive in.
Suzanne Scullion is the Head Coach of G.R.A.C.E. Financial Coaching. For the past seven years, she has helped hundreds of clients build strong financial habits so they can experience a more stable future and care-free life. Her exclusive program is called the G.R.A.C.E. Technique, which stands for Guidance, Resources, Accountability, Communication and Evaluation. Suzanne is also the host of the YouTube show, “Le$$ons Learned: The Dumbest Thing I’ve Ever Done with Money.”
Connect with Emily
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hello@emilyawoodruff.com
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Connect with Suzanne
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/gracefinancialcoaching
Get my weekly business tips / newsletter here Lei Deng, CFA, CFP® PRINCIPAL, INVESTMENT ADVISOR
Lei is on a mission to help her clients feel in control of their finances and be confident that they’re on the right track to achieve their financial goals. She serves clients all over the US and she’s fluent in English and Chinese
She is a Chartered Financial Analyst as well as a Certified Financial Planner®.
Lei came to the U.S. to pursue her Masters Degree in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis. Since then, Lei has enjoyed a career in investment management and has built expertise in investment evaluation, portfolio construction and asset allocation.
Having watched friends and family struggle to find true advocates for their personal finances, Lei discovered that investing, while important, is only a piece of the puzzle in personal finance. That’s when she switched her focus to advocate for her clients’ overall financial wellbeing. Since then, she has enjoyed helping clients in not just investing, but also other areas of their comprehensive financial planning needs, such as tax planning, estate planning and insurance planning.
Lei’s family live in the suburbs of Saint Louis, Missouri. She and her husband Julio love coming up with fun ways to celebrate her two children's Asian and Hispanic heritage, mostly through food. She is also a board member of a local nonprofit.
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Well, thank you everyone for being here today. This is your host, Emily, a Woodruff. I have a special guest with you with us today. Her name is lay dang lady. You wanna give yourself or give an introduction of yourself and kind of what you do. Yeah, so, yeah. Um, I'm a fee only financial planner. So, um, it's, you know, I think everybody probably have their own conception of what a financial planner or a financial advisor do.
And oftentimes that it's funny cuz it doesn't really match up exactly with what I do. So really people kind of think about is just managing investments, stuff like that. But. Being a financial planner. Ashley means that you kind of touch every single aspect when it real, like anything that is in your life that's related to money, we should be able to help you with, you know, so that's, um, that's really, what's fun about the job as well.
So that's kind of a 10,000 feet view of what a financial planner is. So it just really everything that's related to money. Perfect. So how did you, how did you. Started with your business. How'd you know, that this is what you wanted to pursue. So it was, it was a little bit funny cuz it was not what I intended to do from the get go.
But now I think back at it is inevitable like that I'm here today. So I actually immigrated from China and I came to the us for my masters. Yeah. For my master's in finance. So when I was doing the program and. You know, when you were in a, you know, business school doing the finance program, a lot of times, really the most glamorous job, or like the sexy job are investment bankers.
You know, they talk about wall street all the time, investment banking or asset management. So that kind of was what I set my goal to. And I just had this such a narrow focus at the time. I didn't even know, um, what's in my peripheral version. So I kind of would just like, you know, this is my goal. I want to be.
Where, you know, I want to be doing this job that's filled with glamor. I can prove myself worth. Yeah. That's when I will be able to prove myself worth when I get the job. And, and then I did, um, I worked for hedge fund for several years, right out of school. And then I worked in research roles in asset management functions, and then I.
Where I wanted to be. I, I set a goal for myself. I wanted to make six figure before I turned 30, and then I did, and then it did not feel good for you fulfilling. Thanks. but the, but the thing is, it felt like after I, I just had such a narrow focus and that was my goal. I didn't think beyond that, but after I got to that point, it felt kinda empty mm-hmm it felt like I, I didn't know how was.
You know, contributing to this world and, um, and you know, so, but the day to day business, I have two kids, two young kids. So, you know, getting up for getting the kids, ready, take them to daycare coming, you know, like go to work and do all this stuff, pick them up, cooking all of this stuff. Just kind of. So that voice in my head, in, in the back of my head's like, you know, are, is this really what you wanted to do?
Kind of just got drowned with the day to day business. I didn't really have time to think about that. Um, after COVID, you know, I think a lot of us had really life changing experiences during COVID and I know you did so, yeah. So after that, I really kind of, I got more time, you know, I don't have to. Like kids are at home.
I just doing everything we can to survive that really. Put things into perspective of, oh my gosh, what's my purpose. What is my value? And then really have so much time to sit with my own thoughts, which is dangerous. so, so that's when I just, you know, I just felt like I just kind of question started questioning everything, started questioning, is this really what I wanted?
And then I realized I never really had a second thought about my career choice. I never really thought about what I wanna do. It's always about what. I think other people would want to do in my position. So, so who am I? So I actually just went on this rabbit hole of this huge self discovering journey of who I am and what do I wanna do?
So that was one, one portion of it. So, but I knew that was the corporate job was probably not for me anymore. Um, it's I, I learned a lot from it. I loved it when I did, but it's probably not for me anymore. Um, at the same time, right before COVID actually kinds. Everything kind of happened, you know? Um, interesting timing.
My husband left his previous firm. Um, he was a small partner at a CPA firm. He left his firm pretty abruptly and then started his own company. Um, but. You know, as entrepreneurs, you and I probably, you know, both know that it takes time. Yeah. To build up your business. It takes time. It's not just, uh, it's not just taxing on money.
It's also taxing on your brain. Mm-hmm , you know, like self doubt, imposter syndrome, doubting yourself, you know, all of the things just creeps and. It was really, really hard time and that compounded with COVID. And so, but, but I was thinking back at it, we're both very glad that this happened because it really kind of forced us to give us more perspective, forced us to prioritize, um, things in our lives.
So for, you know, for a while we only had my income coming in, so it. Huge shift, um, of what we needed to do for our day to day life, and really had forced us to think about what we value and what we want to keep. Like our, we really had to go into our budget and start slashing things and it was not fun, but it really made us realize what do we value?
What we enjoy spending money on? Um, what do we not? So. And then we refinanced our mortgage, did a lot of different things that, you know, is part of the financial planning process. Mm-hmm we did that on ourselves. So, and fortunately thinking back at, it was kind of a miracle that we just weather through this rough patch unscathed, you know, so, um, And so it was really crazy.
And then I really, so after that I was doing investment research before, and it just really hard for you to be the index, you know, like S SP if you wanna perform better than SP five founder, that is such such difficult thing. And then I saw, I look at my spending every month and I say, okay, I saved hundreds of dollars every month from refinancing a mortgage.
We cut a lot of our spending, you know, we redid our budget. It. Type, but we didn't feel like really we were deprived because we really kind of like aligned our spending with our values. And then, you know, so all of this stuff just made me realize the hard dollar value of financial planning, not just, you know, there's a dollar amount to it, but there's also the, the, um, the, the time that we.
It really kinda helped us to be stronger. You know, our relationship actually grew stronger because of that, because we were able to kind of have open communication throughout this whole process. Um, so it actually made our relationship stronger. So after all of that, we just realized, I just realized, oh my gosh, you know, like he was an entrepreneur, he started his phone firm.
He dealt with everything that we dealt with. We were dealing with now probably. But at the end of the day, it was great. You know, the freedom, like I I'm from China. So I still wanna take my kids to China. Mm-hmm my husband is Hispanic. Like his mom is retiring to back to Mexico. So we will also want to take our kids to Mexico.
So there's no job in the world. Like there are very few jobs in the world. Let me, let me say that. That will allow me to have the flexibility to take the kids. Back to experience their heritage, to, you know, yeah. To their heritage. So, so I was like, well, this is it. You know, when you piece all of the things together, There, it's really hard to think of anything other than, um, being a financial planner and having my own practice.
Yeah. And that's also really like where I get to directly influence and help people with their personal finance choices. And really, I really do feel like I make a difference and, you know, and, and so, you know, this whole time and I looking back at it, it really is very rewarding. So everything kind of rolled together.
The. Works in a mysterious way, you know? So, so I think it was I'm here for a reason. So, yeah. So just a long answer to your question, but I didn't really start out, try to do financial planning, but it kind of all became inevitable. That's great. That's really great. So where, where are you located? I mean St.
Louis St. Louis, Missouri. Okay. But yeah, but we do like with technology, COVID, you know, the, the blessing in disguises that, you know, we can have a conversation, you know, even we're so far away and the same thing with my clients too. So I actually do serve clients leading all over the us as well. That's great.
That's great. I kind of just try to keep track and see, you know, how many people I can thinking things. It's fun. Yeah. That's fun. yeah. So it sounds like you've learned a lot in the last couple years since, you know, COVID, what's something that your job has taught you that you think that everybody should learn in their lifetime.
Yeah. Just have more empathy to people. Um, you know, it's not,
no, cause it's not, not anything about money or anything, but really cuz being in my role, I see so many things that people don't show others day in, day out. Um, and it. Super. I like super so powerful to me and I never, I would never take that for granted that this is a privilege that I get to experience this with my clients.
Um, but you quickly realize also that what people show on the outside might not be what they're experiencing. A lot of us going through day by day. You know, sometimes we, we. Um, look like we have it all together. Mm-hmm but maybe deep down we don't and we're very vulnerable. So. You never know what EV whatever anybody is going through, you know, so they might, yeah.
They might be having a really, really hard time. You just don't know it yet. So trying to approach things with a little bit more empathy is, um, is, is what I have learned through this journey. And, um, there is this. Book that also came out in 2020. It's called psychology of money. It's my, one of my all time favorite books by Morgan Hazel.
Mm-hmm um, so the, I encourage everyone. If you are interested in learning about personal finance to read that book, because it's really. It's an easy read. There's no jargons. Um, and it's really focused on not just the technical side of it. There is technical side of the, you know, financial planning in this book, but there's also a lot more of how do you manage your emotions, your like understand psychology.
And one of the quote from the book is still is so powerful. And I, and I say it back to myself every day. It says nobody's crazy. You know, so people make their financial decisions, um, or any decision in their lives because they had certain life experience. Mm-hmm everything experienced before in their lives.
Let them to make this decision with what they have experienced. What now? Like what knowledge is available to them. Mm-hmm . They made the rational decision. It was the, nobody is crazy. Nobody makes crazy decisions, you know? Right. So that really helped me to reframe things and then helped me to, to, to really.
Try to leave behind of any of my preconceived notion of my assumptions. Mm-hmm and just approach everything with a blank sheet of paper and, you know, really hold a space. That's not judgemental for my clients too. Um, and, and, and I think it happens with everyone, not just, I'm just using example of my own work, but that really, and I really feel like that helped me to become a better person just because that.
I, I have a deeper understanding of, you know, sometimes we have to keep up, you know, Keep up a facade, you know, mm-hmm so you never know what people are experiencing or feeling that day underneath. So, yeah. So just try to be a little bit more empathetic, try to, you know, build a bridge of communication instead of, you know, um, being so divided.
I think we, you know, I think we can all use a little bit more of that myself. Yeah. Even myself too. Yeah. No, that's great. That's I mean, and not to go down this rabbit hole for too long, but that's kind of the meaning behind. My podcast name is no mercy business coaching. I am somebody who really struggles with mercy and empathy and, um, not seeing things as black and white.
And that's part of it though, is that there's, there's good. That comes with that. But interpersonally sometimes it's like, oh, Nope. Okay. Not everything is like that. You know, most things aren't and I need to take a step back and realize that people are people and, you know, um, That's just a little personal application there.
No, I love no, I love that you shared it cuz we all do. I think we all do struggle with that. You know, sometimes it's and is just so much easier if the world is black and white, isn't it? Like you just don't yeah. Would be
so. More on the financial side. What's what's some advice you would give somebody, give a, an entrepreneur or a woman entrepreneur that's seeking you out for financial planning assistance. What's some advice you would give them. Yeah. Um, so the first thing I would say is to get to know yourself better. So in, in a personal finance, as I've learned, um, it's not a, like we just talked about, it's not black and white.
There's no one size fit all solution. So if you like, I would love to help you look at your finances and see what. You know, can get you to a better place. But first of all, I need to understand what drives you, what you love, what your values are, what is your personal experience with money, cuz all of that shapes how you approach, like it shapes your worldview.
It shapes how you approach the world. So that is really important and it really comes down to a lot of times for personal finance. It's a choice. It's it's not about. It's not about, this is the right decision. That's wrong decision. Mm-hmm most of the time, 99% of the time, it's about a trade off you. If you choose a, you can choose B and then they both have the good things about them.
And then they both have something that's not so good about them. So, Knowing the value, knowing what you love. If you really get to understand yourself more, we have a north star where we can, you know, we can have to guide us to yeah. To where we should go. So that is really, really important. So, and really oftentimes the clients that really do understand themselves.
Get get more out of it, you know, mm-hmm because they it's easier for them to make decision on certain things. And then they don't feel cuz a lot of times they don't feel FOMO. They don't feel regret. Sure. They are not tempted by crypto right. They're not tempted or any other hot investment of the moment.
So they're. So, yeah, so, so I think that's definitely one of the first things, um, I would encourage everyone to do, and I think everybody can benefit from that as well. You know, not just in financial planning, if you come to me or not. I think that's just a good starting point. That's great. Yeah. Do you have anybody in your field that you love to follow on social media?
Yes, I do. I actually, I don't use Instagram and Facebook a lot, like, well, I use Facebook re I'm, I'm trying to build up a more, um, more social presence, uh, social media presence. I know it's very important. Um, but I do use Twitter a lot for my own networking purpose. I'm sorry about my dog. that's okay. He's just to jump in.
okay. We love dogs here. yeah. So, so yeah, so I actually, and then I think this is why I love the job that I do too. It's I have this corner I'm in this corner, uh, called fee only financial planners. So for us, you know, basically what that means. I get the question aloud. What does fee only mean? Which basically means that, you know, we only get paid by our clients.
We don't get kicked back or commissioned from any other resources. So that's, for me, that's a good way for me to make sure that I'm not, I'm like biased when I'm recommending things. You. Not saying that I would otherwise, but it's, it's always good to have this structure set up there. Sure. Um, so, but within this group, I actually, you know, before I become a field entrepreneur, I kind of felt like, oh, you know, we have the set amount, you know, just kind of the fixed mindset.
We only have this many people and I'm a, you know, I'm competing with every other financial advisors. Sure. You know, everybody's a competitor to me, but once I kind of come into this space really helped me to. Stand that, Hey, you know, I, I can only take, um, probably 50, 60 clients and this business is not scalable and there are a lot of people out there that still need help, you know, so, and it's not a competition, it's a collaboration and, and we can all join forces together to also kind of, you know, do better, like more education to the general public about the things that can do and then make the pie bigger for everybody jointly.
So, so, so I, so that's a long story to lead to that. I actually follow a lot of other financial planners, like the only financial planners on Twitter too. And I just love how they cause like I I'm a certified financial planner and I'm, you know, charter financial analyst. So it's two pretty technical designations.
So the technical part. Is fine. Um, but really this job has a lot more interaction, you know, kind of how to, how do you not use jargon and use the concept? That's how do you make analogy works? You know, how do you sometimes simplify a concept? That's has a lot of nuances, but how do you simplify that to deliver this message?
So I love following. See how they do that. Cuz everybody kinda have their own flavor. They kind of approach it a little bit differently. So actually follow a lot of people, um, on like financial planners on Twitter and mm-hmm , you know, we're, you know, a lot of women too, cuz. That's what I'm really passionate about for women and immigrants, because that's two biggest underserved, um, community.
Yeah. And, you know, yeah. So, and there's just countless of research and study personal stories and stories that heard from, you know, the group that we met and a lot of different things that, you know, really. Made me want to focus on, on women to make us all feel like we are heard. So there are a lot of like female financial planners that I follow.
And then we kind of, you know, periodically get together to talk about this is what I see, you know, from my clients and, you know, something that helped them. And how do you approach stuff like that? Mm-hmm so it's really, it's really cool to feel like I don't have to put out. Armor or become combative. And instead we're just a big, happy group of people that just wanna do the best, you know, for, for everybody.
Yeah. So it's, it's been, it's been amazing, but yeah, but also people like, um, Morgan, Hazel, like, I, I love him. I just think that he really does really good research and then he can really, um, put everything really, um, in the straightforward way to communicate that. Mm. Um, and then, you know, um, there are several other, you know, people that's in the personal fitness space as well.
If you want, like, I can give you a couple of links to sure. To their stuff. I, you know, like REIT Sethi, I think like a lot of people know him. Mm-hmm um, and yeah, just, just all of the stuff, just so, yeah. So it's say its really fun. It's really fun to like follow them, see how everybody else does things and kinda like, you know, figure out my own style as well.
Yeah, no that's. Um, is there anything additional that you would want our listeners to know about you and your business? Yeah, I just, um, yes. I just wanna know everybody to know that they're doing a good job, you know? Um, I, I see this thing on this, in this group a lot. And then I think I've experienced this myself, a lot of imposter syndrome, a lot of highs when I did something great.
Something kind of paid off a lot of lows when I feel like I'm just. Biggest piece of us in the world. Like, you know, . Yeah. And, you know, I think we all go through a lot of emotional, you know, up and downs, but at the end of the day, you know, just, just show up, you know, just show up and keep doing what you do.
Give yourself space to, um, give yourself space to. You don't have to be perfect, you know, mm-hmm, be sympathetic. Like how, just treat yourself how you want to treat others as well. Sometimes we are our harshest critic, um, you know, have mercy on yourself. Yes . Yeah. So I think that's really important, especially as women, you know, I think we tend to.
Focus on what we're not doing well, which is great. Helps us to get better, but sometimes it's also good to celebrate what we've done well, mm-hmm and I just hope everyone, you know, and then if you have any question at all, any listener today, if you have any questions, you know, you can feel free to email me or DME, you know, with any questions and will love to help, you know, you don't have to be clients and mm-hmm we can just, you know, talk about what's bothering you in, you know, so yeah.
All of that is welcome. It helped me to understand different perspective too. So it's really a win-win situation. Yeah, that's great. So where can our listeners find you? Yeah. So, uh, I have my own practice. I'm part of a big comp um, well, not big company. We're very small, but part of a company called core planning.
So you can find my page on www.yourcoreplan.com/lay my first name L E I. Dash my last name D as in David, E as in Eagle, N as in Nancy and G as in George. So that's my bio page. You will find a little bit more story about myself and, um, my contact information and some of my media, um, mentions. So if you, you know, if you have any questions specific from these articles or podcasts, you might be able to find that through there as well.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It was great to yeah, no. Great with you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. Well, we will cut this one for today and I will talk to you guys next week.
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Alyssa Jackson is our special guest today, coming from the Boston, Massachusetts area. She has been married nearly 10 years and has two children. A daughter who is 8, and a son who is 6. IShe anaged a salon for over 10 years, and decided to open her own salon just over a year ago. They have been open since April 2021 and are about to open a second location on September 1, 2022. She grew her first salon to 4 employees and with the second location will have a total of 7. Listen in to her story of becoming a business owner and break down a few stereotypes about the hair and cosmetolgy world. Well, hello everyone. It is your host, Emily, a Woodruff. I am excited to be here with you for another week. I have a special guest with us today. Her name is Alyssa and she is from salon volition. Alyssa, why don't you give us a little introduction about you and your business? Sure. Thank you so much, Emily, for having me here.
I'm so excited to be on this platform with you and sharing. Like you said, my name is Alyssa. I am from the north shore area of Massachusetts, north of Boston. And I am married with two children, uh, eight year old and a six year old. And I'm just about to hit my 10 year wedding anniversary coming up in September.
So all great things. And I opened my salon volition. Just under a year and a half ago. And since we've opened up, uh, we've had a great response and it's been phenomenal. So I'm really happy to be here and share everything with you guys. That is so exciting. So what do you, what kind of services do you offer at your salon?
So we are a strictly hair salon right now. Meaning we offer hair coloring, haircuts, extensions, and you know, some smoothing services. We don't have, uh, nails or waxing or facials or anything. It's just hair services. Uh, we specialize in natural hair coloring. So. Colors that look like they grew out of your head that way, or maybe a little bit of an extra pop, but just like that kind of beautiful natural look and also hair extensions.
That's neat. That's really neat. That's kind of fun too. Cuz there's so many places that want to use like the bright and unnatural things and it's neat to see people really tapping into the natural beauty, you know exactly. Yeah. Like I feel people feel most confident when. They can walk out of the salon and somebody says to them, wow, your hair looks beautiful versus, oh, did you just get your hair done?
Like, it looks different, you know, almost just that natural confidence is instilled with that. Yeah, totally agree. So what made you wanna open up your own salon? Yeah. So it was a little bit of, um, a shocker. It was nothing that was planned with me. I was working at a salon for, I was almost at the 11 year mark and I managed, um, there was two separate locations by the time I left and I was mainly, uh, general manager for both, but then I was more located in one.
Uh, so I. Kind of happy. I was just managing behind the chair doing my thing. Uh, and unfortunately there was some unforeseen circumstances where, um, a group of us girls had to leave due to legal reasons. Uh, and yeah, so I can't get too in depth with that, but legally, but, uh, we had to leave, so I. Left in January of 2021.
And I rented a chair, which is a different version of being a, in a salon. You could be an employee or you can rent a chair, which is kind of like being your own business owner in a sense, but you're in a chair in somebody else's salon. Um, and it just didn't feel enough for me. Uh, I felt like I needed more and like I was meant for more so.
February. I wanna say it was February 19th. I signed my lease and by April 1st we were in opened with volition. So it was really quick and unexpected, but I truly believe everything happens for a reason. And when one door closes another open and that's how my salon came about. That's awesome. That's so great.
Yeah. Is that something you've always like, dreamed about since you were a little girl, it just kind of happened. Yeah. You know, it's really funny. I always say that, like, I, um, you know, a lot of hairdressers or hair stylists, I should say, um, as a little girl or from a young age, like loved playing with hair and doing their friend's hair and Barbie's hair, and just always kind of had that passion and like, or even when they got into it, they always wanna open their salon one day and I have always been entrepreneurial, but it just was not something that.
I ever saw myself doing, I was happy where I was at. I was content it. It wasn't a passion of mine, surprisingly. Um, and even like, as a kid, like, I didn't enjoy doing other people's hair. I just, one day said, you know, I'm gonna go to school for hair. And I, and I did it and I enjoyed it. It, I don't know, I don't know how to describe that.
It almost was just like, it was written in the cards for me and I was just following those cards. Um, so yeah, usually, like you said, it's the other way around, it's this big dream of owning the salon and like finally doing it where. It wasn't like that for me. But now that I have one, I want 'em all. So , I guess now that switch turned on and now I want, you know, I have my vision of my 3, 5, 10 year goals and more salons are in the picture.
So that's it's yeah. Funny how that happens. That's great. So what's something, what's something that this job or your position with this job, you know, being a, a business owner. Has taught you that you think that everyone should learn at some point in their life or in their career? Sure. I, I feel like. One of the things that is plays a huge role in the success of a business just in life in general is structure and systems.
And having those things kind of set in place so that everything can run smoothly, uh, and even down to your daily life. So I'm doing some coaching now with a coach and part of that. This is supposed to be, you know, business coaching as you know, um, and part of it is just life coaching and how that life coaching can now come into my business and change my business.
Just things such as a morning, routine of waking up a little bit earlier, making my bed, doing a little bit of getting your blood pumping and then. Journaling, you know, and that can, is just my structure and my system. And then taking that type of, um, habitual process and bringing it into your business and instilling that in your employees, it, it kind of comes full circle.
So I think just having clear set structure and systems can be beneficial for anybody, not just business owners, just everybody's daily life. That's great. So this is not part of my that's yeah. Pre my pre um, do you do any type of training, like leadership training or, um, management training with your crew?
Yeah. So we're. We're getting into that. Yes. So actually today I just had a meeting with my staff. Um, and we, my goal is to be a little bit more frequent with it. Um, but we at least try to have a meeting once a month and we go over, um, you know, numbers and things like that, but not just that, but personal development.
And today one of our questions was, you know, what's your perfect. In an ideal world, what would your perfect week look like? Like what would you do every day? What would your work schedule be like and what would you make at the end of that week? And then we kind of dissect it is into how are we gonna get there?
Um, you know, things like that. And I haven't quite gotten to the management training yet, cuz the salon where I'm at is only two chairs and I only have really two, I have four employees. Two of them are more solid looking for growth employees. Um, but we are potentially going to be opening a second location in the very near future.
So I am going to need that management training because I can't be at two places at once. So it's definitely something that I know is gonna be coming up kind of fast and furious to where I'm gonna need these management training. So these girls know how to manage when I'm not there. , that's great. That's really exciting.
Yeah. Cool. Um, what do you think for your industry? What do you think is the most important kind of personality, trait or strength that somebody would need to be successful confidence? Um, and I, I know that's hard. Uh, confidence does not come easy for a lot of people. Uh, That is the number one struggle that I see in my stylist that, that maybe aren't doing as well as they've hoped.
Um, and it's because especially, um, in a business where you're dealing with the public and a lot of different people, um, there's a lot of different personalities that you're managing and you're trying to. Fit in with, so you kind of have to be a chameleon in a sense and work well with all these people.
But in the end, if you don't have confidence, those. That's gonna really hinder your growth because people sense that and they either don't wanna come back to you cuz they feel like you're, you're not, you're unsure of yourself or they try to take control of the appointment and then you're not happy with yourself because you weren't able to give them your full potential.
So I definitely feel like in this industry, confidence is key to, to success. That's great. So I just kind of started thinking about how you were, you said that you opened like a year and a half ago. So you did this like mid pandemic while all the salons in the, in the country were shut down and things.
How pretty close. Yeah. Pretty close to the pandemic. You know, I almost had no choice, right? Like we definitely opened up in a time where there was still strict rules and regulations, masks, social distancing, no, no snacks, no drinks. Uh, so it was very hard to be able to give my clients the full experience.
That I am used to providing my regular clients, obviously knew how things were before COVID so for them, but for new clients, it was really difficult. So we definitely had to try to figure out ways to go above and beyond so that they could kind of get that. The feel and the vibe that we like to offer, but it was hard.
Like, I couldn't see these people's faces. They can't see my face. It definitely was a struggle. Uh, but we were luckily able to kind of push through. And I do think that one thing that helped us is the fact that we're a smaller salon mm-hmm so a lot of customers and clients felt really comfortable with the fact.
There was never gonna be more than four people maximum in the salon at a time. Sure. So it didn't feel like, oh my gosh, like I'm in a salon with 15 people. Like this is crazy. Yeah. So, um, that definitely, I think was a, a big factor and, and helping us grow through COVID that's really interesting. And I'm from Michigan.
So we had really, really strict rules. um, you probably heard about us on on the news and things, you know, there were protests and all sorts of things cuz they completely shut it down. Totally, totally. Shut it down here. And it's just, I had another friend that opened through this. Deal. And it just amazes me, you know, it's just more power to you.
Kudos. thank you. Yeah. The one thing I will say about COVID was people did not care. They still wanted their hair done. Like that was, yeah, that was one thing that people were like, I am willing to get sick as long as my roots. Aren't great. So that is one thing that, uh, we definitely are lucky with, with the hair salon.
That's funny. My husband, we were home for like seven weeks with the way that our industries were shut down. Mm-hmm and he, I don't cut his hair. Ever, and he finally let me do it and he has never let me do it again. So that salons are open again. the salons open back up again. Cause that could be bad. Yeah.
Yeah. He's like, mm, I love you. But no, , you're not my hairstylist anymore. Yeah. That's yeah. So what, what about like a common rumor? I'm sure that you have heard some rumors about hairstylists. What's something that you can clear the air. Oh a hundred percent. So like my biggest, uh, pet peeve, I, I guess I should say with hairstylists is, uh, they they're ditzy and stupid, right?
Like that's like, you know, you'd see like the memes of them, like blowing bubble gum wall, you know, just like kind of like dopey, I guess. Um, so that was one of the main. Pushes behind my salon name. Like there was a lot of reasons why I chose the name volition. Um, but one of them was, is I wanted a, a name that was more sophisticated and educated because doing hair, isn't just, you know, cutting and curling, you know, there's a lot of chemistry behind it and you have to be really knowledgeable about.
A lot of things where you could really mess up somebody's hair, um, there's lawsuits all the time of which again, I guess this doesn't improve my case very well but, uh, but there are some instances, you know, that you can really do bad things. So I, I just feel like all hair stylists get that reputation of just kind of being, uh, dizzy and dumb.
And I, and I really like my goal is to show. The world that like, we aren't all like that way. Like a lot of us actually are really. Educated and we know our stuff and we are, um, more than that. So I guess like, that's the, the one thing that I wish could be cleared up a little bit, you know, it's not just fluff and, you know, glamor it's, it's also, um, sophistication mm-hmm and I think our generation is kind of changing that image a little.
I think that that was really, really heavy, like in our parents generation. Sure. And it seems like, it seems like there's a lot of people with that same mindset that are trying to shift the way that it looks thankfully. Yeah. Because that's something that you it's just ingrained in people's minds that that's it, you know, and.
As a business person. I know that that's not true. I know that that's you don't just come in and pick up a wand and know what you're doing. You have to go to school, you have to study, you have to train, you know? Yeah. It's neat. I'm, I'm excited to see things changing in that manner. Me too, me too. And I do see a shift a hundred percent.
I, I see more respect coming to the industry, uh, you know, slowly but surely, um, And, and almost, I feel like they put a little bit of a light to that because of how much people realized, like not, were we just there gray coverage where there therapy and where they're, you know, so much more. And like, that's the one thing that people wanted to open up so bad regardless of, you know, what was happening.
So I think that shed a little light of how important we actually are in a lot of people's lives. Yeah, no, I agree. And especially in like minority communities, mm-hmm, where. They go the way that they get a hair hair do done or have their hair worked on is totally different than how I would. Mm-hmm , it's an all day thing sometimes for them.
And it. You bring your family, you're there all day long. You get to know each other way more in depth than I would just coming and sitting in your seat for an hour, you know, it's hundred percent it's culture shift. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah, it is. So it's definitely, it's been great to kind of see that start to shift.
That's. So what's something in your business that ha that's happened that you didn't expect, like in your salon as something happened that you weren't prepared for? That's a good question. Um, that I wasn't prepared for just in general, maybe. Is that what you like? Yeah. Just in regards to everything. Um, I think the biggest thing for me that I wasn't expecting, um, Was how detailed it really is to, to run a business behind the scenes.
Um, again, not that like, I think a lot of the time, oh, I'll just go open up my own salon. Like I'm doing great anyways. So like why can't I do it all for my myself. Right? Sure. Um, but I think that what I wasn't expecting was like the numbers behind it all and. The formulas and the finding out how much, like you have to in order to make sure that you're actually going to be profitable.
You need to know how much does it cost me to be opened down to the minute, like, right. Are my expenses too high? What percentage should my wages be to my revenue? Like there's a lot behind there. Yeah. So like for the first kind of like. 10 months, 12 months. I was just kind of like coasting, you know, like, okay, this seems like it's working, we're doing well, we're busy.
Like things are great. Um, but then like, especially as I start to look into a second location, like, okay, well I really need to get, get a hold on this. And like yeah. Figure it all out. And that, I guess, I was not expecting, I was just expecting it to keep just running, you know, smoothly. So that was one thing that kind of surprised me how in depth you need to get to really, truly understand like the business side of it versus just the styling side of it.
Yeah. That's a good answer. yeah. I, I, I don't have any other like crazy surprises luckily, right? Yeah. Like I guess everything else has been, you know, definitely. I guess another thing would be how hard it is to find staff. I feel like a lot of people yeah. Are, are feeling that struggle, um, of, of staffing issues.
Um, but other than that, there's been no other like crazy. Curves throw my way yet. Yeah. Knock that's good. Right, right. Yeah. Was there anything additional that you would want our listeners to know about you or your business? Uh, sure. I mean, my thing really that I want to like part of like my whole volition, my, my vibe, my feelings that I like to bring, like to.
My clients to my staff is just that I feel like a lot of people think, oh, it can't be me. Like I can't do that. Or, um, and I just want everybody to know that, like, if you truly believe you can do it, you know, you can do it. And I, I think not enough people have that in themselves. You know, obviously some things will take work, but if you set your mind to something.
Then you can do it like as long as you, you truly believe it. And I feel like that's the type of, you know, volition means the power of one's free will, you know, by your own volition. So just make the choice and do it like five years is gonna come no matter what, like you can't stop that. So like, if there's something you wanna do, why not spend the next five years?
Trying to do it versus just thinking about it, you know, it's gonna come whether you wanted to or not. Right. So make it worth it. Yeah. No, that's great. That's great. Where can our listeners find you online? Thank you. Yeah, so we are on. Facebook at salon volition on Facebook. We are on Instagram as well at salon dot volition.
And we are on TikTok, uh, at, and our TikTok is@salonvolitionandourwebsiteissalonvolition.com. So just look for salon volition, and you'll find us everywhere. Awesome. Yeah. All over the place. Great. Well, thank you so much. I will link all of your. All of your links. I'll put those in the comments and make them available for any listeners.
Um, I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much, Emily. And I appreciate you having me here again. It was a pleasure and I love being able to share with everyone. Yeah. Awesome.
www.Instagram.com/salon.volition https://m.facebook.com/salonvolition/ www.TikTok.com/@salonvolition
Christine Sandberg is a one-on-one small business coach who works with women who are struggling to start or grow their business to take the next step with clarity & confidence!
If you'd like to connect with her, you can find her at www.newmorningcoaching.com
https://www.instagram.com/newmorningcoaching/
https://www.facebook.com/newmorningcoaching
Welcome to the no mercy business coaching podcast with Emily, a Woodruff, the podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and the lows. We'll talk with small business owners from all over the us and share insights on how to help manage your business without the extra fluff and connect with other women.
Just like you let's dive in everyone for joining me for another episode of the no mercy business podcast. This is your host, Emily, a Woodruff I have today with me, Christine Sandberg. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners. Hi listeners. Um, as Emily said, my name's Christine Sandberg.
I am a small business coach and I'm located in St. Paul, Minnesota. And I've been business coaching since 2018 and last. Last year, I went full time with it after I sold my clothing boutique and I help women specifically start small businesses and turn their passion into a profit. That's awesome. So I'm super excited to.
Dig into that a little bit more since I'm kind of going down the business coaching route too. Um, so I'm interested to hear how you'll respond to some of these. So how did you, how did you get involved with coaching? Um, you said that you, you turned over your boutique. How did that come out of, or were they related?
Yeah, so I got started with, um, actually writing. I've always liked writing. Um, I was an English major in college, so I started a blog to kind of share some of the learnings that I was. Experiencing, um, while I was in business. And so I started a blog and that was entirely business focused and that's all it kind of was, was just, um, just a blog.
But then in 2018, I went to the business boutique women's business conference in Nashville, Tennessee. And I really loved the conference and I felt something like come alive inside of me where I was like, this is so cool. Like, this is what, this is what I wanna do. I want to inspire women to start their own businesses and encourage them that they can do it.
Um, so I've just been. So I took that nugget of an idea that seed of an idea and started testing it out. And so I got a handful of women to beta test with me and I just tried it to see, Hey, is this helpful to you? And does this come naturally to me? Is it. Is it, um, difficult? Is it hard? Does it drain me?
Does it excite me? Yeah. Um, and kind of pass all of those check marks. And then, so then the first year I just started coaching, um, at like a very low introductory rate, just to kind of get my foot in the door and. To build up a client space and experience. And I will say that this hasn't been the only mentoring I've done.
I've done mentoring women individually, one on one for over 10 years. So that setting has, I have some experience in, so it was just combining these.
Two things that I love mentoring women and also teaching and business, um, altogether. So that's how I got started. That's great. So that kind of explains how you found your, your ideal client and your, your, your client base that you work with. Is women in business who are looking to expand their marketing or expand their businesses?
Is that what you would say? Yeah, definitely that I.
Say year one to five is that is where I land with my clients or clients who are doing a new business. Um, sometimes they already have many years in business experience. Like I worked with some clients who have had like 20 years of experience mm-hmm in business, but they wanna try something new and they feel like they're stuck and they just want some, some.
Specifically, you know, with marketing and strategy and, um, learning some of the newer aspects of online business, like, um, marketing funnels and mm-hmm special media and those kind of things that weren't around 20 years ago. Sure. That makes sense. So how would you. Just walk me through how you would find or connect with your ideal client.
Where do you, where do you succeed the most with that? Yeah, I found the most success with finding clients through Facebook groups that I activ, actively participate in. Um, not my own, unfortunately. yeah. That's a work in progress. Yeah. Um, I've also had some clients reach out to me through word of mouth and through Instagram.
Awesome. I think we all face the same struggle with the, with our groups. For some reason, it seems like they just don't necessarily gain the traction that we hope for. But it's great that you get it somewhere else. I tell people. And I tell my clients, honestly, that sometimes I feel like the plumber with the leaky pipes at home.
Yeah. like, I can tell you what you need to do to succeed on Instagram and Facebook groups and you know how to put yourself out there and what to focus on and how to respond to comments, et cetera, et cetera. But then when it comes to me actually doing. I, I, I, I struggle sometimes. So I think, I think that's very common for our line of work.
So don't let that discourage you. How do you, how do you juggle all of your responsibilities, um, while still maintaining your successful business and your home life and everything else you got going on? Yeah, I'll be honest. And that I work business coaching. Full time. Part-time okay. So I'm fully.
Get committed to it, but I work part-time on it. And then the other hours in my week, I have an Etsy shop that I devote some time to. And I also just enjoy the life balance of. Taking care of my home and gardening and doing those sorts of things. So I don't, I'm not someone who's putting out an image where I'm working 60, 80 hours a week and bringing in a huge hustle.
That's not one of my life values, so that's not something I do. Mm-hmm , that's neat. That's great. What, what do you specialize in for your Etsy shop? Just outta C. What was the question? Sorry. What do you specialize in, in your Etsy shop? Just for curiosity's sake. Yeah. I have a Etsy shop that sells homemade hermit crab food.
That is so random, but so great. I'm sure you have a, a real niche client base there. Huh? I do. I. Have had, I have been in the hermit crab community, um, almost 10 years now and, um, have had my own pet hermit crabs for many years and, uh, have thought for a while of opening up the shop. And I love I'm like addicted back to my clients.
So. I don't make a ton of money with the hermit crab Etsy shop, which is Christine's crab care by the way. Okay. but I, um, enjoy it and it allows me to experiment and become more familiar with the Etsy platform, which helps a lot of my clients because Etsy is a great way to start a small business. So.
That's neat. That's neat. We can definitely link it in the comments if you want. send some people your way. Um, so what would you say? What would you suggest to others in your field? Sorry, let me try that again. Who is someone in your market? I was reading two questions at the same time. Who's someone that's in your market that you would suggest others in our field or your field follow.
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So I have three recommendations. Sure. And these are all. Um, Instagram experts, like I know Instagram is a real struggle for a lot of my clients, so that's why I mention it. Um, getting reliable, solid information, not hacks and click bait. And. All this, like fluff that doesn't, that doesn't produce fruit.
That's not actually beneficial in the long run. Um, kind of cutting through the noise, like what is actually beneficial to me and what is just a time waster or benefiting them because it gets them ads or views or whatever. So three of these Instagram accounts, I would highly recommend if you are looking to grow on Instagram are the first one is creators.
And that's spelled just a normal English way. Um, and that is an official Instagram account and they share kind of the best of Instagram on there. And we'll share some tips for growing an audience, Mo monetization, other things like that. And then the other one is, ER, M O S S E R. I. And he is the head of Instagram.
And when an Instagram change happens, where a lot of people will like run around with a chicken, like a chicken with their head cut off and be like, the sky is falling. Yeah. Like he'll just like break it down for you in a really calm and easy to. Like understand way that, Hey, we're not doing this, but we are looking to do this.
And here's why, so that's an, an enjoyable account. And then the last one is, um, Brock Johnson. He's an Instagram coach and he shares a ton of free information online, um, on his Instagram account. That's really helpful. So his Instagram is Brock 11 Johnson. That's awesome. That's great. I never thought to follow the creator of Instagram, but that totally makes sense.
seems like they would be able to mitigate some issues, you know? Um, so what's something, what do you think is important for a new client to ask when they're searching for a business coach, what's something that you encounter a lot or something that you kind of look for when a. Reaches out to you. Yeah. So I ask clients what they hope to get out of business coaching, and I want potential clients to be explicit as possible.
Like, tell me exactly what you're looking for so that I can be honest with you and tell you if I'm the right coach or not for you. Mm-hmm . Um, and I think when you're searching for a business coach, you should get a straight answer from whoever you're potentially looking to hire. Um, I don't. I think it's a red flag.
If they will bring you onto a discovery call or bring you onto a call, but then won't answer that question. Um, so I, I would say for anyone else, looking for a coach, you need an honest answer. That's explicit on both what. What are they going to provide for you? What are, what are they gonna help you with?
What do they think they can help you with? And you can ask them if they've had previous experience, helping clients with that issue, and also, um, coaches that are transparent in their pricing and telling you how long they think it would take to get those results and how much that will cost you. Because it's one thing to say, oh, here's.
Per coaching call fee or here's my monthly fee. But if you don't, if you're thinking this will will be solved in three months, but the business coach knows this is more of a 13 month pro program. Right. Um, I just really appreciate as an individual integrity and, um, saying those things out loud. So that's something that I always give potential clients in that first call.
Um, and something that I would say, you know, to look for. That's great. Is there anything additional or anything extra that you would want our listeners to know about you or your businesses?
Yeah, as I mentioned, I'm just, you know, a it's serial entrepreneur myself. Yeah. Um, and I've tried. A lot of different things. I've had an online retail shop, I've done Etsy, I've done reselling, um, I've had service businesses and productbased businesses. And, um, so I feel like it's important for, you know, to know what experience that business coach has.
And it's interesting. Like I've had clients come to me who have a degree in business, but need help starting their business. I don't have a degree in business. And, um, so that's just, I think that's cool. And maybe a little ironic. Um and yeah, so, and just like where my expertise is, my expertise is not onboarding.
It's not growing a C-suite, it's not, um, those corporation style. Levels of business because that's not what I've done. I've done startup DIY. Do it yourself. Scrappy, pull.
Everything together. And as I tell my clients, like, let me help you get the ball rolling, rolling. So that you can have knowledge of all these different hats that we wear in business. And then get to a point where you can proof your concept of like, Hey, this is gonna work. Now I can start to hire out help for these different avenues that I'm not successful in.
Yeah. And. Because I've already done it a little bit. I know exactly like what I'm looking for when I make that hire mm-hmm um, so that's the earliest stage of business that I'm talking about that I help with is that I have an idea or I've tried an idea and it stalled out to let's get you rolling. Let's prove your concept up until the point of all right now I'm rocking and roll in and now I can hire an, a social media expert or I can hire.
A team lead. I can
hire a HR department, those types of things. And then I kind of sign off. I'm like, all right, we did, we did the thing. I've gotten you to the finish line, my finish line. Now you continue on. And, um, yeah, that's great. Well, thank you so much. If you want to, uh, just tell our listeners where they can find you.
Yeah, of course. My website is new morningcoaching.com and same on social media, new morning coaching. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It was great to talk to you today. Um, yeah, thanks for having me on Emily. Yeah. Thanks for listening to the no mercy business coaching and consulting podcast with Emily, a Woodruff, we specialize in branding and design for women by women.
Take a dive into the meaning behind the name, "No Mercy Business Podcast," and how I felt God compelled me to create something beautiful out of something that can seem so cold and empty.
Then, lets talk about setting boundaries and how my lack of empathy has helped my clients to protect their home life, work hours and thrive.
Emily: (00:00)
Welcome to the no mercy business coaching podcast with Emily, a Woodruff, the podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and the lows. We'll talk with small business owners from all over the us and share insights on how to help manage your business without the extra fluff and connect with other women. Just like you. Let's dive in.
Emily: (00:33)
Hey everyone, it's Emily, you are host. I am so thankful that you are here with me today. I can't wait to dig into this week's topic. I think that you're gonna like this one. So the, the purpose of this podcast is to just be able to share my experiences and share my interactions and, um, you know, some things that I've learned along the way I've owned my own business for about 10 years, a little bit longer than 10 years now. Um, I have my bachelor's degree in business administration. I have subsequent degrees in liberal arts, business management, um, office professionalism, office management. I have subsequent certificates that go along with it. Um, and I have been in the business world. I feel like my entire life, my, my mom was a business person. She had a team of, you know, 20 people below her, almost my entire life until I was like 25.
Emily: (01:36)
Um, my dad had always worked in offices. They both were very committed to their jobs, very committed to their, their employers, very committed to making sure that they did well in their business, that they did well and thrived in their endeavors, wherever they were at. My mom worked for the same company for I think, 27 years or something like that, which is a heck of a long time . Um, and my dad, he worked at a couple different ones, different places, but everywhere that he went, he went head first. He dove in and he was all there. He was a hundred percent in, he didn't hold anything back and he, he cared about his clients. He cared about his coworkers. He cared about his employer. He, he gave way more than he probably ever should have, but that's a, that's an episode for a whole different day.
Emily: (02:35)
Um, I, all of this, just to say that the business world has been around me my entire life. Um, my parents were not service workers or trade workers. They, you know, it just, it just has kind of surrounded me forever. And it's something that I feel like I am extrinsically gifted in. I feel, feel like God has blessed me with the spiritual gift of administration. Um, and I never really thought too much about that until the last couple years. Um, administration is a weird spiritual gift and we're gonna go down this road for a little bit. Um, it's a weird spiritual gift because it is something that you can learn and it's something that you can just be good at. But for me, I started to realize I've always known that administration was one of my spiritual gifts because I'm weirdly good at administrative things.
Emily: (03:34)
Um, I always scout score super high on the spiritual gifts test or the, you know, personality test, anything that has to do anything that has to do with organization and, um, management. That is me through and through to a T um, don't come in my house and open a couple certain closets, cuz they will try to tell you lies about me, but it's fine. It's like my Monica closet from friends. Um, I have this one that's like under my stairs and it's just a, it's a catch all and it's the bane of my existence, but that's that's yeah. Anyway, so for spiritual gifts, I started to realize that for me, this truly is a spiritual gift of mine because the way that I can absorb information about completing certain types of tasks, the way that I can apply them, the amount of stress that I can take on and then still be confidently outputting the work.
Emily: (04:39)
There is no humanly way that I can do that on my own. There is no way it has to come from some other force. It has to come from God. And I started really tapping into that. Now that I am six years into my, what I would call my career. I started realizing that some of these things that I do it, my, my career, my job is very seasonally based. So there are certain times of the year that we are kind of slow. Um, it's in the construction realm. I don't wanna give too many details I don't ever wanna have anyway. I'm not gonna give too many details about my actual job, but it's in the construction field. And um, so like most states, Michigan, we have a construction season and we have winter in the winter. There's very limited construction that can go on.
Emily: (05:39)
We can do lots of indoor things. We can do lots of, um, interior renovations or working on case work or things like that, that aren't weather pending. Um, in those months, my job is significantly easier in the summertime. I will sometimes have stacks of paper on my desk that are literally an inch thick of things that I have to do that day. My job is very dependent on new jobs starting. I anyway, I get to a point where there are so many things going on. I feel like I can't blink at my job. There's too many tasks. I hand there's too many things to do. And I started, I started thinking about it more and it's, I always get them done and I always get them done well. And I always do the things that I need to do. And then still have time for more.
Emily: (06:41)
I still have the ability to take on more. I still am able to do it with a smile most of the time. And I, I feel like that is just not something that's me. It's not something that I have designed. It's not something that I have put the effort into. Sometimes I amaze myself with the amount of things that I'm able to accomplish in one day. And I have to just say, man, that was God that had to be God, because none of that was me, the way that I'm able to work with certain types of clients or certain, you know, subs of ours, it's, it's God breathed. So I started just really wanting to tap into that. And so realizing that my ability to do these things comes from God is really ground shaking for me. Um, I don't come from a Christian background.
Emily: (07:44)
I don't come from an entrepreneur background. I, as a kid, everything I did was, was my doings. You know, it was all from me. So being able to take, take a hard look at my life and, and realize that something has happened outside of my doing that took a lot for me. It took a lot for me to truly surrender that to God. And to say that I understand that this is something from him. And to when I say surrender that I think that, I mean surrender myself and all of the good that I have done and all of the work that I had put into things and really turning that over to him and, and giving him the glory for it. Instead of me, I'm, I'm just, I've just been his vessel. I've just been the one that he has led me to make these decisions in my life.
Emily: (08:47)
And he has led me to, to continue down this path and I going through that was really eye-opening for me. So if that's something that you have also faced or something that maybe you're in the thick of right now, I would love to chat more with you about it. Um, I would love to hear where you're at or where you feel that God is pulling you. If you're somebody who doesn't know God, I would love to talk to you about that too. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna try to sell him to you, but I would love to know how you run your business and how you manage your day to day. And, and just take a look at how, how things are for you. I would love to try to work with you and, and tap into some of that with you. So if that's you send me an email, check out my website, say something on Facebook, I'm always around. I would love to just chat.
Emily: (09:46)
So since we're talking about spiritual gifts, I should probably tell you the opposite side of my test too. And that is that every single test that I take, the lowest score that I get, the lowest spiritual gift that I am ranked with is mercy. And that is how this podcast was born. I am known in my friend circle. And then in my, my business life, I'm pretty much known everywhere that I go for being somebody who's very forward. Who's very direct. Who's very open and willing to tell you what I think and willing to share what I think that God thinks.
Emily: (10:33)
Some people will call that mercy list. just call it real straight. um, you can take that how you want to, but so, so anyway, that's where, that's where the name of this podcast came from. And it's just the idea that if you are gonna work with somebody, you want to know that they're not gonna give you bull crap. They're not gonna feed you lies. They're not gonna just feed into your ego and tell you, Hey, yeah, that sounds great. Or I know that you've been trying this for six months and nothing has changed, but let's just keep doing it. Cuz that seems like, seems like where're comfortable. I'm not that person. I'm not your coach. I'm not your ally. If you want somebody to just keep telling you to keep doing what you're doing and continue to see you fail. We're not the match.
Emily: (11:24)
We are not a match for each other. One of my strengths is being able to be objective and to look at things without , without my friend glasses on, without my, you know, my connection to you getting in the way I'm very talented. I'll say that very talented in being able to just take a situation and dissect it and remove myself completely from it. So this is something that I thought that I, I could play on and I could work with other people. Um, so now that we've kind of established that I wanna talk to you about setting boundaries.
Emily: (12:04)
I wanna talk to you about setting boundaries in your business, setting boundaries in your personal life, setting boundaries in your hours, worked in the way that you respond on social media. All of it. I hope you're here for it today, man. So if you've been an entrepreneur for long, you know that it's very easy to let your business consume your days and your nights and your weekends and your holidays and your everything. If you don't set boundaries, something that's very important to do from the very beginning is to set work hours. Something that's even more important is to abide by them. If you gave up your nine to five, because you didn't like working for somebody or because you wanted to have an 11 to seven, make sure that you're committing to that, your spouse, your children, your friends, your family, they deserve that from you.
Emily: (13:01)
They, they deserve to know that you have consistency. You deserve to know what hours of the day you are expected to work and show up and be on it, to be on your game. It's a difficult way to live your life. If you wake up at different times every single day, if you go to bed at different times, every single day, if you take meetings at 9:00 PM, but your out of office time stopped at 4:00 PM. That doesn't, that doesn't speak well of your time management skills. You have every right in the world to be able to say, no, I'm super sorry. That time doesn't work for me. I would love to meet you sometime between this time and this time, please let me know what works for you. And almost always they'll have a time that works. People are so afraid of stepping on each other's toes and, and I think missing an opportunity by standing up for themselves. But I find that if somebody responds to me and says, no, this doesn't really fit within my needs list or my wants list. I'm more drawn to them because they know what they want. They know what they're after they respect themselves enough to have a schedule, to have some boundaries and to man maintain them.
Emily: (14:23)
I think it's incredibly important for our mental health, for our ability to manage our own personal lives for our ability to commit to things, our ability to just really be present in the best way possible for us to stick to our own boundaries, to stick to our own schedules. I mentioned that I have a, a regular job and I also do this and I'm also a virtual assistant. So for my virtual assistant job, I have very clear cut hours that I will work. And I also make it very clear that if anything changes, I'm at Liberty to say, I'm not working tonight. I have, um, a stepson that comes back and forth every other week. And I tell the person that I'm an assistant for. Hey, the weeks that my stepson's with me, my, my family is the most important thing. So if I'm cooking dinner or if he needs help with his homework, or we just have to do something as a family, or we get to do something as a family that comes before my third job every day.
Emily: (15:39)
And she's really understanding with it as long as I am communicating with her. And I'm, you know, if I'm getting the tasks done and giving her enough time to know that, Hey, you just can't send something to me tonight and need it done tonight because I have a prior commitment to my family. It works really well. um, I know that not every single situation can work that way, but it, it works really well for me. And I have, I feel like I have mastered the ability to say here's the things that I want. Here's the things that I need. If you aren't willing to commit to that with me, I'm not willing to give you my time. My time is more valuable to me than making this extra money with you or doing this extra thing for you or whatever it is. What, what have you, you know, I feel like it's something that can be translated into a lot of parts of our lives, but I was originally thinking that we were gonna dive into this whole episode about setting boundaries and just solve it all in one , but I should have known that that is just not even remotely possible.
Emily: (16:56)
So today I think that we are just gonna end with time constraints and being true to yourself and your schedule and setting up, setting up a schedule for you to stick to and setting up something that's realistic and making sure that it's part of it's that it's advertised on your website, that it's advertised in your emails. Something that I learned really recently, and that I really love, not that I learned it recently, but I adapted it recently is when I have an upcoming day out of the office, I put it in my emails so that if the people that I'm working with, if they, if they email me a week before I go, they get a little reminder without me saying, Hey, I'm gonna be outta the office. It just says my name, my regular signature. And then it says upcoming out of office days.
Emily: (17:50)
And here's where they're listed. Then when I'm gone, I have a, I have a response, an autoresponder that says, Hey, thank you so much for your email. I am out of the office. I am refueling my creative juices or, you know, whatever I put in there, I'm gone. I am not checking my phone. I'm not checking my computer. I'm so thankful for your message, because that gives me something to do when I come back and thanks to you now, I have something to come back to and it's really fun. And it makes to me like, it makes the sender feel like they aren't bothering you so much. And like, maybe that they've even done something good for you. So that's just a little tiny tip of time. Time management that I think is also overplayed by people, especially entrepreneurs who already struggle with feeling like they can't take a vacation and they can't leave and they can't ever set time away from their business because they're doing it on their own. You can, you absolutely can. So we will dig into more about boundaries and maintaining them in our next episode, I look forward to chatting with you there. Talk to you later. Thanks for listening to the no mercy business coaching and consulting podcast. With Emily, a Woodruff, we specialize in branding and design for women by women.
Emily 0:03
Well, hello, everybody. Thank you for joining me at the No Mercy Business Podcast is your host Emily a Woodruff. And I have a special guest here for you today. It's almost a Hadley, Melissa, why don't you give us a little interview or introduction of yourself and your business businesses?
Melissa 0:23
Sure, yes, I have multiple businesses. I am a mom of three. And I have a husband, his name is Matt, my three kids are 12, five, and three, I always have to pause and remember. And we live in Massachusetts. So I have an online health coaching business that I've been doing for over 10 years now. And I'm a partner with an amazing company that I love. And I also have an online course that I offer to women that I created to work on mindset. And we have the happy glamper photo camper, which is just a fun thing that we created out of an old vintage Shasta it's a photo booth that travels around. And we're adding on to that to add on a mobile bar. So we are very busy, but we love it. So it's fun. How
Emily 1:17
did you get started with the happy with the camper. I know I
Melissa 1:23
had the glamper photo camper. So I I've always loved photography ever since I was on yearbook committee, way back when I was in high school. So I did photography for a while. I did weddings and was an assistant for somebody and I do senior photo shoots here and there. But weddings just became a lot for me. I have multiple sclerosis. So being on my feet that entire day, because anybody who's been married or is a photographer knows that the photographer is there from basically the minute the bride wakes up until all the fun is going on at the wedding. So then I just said, I want to buy a vintage Shasta because our whole wedding was vintage themed. And I just love camping. But I really love glamping Yeah, camp. And I just I love those things. And my husband said if you can find one and make a business out of it, we'll do it. And so we thought about lots of different business opportunities to build out of these things. Because there's so many ideas out there. But when I saw somebody in Texas doing a photo booth, I said, oh my goodness, this is it. And so was the first one he agreed on. And so he did the whole thing was it's fun. That's
Emily 2:40
so neat. I I also am a photographer. And I used to do weddings, too. And I have told my husband for years that I would love to do that sort of thing. Oh, it's so fun. Yeah, I told him about our meeting today. And he's like, that's a really good idea. I'm like, Dan, we talked about this for years. What do you say? Like, that's, that's pretty cool. So maybe I'll be hitting you up for some more. Yeah, please do. Yeah, it sounds strange.
Melissa 3:11 Yeah. Find one.
Emily 3:14
I, yeah, I would love to do that sort of thing. But we'll see. I got my hands full right now. How did you decide to pursue your businesses? Where did it all start?
Melissa 3:31
So with the health coaching business, it started really with my MS diagnosis. I had been training for the Boston Marathon and realized that something was going on with my body. I used to be over 200 pounds. And so I knew that I had to change my health, if I was going to be able to continue to not take medication for my MS or never take medication for it just a personal decision. I just wanted to do it naturally. So totally overhauled my health and my nutrition to be able to continue like that. So that started my health coaching. Because I had somebody reached out to me about this company that I've partnered with. And from there, it just kind of snowballed. And it's, like I said, 10 and a half years later still here. And like I said with the camper, it was just a deep appreciation for photography, not wanting to be on my feet all the time. And it's just so much fun. Yeah. But, but that was born out of COVID like we did we redid it during that whole craziness and then launched it a year ago.
Emily 4:48
Okay, that's awesome. That's great. So how do you where do you find your clients for? I guess for for either of your businesses, how does that differ between the two of them?
Melissa 5:01
So it's a, that's a great question it does differ. So with the camper, it has been a lot of social media, but a lot of word of mouth, once we were able to go, we went to some wineries around. And those are some fun spots to set up the camper. And once people have had a couple glasses of wine, they're much more likely to have a ton of fun inside the camp or getting their photos taken. And once people started to see those people posting their photos, and talking about it, to whomever word of mouth has been huge, but we had to first get out and do those more free events, so to speak, to be able to build that clientele base. And so now we're on the knot.com, where you know, all that kind of marketing stuff, but it's mainly word of mouth. With my health coaching business. It is mainly me telling my story and how our products and our workouts have really helped me. And then my team talks about that as well. And so it's really, that's word of mouth, too. But that is heavily social media. And so while social media can be at the dark sometimes, yeah. I look at it as a way to connect people and spread happiness and smiles and be the light amongst the darkness sometimes so. And for free. Usually. Yeah, yeah, it's all been for free. I did do a couple ads for the camper. But I found that word of mouth is always your best, as you know, as a photographer yourself. It's like, word of mouth.
Emily 6:46
Yeah. That's great. That's great. So how, how would you say that your health coaching business is different than others? What makes you stand out?
Melissa 6:57
So I think for any business, for me, it's, it's my story, it's always you are the difference. For any business that you're in my husband's an electrician, what makes him different, he makes his business different. Like, there's not much to different differentiate yourself in the electrical business. Besides yourself and your personality. The same is true. With my coaching is it's my story. And anybody who is a mom who might have a chronic illness, who is, you know, running from place to place every day, you're going to connect with the people that are part of your tribe, so to speak, who really connect with your story. So anybody who's who's listening that has a business should understand that it's you that differentiates yourself from everybody else.
Emily 7:48
Does your husband own his own electrical company?
Melissa 7:51
Yeah, so he's just a general client. He has his own general contracting business with electrical so.
Emily 7:58
So you guys really are serial entrepreneurs?
Melissa 8:02
Yeah, yes, we are. Yeah, we're trying to raise three little serial entrepreneurs.
Emily 8:10
That's great. That's so great. So what is being a work from home? Mom? How does that look for a typical day in your business?
Melissa 8:20
No, that's a great question. So I, I want to like I tear up every time I think about how blessed I am to be able to be home. Because it wasn't always like that. So when I started with doing my business, with a company that I partner with, it has been a huge blessing because it was a year and a half in where I really started to see a traction with the business while I was working at a health insurance company working in a cubicle dropping my firstborn off at daycare having to pump breast milk in a closet. And it was like, painful. My husband was laid off from the union before he opened his business. He worked for the Union, and he was laid off all the time. And so he was able to be home with our son. And then he went back to work, and then we had to send them to daycare. And I was jealous of my daycare provider. I had been jealous of my husband for being able to stay home. And so when I saw the traction with the coaching business, I was able to take a step home and be home with him. And that comes with a lot of work. But my goal was to be home and now that we have two more children home. It's crazy and I'm also homeschooling my I was just going to ask for the first time. He's now in seventh grade. So I'm homeschooling him this year. So it will be interesting, but I look at it as a huge blessing to be able to be home, make an income from home. Do all the passions Is that I've put on my heart and be able to homeschool him. At the same time. I'm not homeschooling my kindergartener, I don't. I don't want to be responsible for teaching. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, but it's been a big blessing. Yeah. In my day in the life, it's like to answer your original question. It's just get up, have a routine have schedule things, I keep a very detailed schedule. And if some stuff gets knocked off the to do this, awesome. If some stuff doesn't, I don't beat myself up about it. You just move it to the next day. But I do my priorities first, which the priorities are always the kids, of course, the important stuff that needs to get done for the businesses. And my workout is one of my priorities. So
Emily 10:48
that's great. That kind of leads into my next question, how do you? How do you find time to spend God find time to spend with God? And what does that look like for you? With everything that you've got going on?
Melissa 11:03
It's a great question. So I like to start my morning with my coffee, lots of water, first, coffee, and listen to a podcast. That is a church and they I go through their sermons, they go through the Bible, every chapter, every verse, so that's what I like to do daily, and follow along, if I'm doing dishes, or doing laundry or whatever, I don't follow along necessarily in the Bible, but I, I just love to hear what the pastor is saying about each chapter. And then for our homeschool, that's what we're doing for Bible class is where we're going to sit down and take the time to read along with the pastor, and then my simple journal about it. So there's no curriculum, but it's just reading the Bible. And so an every decision that we've made in our businesses, like the decision to open this mobile bar has been God led, we don't do anything that we don't feel as God led. And, you know, at first I was a little trepidatious, about a mobile bar that I bled, but at the same time, my husband is so extroverted. And he talks about his faith, he talks about God, so you just never know who God's gonna bring along your path on that journey. And we're gonna serve other stuff besides, sure. No typical bar stuff. But
Emily 12:33
well, in that's I've had this conversation with a lot of people lately, but just, you can't expect to encounter people and have interactions with them. You can't expect to, to share God with people if you don't take take him to places that God's not Yes, everywhere, but you're not going to find them in a bar, typically, you're not going to find them on the dance floor at a wedding. But if you're a Christian who's serving somebody, some booze, you can start those conversations. And that's where it really starts to happen. So yeah, it's important, and I love it. I'm all for it. That's great. So do you have any advice for somebody who's just starting out as a health coach or as an entrepreneur, you've got quite a bit of experience in that realm, though. It sounds like
Melissa 13:23
Yeah, yeah, one could say, I, my biggest piece of advice is to just understand that if you fail is not failing, you're going to learn from every single thing that goes wrong. There's been plenty that's gone wrong. In my coaching business, there's been plenty that goes wrong with a camper. But you're not failing. And that's, that's hard for me to accept sometimes, because I'm always I'll tell you a really quick story. My when my husband and I got married, we did premarital counseling, which I think is the best thing you could ever do. And we realized all of our differences, we also realized we were very different. The only thing on the little test that they had us take that we agreed on was our spirituality and, and where we find our peace and God, which is a great only thing to have in common. Yeah. Everything else was totally they even said, We think you should consider taking a little bit longer. And so to me, I failed. I failed that test. Yeah, we are 13 years later. And we learned so much and we continue to learn every day in our marriage. And the same is true for your business. You're going to fail you're going to make mistakes, but you're going to learn from that. And the old saying fail forward is so true, but don't beat yourself up and and don't look at everything that goes wrong as oh, maybe this isn't meant to be just trudge forward and figure out what you can learn from it.
Emily 14:58
I love it. I love it. So much. Where or is there anything extra that you want our listeners to know about you and your businesses?
Melissa 15:09
I'm just that I'm always here. I'm always here to help even like for you, if you found a camper and you wanted to do it Emily 15:16 again, save in your info.
Melissa 15:19
I love it when women want to do a business no matter what that business is, if it's social selling, if it's doing something ground ground up by doing both, and there's room at the table for everybody. And so if you ever have questions, if you ever need help on your health and fitness journey, I am here to help with that to anybody listening, so yeah.
Emily 15:42
Awesome. And then if you just want to share where listeners can find you online, connect with you.
Melissa 15:47
Sure, my website is www dot Melissahadley.com. It's one L two S's and then on Instagram. I'm Melissa dot Hadley dot fit with Ms.
Emily 16:02
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. This is so great. I'm glad we finally got to chat.
Melissa 16:08
Yeah, it was great to chat with you. Thank you so much.
Emily 16:11
Of course.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Connect with Melissa Hadley:
instagram.com/mindfullyfitwithmelissa
www.melissahadley.com
The Happy Party Podcast
Connect with Emily:
instagram.com/emilyawoodruff
facebook.com/emilyawoodruffbusiness
pinterest.com/emilyawoodruff
www.emilyawoodruff.com
Transcript
00:00:00 Emily
Welcome to the No Mercy Business Coaching podcast with Emily A Woodruff. The podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and the lows. We'll talk with small business owners from all over the US and share insights on how to help manage your business without the extra fluff and connect with other women just like you. Let's dive in.
00:00:36 Emily
Hello everybody, thanks for joining me again this week. This is your host Emily A Woodruff. I am here today with Angela Porta, Angela, do you want to give your introduction?
0:00:48 Speaker 3
Yeah Emily, thank. You so much for. Having me, I really appreciate you. Even thinking of me so uhm, I am Angela and I am an amazingly blessed. I'm mom and. Wife, I've been married to my husband for a little over 10 years. We'll be celebrating our 11th anniversary in November. And we have. Two amazing boys, Dominic and Roman, and we did not name them. On purpose and a lot of people who. Are fast and the furious. Some movie watchers asked that. And we didn't know like we had no idea.
00:01:25 Emily
So funny.
00:01:25 Speaker 3
So it sounds like we're really avid fast, the furious fans, but we're not. But yeah, so Dominix 8 will be 9 in November and Romans 5 and I used to work in occupational therapy. I still do. Have my license active and things like that, but I haven't done that in quite some time. I am very.,Blessed to be able to be a. Stay at home mom and entrepreneur. I'm I'm an affiliate marketer, which basically means I shared products that I love online and. I think the biggest thing that I enjoy is just interacting with people in general, and that's kind of how I got started and now it's kind of shifting.
00:02:08 Emily
A little bit, but still.
00:02:10 Speaker 3
In that arena. And yeah, it's just been a wild. Ride and it's. Brought me to. Well, probably a little bit more about. What we're going? To talk about today so.
00:02:20 Emily
Yeah, which is that you're a Christian author?
00:02:23 Speaker 3
I am I am I. I love Jesus and yes, I just recently published a book called The It's a play on words. It's the I'm a possible project rather than impossible and I just I. I just published this year I published my ebook in April. Of 2022 And just literally, maybe like. Three weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Received my first stab. Paperback so I yeah it. It's been kind of a wild ride. It's been crazy, but it's it's. All been a blessing and all been amazing.
00:03:05 Emily
So what is just high level? What is your book about?
00:03:10 Angela
Oh man. Yes, high level. So I basically I feel like. This book has been. God ordained for sure. I feel like I. Was his vessel. To write his message in my way. Uh, so I feel like in general like I can't take credit. For the book. Because it's not me, if that makes sense. It he it. Was through so. Uhm, but yeah I. It it really just shares a little bit about. Me and my story from when I was a little girl. Into like some really. Big pivotal. Had how it affected me negatively negatively. How I overcame that, how I'm. Still working on overcoming because that is a journey all of the time. I feel like we will never arrive, but I talk about. My story and how there's. Hope for me, there's hope for anyone who's. Reading the words and how like practical tips of how you can actually start breaking down what you need to do to help you achieve your goals. Whatever goals they may be personal professional.
00:04:29 Emily
That's great. I'm super excited for it.
00:04:31 Angela
That's that's as high level as I. Can go 'cause I'm super detailed so I. Think that that's probably.
00:04:37Emily
That's OK, it's good. I'm super excited for it. It's on my it's in my car right now.
00:04:42 Angela
I'm so excited for you to read it I. Came for you.
00:04:45 Emily
Yeah, so how did you decide that you're going to? Publish your first book, like what was what led you there.
00:04:54 Angela
I do believe it was. Saturday, like I said, but the initial the initial C. Feed that got. Put into my head and I am not. You know, like telling you to go and buy a million other people books, but I will tell you that. Girl wash your face from Rachel. Hollis really did impact me a lot, like it was a very impactful book for the time that I was at in my life and she suggests she was talking about being an author. Suggesting that that may be something that the reader might want to do as well, and I had never thought about it up until that point, and it was in my head and at at that time in our life I have just a little bit of a back story. About me. I have a very much and I talk about this in the book. But I'm very much a person. Who's come from an achieving mindset? Recovering perfectionist, always striving. To be perfect which. Is not possible. But that's been a whole. Lifetime of unlearning that, and Long story short, because of my focus on achievement that really impacted my marriage, not always in a good. Way and when I brought. Up the possible idea of like. Hey, I don't know, maybe maybe. I am supposed to write a book. Or something to my husband and he is the most. He's my number one fan through and through and and he. He said something that. I don't think he realized the. Negative impact it had. On me, but he's like do you think that's? Another thing you're supposed to do. And that really hit me and I think it's a lesson not just for me, but for anybody that we can completely put the. Possibility of the dream that we that God. Put on our heart. He put that there for a. Reason that was that was. Totally him putting that on my heart I wasn't. Overthinking it or anything. But because I didn't necessarily believe in myself or believe in my worth. That comment, although it was an honest comment that my husband made and he was only trying to protect our family and not lose more time with me because I very much was sacrificing time with my family at that point in. My life and it kind of discouraged me. And my subconscious brain was like you're not. An author, you won't be an author. It's not gonna happen, and so I never thought about it again. And I read that book. I don't even to be honest. I don't know how long ago I read it, it was probably within the year. That it came. Out, so whatever that. Was and I didn't think about it again until. I started going to church. I, I mean, we've I've always gone to church. I am Catholic, but I've I've had a struggle with religion and all of the things you know. I think we all probably can can have some sort of testimony to that. And I. I was going to church and God. Spoke to me. And he was like you need right? And so I started carving out time to go to church with a journal that my mom gave me and she didn't know that I. Felt like I was supposed to write and. She's like you really should take this with you when you go to church, the. Particular time I was. Going to church was called adoration. But it was during like all focused on. Jesus and I whenever I would. Go, the words would just pour out of me like they just. Or I had no. Idea what they? Were at that point it was. Just very therapeutic for. Me, I'm I'm sorry, I'm sorry if that Bolling. Was on here. It was very therapeutic for me, but I started writing and then I got distracted. So Long story short, I probably wrote about 1000 words. That I didn't know how they were going to all come together. Or what was going to happen? Uhm, back in, like right before COVID, probably like. Word of six months before COVID. And then come. January of this year I started writing and the biggest reason why I started writing is because I got distracted. We moved and all good things, but we moved and I once we get settled into our home and stuff I started feeling lost. I started feeling not good enough I. Felt stuck, I felt like I. Wasn't progressing the way I wanted to with things in my business and my. Personal life all. Of these things, and. I was introduced to a Christian group coaching company. And I didn't, I I was just like this is that this is what I need and I was feeling pulled. All the time and those who. Are believers know that? Quote like you know, like you, you can push it aside and and pretend it's something else. But you know what it is like and usually it makes you uncomfortable and usually it. Puts you in fear because you're. Like no, I'm not gonna do. That, but you just know. And so I was just. Like when I feel like something and that's changed me when I feel like that little voice is telling me to do something like I I know that it's God prompting me in some way, shape or form and so he did and I didn't know where that was going to lead me, but it led me to this company had a whole like training and becoming. An author and God was like this, is it? You need to listen and I was like, holy crap. So I literally had 1000 words that I had abandoned. Like the last time I had written was before we moved in May of 2022. Like I I heard 2021 excuse me I I had abandoned it and January 2022 I started writing and I told my husband I was like hey and I know, you know we'll talk a little bit about this too, but I was like hey, I don't know what this. Means, but I feel like I'm supposed to. Finally, write this book and he's like OK. Tell me what? Support you need and how I can help you with. And we I carved out time and started writing and I finished writing the book at the beginning of April and it got it. Got published on the 27th. Of April this year it was insane. And it wasn't me. It was God and God. Moves fast were obedient and that is really what I feel like happened and I was just and I was passionate and I was excited and it was. Just all amazing and I had never had that full-fledged experience of trusting God before until I did that and. It was amazing.
00:11:38 Emily
Beautiful
00:11:39 Angela
So it was. A huge blessing. I know that was a lot, but I just. Really wanted to like show. Like the doubt and like how like it transformed it was so crazy, it really was.
00:11:48 Emily
It's important it's the story of how you got there, and that's that's incredibly and and just being able to share God's goodness and to share how he saw you through. Even if you and your humanness. Don't want to do all the things right away, you know. I think we. Can all relate to that?
00:12:08 Angela
Most definitely.
00:12:09 Emily
Like that's so cool. It's been really fun to watch your journey, like when you were writing it. You were posting, you know, little statuses about chaotic days. And yeah, long nights of writing and stuff like that, and it's just it's fun. To watch so.
00:12:23 Angela
And you know that scared? Me when I was posting on social media because. That is accountability. Like when you are. Sharing something that you're working toward and you don't. You don't know the outcome like you're. You're anticipating the outcome, but you don't know it and. You just have to. Go out on faith. And that was the. Faith that was and I. Was just like. You know all of course immediately like you start getting. Flooded with like all of the negative things like. You know you're you're not going to do this. Like I can't believe you're posting about this like you know, and that isn't of God, that that's all fear. And you know, I mean, it can be a whole host of things, but especially, you know Satan. Satan doesn't want us to do God's works.
00:13:13 Emily
We're preaching today.
00:13:13 Angela
I can, uh. I, I joked around, but I was like I'm not trying to. Be preachy, but it doesn't. I am but no it's good.
00:13:22 Emily
It's good, I get it. Yeah cool, do you do? You plan on writing anymore books.
00:13:30 Angela
So I didn't know what I was going to do and I do have plans. I I definitely do have plans for another. Book I haven't shared writing it or anything like. That, but it would kind of build off. Of the impossible project. More of a focus on like my journey with being a perfectionist and overcoming that I think will probably be the main. Focus of it. Because when I started writing this book, I had no idea what it was going to be about. I just wrote and that was good because I it helped me. To not overthink things. But if I could do it all over again with a new book, I'm definitely going to like Klan before I start writing the outline, because that will help tremendously. 'cause that was probably the biggest challenge. I had to overcome. With making the book. Is that I? Had to figure out how it all pieced together. Because it was. All in themes and chunks and it. Was all over. So that was the. Biggest thing that I think. I I had to overcome with that. But yeah, I I think I'll work on that. I don't know when I I I'm trying to also just kind of be in. The moment with this book. And learn lessons that I know. God will will give me along the way too, yeah.
00:14:54 Emily
That's great. So what do you think you shared about your biggest challenge with your book? But what do you think your biggest challenge as a female? Christian author is.
00:15:04 Angela
So I'm so glad Emily, that we kind of talked about this beforehand because I had to. Think about this. And really like dive deep and I think and I talk about doing this in the book thinking is so important for us as humans to do and our society is created for us. I think it is full of distractions. It's full of. Being busy, it's full of let's go. From one thing to the other thing to the next thing. When do we have time to think we? Don't because usually by the end of the day we're exhausted from doing all of the busy that we don't have time to really just sit and reflect unless we make it, and it's not that we don't. Have it like I said. Uhm, I used to always. Say I I need to be better at managing my time and be better at managing my time. I can't manage time. Everyone has this new amount of time I have to manage myself in the time and. That is like the. Life lesson that I'm starting to learn and so. I would think that. The biggest challenge that I have had as a Christian author. Uhm, I was very torn and I went through a process when this was happening as well, but I was very torn on how much I wanted to promote gotta. And that because I I didn't want to share him. I wanted to share him like I wanted God shared in my story and. In my book, but we touched on. This earlier a lot. Of people Have some sort of an interaction or experience that is negative with Christianity? Yeah, and it's not. It's not, Christianity is bad, it's and and not even bad. That's not a great word, but. So our puman and usually the negative experiences that we have. Are with people. Not the principles of Christianity, because that is. Good you know God is but Jesus. Is perfect and and. We can't, that's that's not the problem the. Problem is people. We are human and our human nature so. I struggled because. I so wanted to share God, but I didn't want God. To be the. Focus because I wanted people to pick up the. Book for those who have. Shunned God because of. The negative experiences that they've had with people. And so. That's why it wasn't. On the cover and I struggled with that because. I was like I don't wanna hide Jesus like I don't. Wanna hide it, but I don't think I I. Well, anyone who reads. It knows that. I didn't hide. Him, but I I I talk about my experience and stuff and so I think that was. A big piece. As far as a challenge. And I think another piece up. Is that I had to get OK with. Talking about Jesus in a non traditional way because. It is. I always felt like if I wasn't traditional with how I talked about him. That I wasn't doing it right and there is no right or. Wrong way to talk about Jesus and I think that's really, that's cool. That's powerful, right? That's Jesus talking right now? 'cause that that wasn't that wasn't me, but there's. No right or wrong because we are all created in his image and we all are unique. We're all, we're all the same, but we're not like we're all like we come from the same father. But we are all unique and so my experience is going to be completely different than your experience or my husband's experience. Or my kids experience and so. We shouldn't be ashamed.Of talking about our true experience. With that You know, and so. I had to be OK with the fact that just because I'm Christian just because I'm Catholic just because I believe in Jesus doesn't mean I can't be a social media influencer. Jesus needs to be there too. Jesus needs to be on Facebook. Jesus needs to be on YouTube. He needs to be on Instagram. He needs to be there because we're there his. Right? People that he wants to connect. With so much are there. Too, and so I used to struggle. With that piece like am I. Doing the right thing. I'm on these worldly things, so to speak. That would be traditionally discussed. Yes, I am. I know I'm doing the right thing for me because God gave me that gift to touch people and this has been my journey all along the way of figuring that out and so that has been a challenge for sure.
00:19:35 Emily
No, that's so great and I just want to encourage you in that area that we're called to go to.The places that. The non Christians are if we only go to church on Sundays and we only go to Bible studies. We'll never ever have the opportunity to talk with somebody who's not a Christian and. A man. Not even for us to be the person that leads them to Christ, but for them to have an example of Christ or to just see how somebody who. Loves and follows Christ lives absolutely able to make that connection or to be able to make that influence is so important and is. It's so much bigger than us and our every single day interactions can be that for somebody you know.
00:20:17 Angela
It it so is and that is why I wanted to not have him posted here like that his picture necessarily, but I wanted it to be a human yeah and then and then they could feel the love through my life and. It's more about it's more about my life and feeling. His love and forgiveness. But I also really tried to incorporate that. It's not just for me, it's for everyone and so. I had a lot of epiphany and therapy moments during my book.
00:21:01 Emily
No, it's great, it's great. That was good. So what what kind of what does? For you as a Christian, what does spending time with God look like for you, and how do you find that time?
00:21:17 Angela
So as a recovering or overcoming perfectionist I have spectation of what I was told when I was younger of what that. Should look like. And so I'm constantly fighting that battle because what happens? I'm the type of person who goes from like either. 0 or 100 like there's really no in between and and not that there can't be but. For I have to be aware of how I have been programmed for these past 37 years of my life. Yeah, and I. I feel like my time with God is honestly just very evolving and changing and I don't have the right. It's it's not right. It's not perfect. It's not a recipe that I follow all the time because I am working through that piece. But a lot of what I do like I might. I might read a. Book I might listen to a podcast I I love. There's a podcast that I listened to called Bible. In a year that's really, really amazing. Thing I think it's from Father Mike Schmitz that he like he dives deep on and it's really really good. But like worship music, the Bible going for a walk, prayer time, you know. Silence silence is so big, that's when he can talk to me. You know, like when I'm when I try to be quiet and usually when like silence is scary because. You are in your thoughts. Yeah, and that that's scary, especially if. You have a lot of unresolved conflict in your. Thoughts that you need healing from? You know so, and when I say you, I mean me also so I I. Right just I feel like I try to. Come plan time but I am working through being better at scheduling my time and so that's not like I said nothing is perfect. It never will be. And so I have to change my expectation and I really. Try to keep. Him present. Throughout my day, the entire day and I really try to focus on gratitude and thanking him for like the little moments like today, I took my kids to the library and I don't ever want to take for granted any of it like I used to work. In an occupational therapy. Key job and I would be gone for eight to 10 hours a day. I never would have been taking my. Kids to the. Library they would have been. Closed, you know? So just. Being aware and grateful for what I have and just thanking him. Thanking God for that. I try to be more aware throughout my day and that has helped me to be more. Uhm, more in tune with my relationship with them.
00:24:16 Emily
That's great. So what do you have any advice for somebody who might just be starting out as an author? I know that you're new to the game too, but somebody who? Might just be feeling that call on their life.
00:24:30 Angela
So I feel like. If you have that. Vision or you have even just the smallest seed like you need to run with it. Don't discount it. Don't think you're not able or worthy to do any of that, because we absolutely 1,000,000% are and God put that in your heart for a reason. I I believe that even if you aren't a strong relationship with God. I believe that. He isn't going to. Not he. He cares about all of us regardless of our relationship with him, and so I feel like he does take different opportunities to reach us in some way, especially putting big visions and goals and aspirations on our hearts. So I would just encourage you to write one thing like I mentioned. Briefly, before is that I would at least outline your thoughts. But if you feel overwhelmed by outlining them, I would literally just right just right. It's OK, you can outline later if you have to, but if you feel like the words are pouring, just let them let them am and you don't have to look for. Uh, publisher or anything like that. I actually went through a program called KDP or Kindle Direct Publishing and basically I was able to publish this entire paperback option on Amazon. I I did it all like and it was very overwhelming, but I figured it out as I went. I I do have a YouTube channel and we. Can talk about. That too, but I'm going to be putting up a video about kind of my process with going through and like the things that I did because I do want. It to be. A resource for people who are. Aspiring to do that because I know a lot of people. Feel called through the written word, 'cause sometimes it's just easier to talk about things being right. I'm a writer. Damn awake. I work harder to communicate verbally and I really have to think through things, but writing is easier for me and so, yeah, you you can do the whole process. You don't have to. To pay an arm and a leg to do. It I mean ultimately. Say I you can hire people out to do different things like the cover and stuff like that, but I I did it. I did all of it. I used Grammarly, I'd. Never even heard of Grammarly. Before I used Grammarly like I. Have learned so much along the way so. I would just encourage you to start writing and don't overthink the process. The pieces will fall into place, you just have to do the work to write and then you can be resourceful and figure it out along the way and don't get caught up in how it's going to get done. Just do it.
00:27:04 Emily
That's great, is there anything additional that you want our listeners to know about you and your book or where?Wear your head out. Anything like that.
00:27:15 Angela
Yeah, so this is still. Very new. It's definitely in its infancy, but when I started working with this Christian life coaching program, it's more of a business coaching program. But they talked about coaching and I I loved everything they talked about. I loved so this was. Also a new. Epiphany for me that I do feel called to start a coaching business. Also, as far as personal and and life coaching and it's kind of come full circle. I love God and like how he works. He's so. He is like the divine. Author like it's just so. Cool to see like obviously you know hindsight is 2020. I had no idea what was happening when it was happening, but now looking back I'm like Oh my gosh that's crazy like how everything came to be because. Uhm, I you can't find me on social media my my brand so to speak, is called the Angela Ralon makeover. And and I started the makeover piece a long time ago because I was trying to find myself and invest more into my self-care with hair and makeup and that's really where it started. Uhm, because I was a young mom and I wasn't. Doing anything for. Myself, and that's where it started. But it's become so much more and I love it because now my focus is the external and the internal makeover. And so I I am going to be launching. I'm still working on like. The details, but I am going to be launching my coaching business here. Very soon and I. Do have a website, it's www.my. Makeovercoach.com So I'm going to be working on. That quite a bit. And I'm still. Going to be doing the things that I've been doing all along because. I find value and. Impact both to myself and to others. Through doing that. But this is going to be like a different piece of it and and I'm really excited about it so I can. And then I do. You can find me basically on any social media platform under the Angela really makeover. I love my YouTube channel. That's something I'm working on Growing up, I have an Instagram and Facebook that you can find me under that. And then on Tik T.O.K is just my. Name Angela Porter PORTA.
00:29:33 Emily
Awesome, well thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time and it's just exciting to hear all the fun things going on. In your life.
00:29:43 Angela
Well, thank you so much. Emily, I truly appreciate you. Reaching out instead, it's been an awesome. Time thank you yeah.
00:29:51 Emily
Thanks for listening to the No Mercy business coaching and consulting podcast with Emily. A Woodruff. We specialize in branding and design for women by women.
Connect with Angela Porta: www.mymakeovercoach.com On Social Media https://msha.ke/theangelaraylynnemakeover/#splash http://www.facebook.com/getitgurlbeauty https://tiktok.com/@AngelaRayLynnePorta https://youtube.com/channel/UCbf6TCNFDTdvFjxpEGTDH8w https://instagram.com/the.angela.raylynne.makeover Connect with Emily A Woodruff: www.emilyawoodruff.com instagram.com/emily_a_woodruff facebook.com/emilyawoodruffbusiness pinterest.com/emilyawoodruff
Emily: 0:0
Welcome to the No Mercy business coaching podcast with Emily a Woodruff. The podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and the lows, will talk with small business owners from all over the US and share insights on how to help manage your business without the extra fluff and connect with other women. Just like you.
Emily: 0:29
all right, welcome to the No Mercy business podcast. This is Emily. I am excited to have you here today. We have a special guest with us. You have Lindsey be hearing from the Lindsey Beharry design Co. Lindsay, would you like to introduce yourself?
Lindsey: 0:45
Yeah, so as you said, my name is Lindsay Harry. I'm a graphic designer. I specialize in brand design, specifically for women's businesses. Before I started my business, I served in the nonprofit sector, doing all sorts of things. But my last job was as a marketing director, I have over 100 published writing works. I served as a professional book editor and a graphic designer, which has helped me develop a strategic and story driven approach to branding and marketing, which is what I use to help women enhance their businesses.
Emily: 1:21
That is awesome. So how did you how did you go from the nonprofit world into brand design in general?
Lindsey: 1:30
Yeah, so I'll just kind of give you the highlights of my backstory. I worked mostly in the nonprofit sector. So for the past 15 years, I've worked every marketing job imaginable for some nonprofits that do some really meaningful work. I started my career as a writing intern. Okay, I worked in the publication's department and I had this dream that I want to be a freelance writer and I wanted to work as a book editor. So after a few years, I left that job and I landed a job at an academic publisher, and I hated it. So the work was just so production based, I miss sort of doing lots of different creative things. And something I realized later was I didn't like it because it wasn't very relational, I didn't get to work directly with a lot of authors, which is what I kind of imagined I'd be doing. Um, but I was successful, successfully freelance writing on the side. So then after about a year and a half of that, I found a job at a business nonprofit. And I worked as their magazine editor. And I liked that part of the job a lot. But the problem was, they didn't just need a magazine editor. They needed a graphic designer, they needed a social media manager, they needed an ad manager, a content writer, a web development person. So instead of like viewing this as overwork, I just kind of pulled up my big girl pants and put on all the hats and started learning all of these skills to run this marketing department. So then after that, I ended up working for an international nonprofit that does prison ministry work. And they had the same problem. They needed just an entire marketing departments worth of worth of help from one person. So I wore all of the hats and eventually worked my way up until I was directing the marketing department. So how I got into brand design specifically for women, is in every single job that I worked. And I think this is a lot of places, but I know it's really particular to the nonprofit sector. They had very strong brands, but not every not everyone was expressing the brand the same way, it wasn't managed very well. Because there really was no gatekeeper, you have one person working in the marketing department. So everybody has their own idea of what the brand should be. So each department is expressing it in a different way. And I have a very strong right and left brain. I'm very creative, but I'm also very analytical. So it was just very natural for me to step in and fill in that gap. And start standardizing their branding and developing brand guidelines for them and unifying the look and feel of each product or program that they offered. And just kind of leaving everything better than I found it because I don't know any other way. Yeah, so that is how I made the leap from nonprofit into branding. And I can tell you a little bit more about like specifically in my business.
Emily: 4:47
Yeah, yeah, go ahead. How did you decide to niche down to to working with women specifically? In your, your realm?
Lindsey: 4:57
Yeah, so It became very clear to me, I would say about six months into owning my own business, exactly who I wanted to serve. That just came by reflecting on my past 15 years of experience where I'm rising in the ranks of this marketing department. But the whole time I find myself thinking, like, I don't know what I'm doing. I didn't go to school for this, I'm a fraud, somebody's gonna find me out, like just impostor syndrome being so hard. But at the same time, I was getting all this feedback coming in from these industry professionals saying, Oh, we love the branding that you have, and customers, which for the nonprofit is donors really started pouring in with the programs. And so I'm seeing this response to it, while at the same time just having this incredible self doubt. And then I started my own business in 2020, which at the time was just general graphic design. Right when the pandemic hit, it was literally like January 2020, right before things shut down. So impostor syndrome wasn't going anywhere, I just quit my job to start a business. And it here we are. But I found myself just taking all of those skills from the past 15 years of learning how to run a marketing department. And it helped me run my business. And I found confidence in that. And so I realized that who I wanted to help, was the past version of myself this like incredibly capable woman who was doing amazing work, but was riddled with self doubt. And I wanted to give that woman confidence, I wanted her to be proud to show up in her business every day. I wanted her to, to feel just as put together and professional as she already is. So yeah, so I just took all of that experience, and I wrapped it up to start running my business. And I will tell you, it has been like, the most exciting thing to see the transformation of women who don't, you know, maybe don't feel like super proud to show off their website, or they're not super proud to talk about their business and helping them figure out how to build the pieces of their brand and talk about themselves. And then watching them talk about their businesses proudly show off their websites, proudly land dream clients and dream gigs that they have been literally dreaming about for years, is why I wake up to do what I do every day. I love it.
Emily: 7:23
I love that. All of it. That's so great. That's so so great. I don't advertise this too much in the boutique group. But I'm also a bit of a boudoir photographer. So hearing you talking about empowering women and just, you know, learning to love yourself where you're at is such an awesome opportunity. And I I really liked this like self love movement, parts of it. Parts of the self love. Sure. Yeah. And just I'm really excited to see women really turning into to what they want to be in what they they've been called to. And that's so neat. Yeah. Yes, Tony. Yeah. So how do you kind of started to talk about it, but what are things that you do for yourself to show up for your business every day?
Lindsey: 8:12
Yeah, so I guess I would, I would say there are three main things that I do. For me, consistency is key. So that means I start my day, pretty much every day the same way. Which is leads me to number two, which is I pour into myself, first, I take about 30 minutes, maybe an hour, grab my cup of coffee, I weed, whether that's a book, or it's reading the Bible, to have some quiet time to reflect in general. And then I start my workday. And then the third thing is I treat my business like it's a business like I may work for myself, and I may or may work from home. But it is a business. It's a viable, legitimate business. So I stick to a schedule for myself. And then I try to once a week have a CEO day where I can actually pour into my business doesn't always work out that way. But as much as I can I try to set aside time for my business itself.
Emily: 9:07
That's great. And that is such a hard balance to set boundaries and to be able to say workday is done. It's good. It's good to hear that you're doing that already. Yeah. So how do you as a brand designer, how do you find and connect with your ideal client?
Lindsey: 9:27
Yeah, well, I would say for me, it's the same as it is for everybody where you have to be really clear on who your client is. Then you need to know where they hang out. So for me, my client is women, usually between the ages of 25 and 60, who run their own businesses. They're serious about their business. They're passionate about their business. They know the value of the work that they're providing, but they also know the value of professional branding and partnering with other professionals who can help make their business the best they could be. Most of my business is found through referrals. But outside of that, I would say, I found them assess success with online business groups, mostly on Facebook. So there's the business boutique group. Another group that some of your listeners might be interested in is freelancing females. It's a huge group like that hundreds of 1001 and 100,000, maybe 10s of 1000s of people on it. And then I also connect with local women's businesses, groups in my area. And I think why that has been so particularly successful for me, is you're not just pushing out a message to a cold audience, you're really building relationships with these people. And there's this reciprocity of receiving help and giving help. And I think the giving help is so powerful. I think sometimes people are afraid to give away free knowledge. But I say give it because nobody can do exactly what you do and exactly the way you do it. Like, that's your secret sauce, nobody can take that away from you. So give more than you asked for, I think it comes back to you and multiples. And I think it's a great way to like increase your customer base, and to open the door to helping people see what it would be like to work with you.
Emily: 11:16
I think that's great. I love that. And it seems like there's a lot of that, kind of starting now like with Pinterest and the stories, you know, social media stories where you can kind of share, here's three tips for this. And here's this and instead of it all being the secret that it used to be it's it's neat that people are willing to share it now. And
Lindsey: 11:40
and what I love about the Facebook groups is it's not just like me assuming oh, here's what I think that you want to know, or here's what I think you should know, it's people asking, like real questions for real problems in their business that other people have real solutions to. And so, I mean, you know, somebody asks for feedback on their website, sometimes instead of just like writing, well, here's where I think that you could make some, some improvements. I'll record a five minute video for them. And I've heard several of them say like, that was the best thing ever. Like, it's just five minutes. So I'm gonna be going over some basics. But I like to take that extra step to give just a little bit more than people would expect.
Emily: 12:23
For sure. That's great. So what would you if you could give a new entrepreneur? one bit of advice? What would that be?
Lindsey: 12:33
Yeah, I would say just start, like, don't buy into the lie that you have to have it all figured out before you start a program or project or you launch your business, because you won't have it all figured out. Nobody has it all figured out. That's like, I think we all tend to like self sabotage a little bit when it comes to putting ourselves out there because it's such a vulnerable, vulnerable place to be. And then that's where your imposter syndrome kicks up. So, you know, the truth is, is we're all just figuring this out as we go. And it doesn't get easier, we just get better. I heard Jasmine star say that just a couple of days ago, I loved that. And I would even say like, I know, I'm a brand designer. And this might be some bad advice to give, I don't think it is. But maybe some other designers didn't give this advice. But I would even go so far as to say don't invest in a professional brand or professional website in your first six months to your business because you will change and grow so quickly during that time, that you'll just end up having to reinvest. So wait until you're clear on what your business is and who you're serving and how they want to be served. So yeah, I would just say, Take messy action, and then pay attention to what you're learning along the way. Use that to adjust how you run your business, and continue that cycle. And before you know it, you're gonna look back and be like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I accomplished all of that. I'm actually doing the thing.
Emily: 13:52
I totally agree with that. I I'm also a brand designer. So I affirm and I'm somebody who has ran their own business and have seen how mine has changed throughout the years. And I wish that Yeah, yeah, that I would have not spent money in certain places and just said, Nope, I'll just go on Canva and make my own little logo by myself. And that, you know, it's a perfect place to start and branding is not the place to, to, to put forth all of your efforts. So early on. I agree.
Lindsey: 14:24
And I think what makes such a successful brand is knowing your business well knowing yourself well, so that you can pour all of that foundational work into creating something that looks and feels and sounds like you and appeals to your audience.
Emily: 14:40
Exactly. And, and branding is not just I'm sure we could go on about this all day. But branding is not just a logo and it's not just your colors. It's it's exactly that it's who you are and what you're standing for and the types of people you want to work with what your ultimate goal is. You can't know that and your six months you know first one little bit as a business owner, it's gonna take time. Sometimes you start out and you think that this is your ideal client, and this is your ideal platform, but you might learn that you actually fit in better here or over there. And, yeah, yeah, I'll get off my Yeah,
Lindsey: 15:16
I mean, for me, I started out thinking like, oh, I want to continue to help nonprofits. And I still do. But I made the switch specifically for women to women's branding, probably six months or so, a year or so into my business, because I just felt so connected to that idea.
Emily: 15:36
Now, that's great. So do you know of any stereotypes about designers or brand designers that you would want to tell the truth about instead?
Lindsey: 15:48
Yeah, um, there are so many, but you just touched on one that I would say is a is one of the biggest stereotypes that I come across, which is, there's no such thing as a quick logo. Really, there's, there's not really any such thing as a quick design. But I got this all the time, when I worked in, you know, like corporate and nonprofit, it's somebody will come up to me and say, Hey, I just need a quick logo, it should just take you a few minutes. Well, first of all, red flag, right. Second of all, as you said, a truly good logo has thought and intention, there's a market study, there's design research, and foundational groundwork that goes into it. And so like just to give a specific example of what that looks like, if somebody comes to me for just a logo, I won't give them just a logo, I will give them a logo. But we're also going to dive deep into their brand strategy, we're going to find out their mission, their vision, their values, their audience, how they want their audience to feel, how they want their audience to experience, their business with our brand story is everything that goes into creating this well rounded business, then we can start to look at the visuals for the business what the logo looks like, and what that logo looks like in the context of what their branding could be. But that's a couple of steps down the line. So I always start with brand strategy first. And then if so, if somebody comes to me for just a logo, they're walking away with so much more, they've got a complete visualization of what their brand could look like. So then when they're ready to build out their brand to build out their website, they're leaps and bounds ahead of someone who maybe went to a site and got a $5 logo. I'm not knocking that I'm just saying so much that goes into it.
Emily: 17:36
No, that's great. That's spot on, I think. Is there anything extra or anything additional that you would want our listeners to be able to know about you and your business specifically?
Lindsey: 17:39
Yeah, um, as cliche as it sounds, I truly am invested in seeing my clients succeed. I've had a couple of clients clients tell me after some of our first calls that after our first call, they just knew I was going to actually partner with them in their business or their project. And it's true, I am super invested in seeing my clients business six businesses succeed, whether that means working with me or referring them to somebody else that could help them in a different way, or giving them some resources that could help them until they're ready to take the next step with their branding. So, for example, I have a series of resources on my website, if you go to Lindsay perry.com/resources. You'll see them all there. And then I also have a free brand development guide where if the listeners are interested, they can start to build the foundations of their brand before they ever get to working with a brand designer, it's going to help them and the rent designer is going to love them.
Emily: 18:51
That's great. Well, that leads me into the last thing if you just want to share where our listeners can find you. Now's your time to shine.
Lindsey: 19:00
Yeah, you can find me on my website at Lindsey be harrys.com You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Lindsay Behera design and if you're on Tik Tok, you can find me there too. I'm not super active. That's also Lindsey Harry design. And if you're on LinkedIn, it's Lindsay B's Harry design. CO
Emily: 19:19
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. I'm super excited to share this with everybody and yeah, just thanks for your time.
Lindsey: 19:28
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Emily. This is fun time. Thanks
Lindsey Beharry is a graphic designer, specializing in brand design. Before she started Lindsey Beharry Design Co., she served as a nonprofit marketing director, a writer with 100+ published works, a pro-book editor, and a graphic designer, which helped her develop a strategic and story-driven approach to branding and marketing over the past 15 years. She creates beautiful logos, branding, and websites for women’s small businesses, so they can show up more confidently and professionally, and make more money.
Website: lindseybeharry.com
Instagram: @lindseybeharrydesign
Facebook: @lindseybeharrydesign
LinkedIn: Lindsey Beharry Design Co
You can connect with Emily A Woodruff at:
Emilyawoodruff.com
Instagram: @emily_a_woodruff
Facebook: @emilyawoodruffbusiness
Pinterest: @emilyawoodruff
Emily: Welcome to the No Mercy business coaching podcast with Emily a Woodruff. The podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and the lows, will talk with small business owners from all over the US and share insights on how to help manage your business without the extra fluff and connect with other women just like you. Let's dive in.
Emily: 0:36
Well, hello, everybody. This is Emily with the No Mercy Business Podcast. Today I have a special guest with us. Her name is Patricia Florence. She's from the priceless art studio. Patricia, do you want to tell us a little bit about your business and what you do?
Patricia: 0:54
Yeah, sure. Um, the main part of my business is drawing portraits. I do detailed guestbook portraits, as well as more faceless, simplistic, minimalistic portraits. A lot of those are Memorial or to commemorate loved ones that have passed. And I also have a passive revenue stream selling digital sublimation products on Etsy.
Emily: 1:22
Awesome. How, how did you get started doing this sort of thing? And how did you get started with graphic design overall.
Patricia: 1:31
I started doing it because when COVID hit, I needed to find a way to make money and be home due to my health issues. And I thought I was going to do sublimation, but then found out that I already use procreate to draw and I found out that I can make money making designs for people. And so I decided to make that into a business. So I made an Etsy shop doing the portraits I love and also selling those digital designs.
Emily: 1:57
I love that and you have you have a pretty successful Etsy shop. How many? How many sales Do you have? Or just generally?
Patricia: 2:04
I think I just hit 11,000 sales. That's I have almost 1000 reviews. Yeah, every time it says pat your back, you've made 10,000 sales. I'm really proud of that. A lot of it is that recurring revenue where I don't have to do anything. So it's mostly that digital content. And then a lot of it revenue is the portraits.
Emily: 2:25
That's so great. I just got my first pet your back and it was for five sales.
Patricia: 2:32
I felt like after those first five to 10 sales, they just came flowing. And this is my second Etsy shop. My first one and this one. I feel like that's how it both went like once I got the first five or 10 sales they just came in nonstop.
Emily: 2:45
Good. Well, that's encouraging for sure. Good, what what's your favorite product that you have on your shops to create? What's your favorite one to do?
Favorite thing I guess?
Patricia: 2:55
Um, honestly, I am blessed to be able to use my talents to create those faceless portraits for loved ones I like to do with Jesus holding an infant or with a loved one. I've seen so much healing come from that and comfort to those families that that is my ultimate my favorite thing to do. I like drawing portraits.
Emily: 3:21
That's so neat. And I've seen a couple of yours that have Jesus in them and they're beautiful. And I'm fortunately I'm somebody who hasn't lost somebody very close to me. But they've like stopped me in my tracks stopped my scroll to see them and I love them. So you've got something going on there for sure. Yeah, that's great. Um, what do you think the biggest challenge as an Etsy printable shops owner is for you right now.
Patricia: 3:49
So this question I had read before this interview, I had many multiple bullet points for this one. But the biggest challenge is personal meet personal. I'm sorry, I can't speak English. But self management, I think is the biggest challenge for me, I go from working as a receptionist for someone else, to having my own business where I need to delegate, how I talk to people how I'm professional, I need to time management, you know, have time management, set boundaries, because I always want to respond to a customer right away no matter if I'm in the middle of a movie theater, which is bad. I think that it's just it's all around self management. Like you have to now manage yourself and not have someone over you.
Emily: 4:40
That's real. I think that is something that a lot of our listeners can resonate with. Being able to separate your time from work time or from your like I work a day job also. So when is it okay for me to check my email there or when is it for you know how to things overlap. And how do you balance? All of that?
Patricia: 5:03
Is that's a difficult task,
or even like, what do I pay myself? That was a challenge from the beginning? Because I'm like, No, I want to invest everything back into it. But then at what point do I pay myself? Right and fair, you know, and all that. So that was definitely difficult.
Emily: 5:18
Yeah, I think I think we're all right there with you. So what is you said, you said that you're a secretary also. So what does a typical day look like for you, when you're working on your Etsy printables, or your, your Etsy shop or your work, you know,
Patricia: 5:35
so I'm not a secretary any longer. And when COVID hit, I lost that job. But it was because of COVID. And I started this business. Right now, this also ties in with the self management part, right? I can wake up when I want, I can go to sleep when I want. I can take a break when I want. I'm sneaking schedule and sticking to it and being productive and being efficient, is very important. So when I wake up, I usually wake up late 10am An hour later, start some orders respond to customers that have messaged me while I was sleeping, do some portraits, maybe do a YouTube video for my channel, maybe? Do you know other things in projects, but I have to det definitely I have to follow a schedule to stick to those things and get things done. I like to do a split shift day, usually like four hours in the afternoon, and then four hours at night. Or sometimes I just stay up all night and go to sleep when the sun comes up. And I'm a night owl.I love that.
Emily: 6:35
Yeah, I think that's a creative trait too.
Patricia: 6:52
When I want to be creative, like when the creative juices are flowing, I can be creative. And if I'm having like a block, I can choose to be like, Okay, I'm not feeling it right now, I'm not going to give the best work. So I'm going to come back to this in an hour or two.
Emily: 6:52
Or you can focus your tasks on your administrative things, or you're responding to emails and things like that when you're Yeah,
Patricia: 7:00
yeah, the mundane stuff. Yeah, I can do that when not really wanting to be creative.
Emily: 7:05
That's great. What do you so what's something new that you're working on right now? Is there anything fun planned for 2022.
Patricia: 7:13
So for the rest of this year, I'm working on building up digital content, I see the value in that stuff that I can make something that takes me 30 minutes to make, and I can sell it hundreds 1000s of times for even if it's $1 $2. Yeah, that 30 minutes made me $1,000. And I've had a listing that has sold, you know, 900 800 times, and it's being sold for $3. So that took me 20 minutes to make, I really see a value in that. So that's where I'm going to be putting my effort into I want to be able to go to Hawaii, and sit on the beach, and my tone Qing in and having deposits daily, like I can make 50 to $100 on digital downloads. Now, with what I have, I have a few 100 items. If I had 1000 items, that's five times the amount of chances to get five times the amount of income. So that's my phone.
Emily: 8:05
That's great. And if you're not an Etsy seller, the the Ching that she's talking about when you make a sale and you have the Etsy app on your phone, it makes like a little cash register noise. And it's really exciting. Wonderful.
Patricia: 8:21
Yeah, I I'm kind of silly, because even now after I've made so many sales and reviews, I always check every review. And every time my phone rings, you know, I'll be in the kitchen. I'll be like, we just got in order. Yeah. I'm singing Blue's Clues. But I really get excited. So I mean, that's amazing. You know, every dollar adds up. It's awesome.
Emily: 8:43
That's great. That's so great. What so what do you think is the biggest mistake that you see people making with their, with their shops or their printables?
Patricia: Um, I mean, biggest mistake in general, as a business is getting inspired. I mean, I'm a social entrepreneur, I have had multiple businesses, but I see people get inspired and then not have consistency. Okay, or not have like the effort, you know, and they lose that are also trying to undercut the competition as an artist. Oh, he's doing it for $5 Let me do it for three then the next person's let me do it for two, you know, that diminishes the value in art as a as a general whole, and we need to get keep the value in our artwork.
Emily: 9:29
I totally agree. That's great. So on the flip side of that, what kind of advice would you give somebody who's just starting out with an Etsy shop? This one is not directed towards me at all, by
the way. I mean, the education is free. There's no excuse. There's no excuse to not know how to use SEO websites that are available free such as E rank or marmalade. There's no reason to not know. You know how to build a good list. thing. You can photograph items with things from Dollar Tree such as white. Those white back boards, wood textures, you know, there's different things you can photograph your stuff well. But so my advice is in general research, all the different things that need to do with Etsy, the algorithm, the SEO, and making sure your listing looks pleasing to the eye, because as humans, we use our eyes mainly to buy things. So if it doesn't look too good, like that chocolate cake doesn't look that great, you're not going to eat it. You want your listing to look great and well lit and clean.
Emily: 10:37
I love it. That's great. Do you have any? This is when I didn't prep you with but do you have any special tools that you use? Like a certain type of camera? Or do you just use your phone, use a lightbox anything like that.
Patricia: 10:49
Um, so for Etsy, I mostly use mock ups. Okay, I love mockups, I make mock ups, and I can sell those and I can use them. So it benefits me. And it also makes me money. mock ups are great for T shirts for tumblers for physical items like that. But for digital products, I just put a clean background on it and put a watermark over which is very important. And you know, make some mock ups. And then also another thing is I use my phone, you know, to make any pictures I do need to stake and also to record videos on YouTube. I have a GoPro I don't know how to use it. Rather just use my phone.
Emily: 11:34
Awesome. Awesome. That's what I love about Etsy is that it's so accessible for everyone. You don't have to have a big DSLR camera, you don't have to have professional lighting, you can and it certainly will make things a little bit better. But you you can do it with what you have at home. And I think that's great.
Patricia:11:53
And technology has really stepped up recently. phones can record it for K video and very high quality photos. There's no excuse, like, I don't have a camera. You know, you can get it done and sure to use what you have and make money. I mean, definitely the definition of bootstrapping, you know, beg, borrow barter, and you use what you got to make money. I started an Etsy shop with nothing, no money down, no nothing and I was selling birthday, like table skirts and stuff and my first Etsy shop, you can start with nothing they pay you they'll deposit the money the next day, you can go get those supplies you can make what they ordered, as long as you know how to do it, you know, so I'm sorry, I'm going on. But you know, it's it's really it's if you learn the system, it's easy to grasp
it.
Emily: 12:51
No, that's great. That's really great. Is there anything additional about your shop or about you that you would want our listeners to know from today?
Patricia: 13:30
No, thank you so much for inviting me. I think that this is very important. It's vital that once we learn something, you learn how to do something that makes you money, teach others pull others up with you. I think that's extremely important. And that's definitely what this podcast is. There's no secrets, you know what I mean? You got to just share it all like, Hey, I'm making money. This is how you can make money. And that's why I started my YouTube channel. Let's make designs. I teach others how to make sublimation designs, and sell that content on Etsy and how to make money with Etsy. So I think that that's really important to me, and I really appreciate you. Emily: 13:30
Yeah, thank you so much. I'm so excited to have finally gotten to talk to you. So
where can our listeners find you online?
Patricia: 13:42
So my website is priceless art studio.com. That links to my Etsy shop, but it gives me a separate storefront and then on YouTube is let's make designs.
Awesome.
Emily:13:53
Well, thank you so much. This was great. I'm super excited to get to share it and get to check out more your work. So yeah, if you're interested in minimalist designs, custom artwork, you should definitely check out Patricia's shop. I'm sure she would love to work with you. And that is my cue. There's my son coming up with a lawnmower so I don't know if you can hear it or not. But that's our cue to cut this one. Thanks for listening to the No Mercy business coaching and consulting podcast with Emily a Woodruff. We specialize in branding and design for women, by women
Find Patricia's art at: pricelessartstudio.com or on Youtube here: shorturl.at/jnrsu
Episode 6 Technology Fails and How to Recover from them and Avoid Future Mishaps
With Special Guest Lacy Curtis from An ADD Woman and The Woven Agency
www.anaddwoman.com
www.thewovenagency.com
Welcome to the No Mercy business coaching podcast with Emily Woodruff. The podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and the lows, will talk with small business owners from all over the US and share insights on how to help manage your business without the extra fluff and connect with other women just like you. Let's dive in
Hey, everyone, it's Emily with the No Mercy business coaching and consulting podcast. Thank you again for being here with me. I'm super excited to have you here. It's been a really fun journey so far. Today, I have a guest on with me, we've heard from her before, this is Lacey from the woven agency and add woman, she is going to speak into a little bit of frustration that I have had in my life lately. Technology. So to get started, I want to tell you a fun little story. So as we all know, I'm doing a podcast, I'm interviewing people, I'm connecting with others, I have a few that I am I'm working on right now I have a list of guests who are coming on. My whole summer is booked up. I'm super excited for it. I had an interview recently, with somebody that I was really excited about. And I'm not I'm not gonna dog this person at all, they did nothing wrong. He was 100% my fault. And when I was sharing my frustrations with Lacey, she's like, You know what other people have been there, let's talk about it and normalize it a little bit, you know, doesn't mean that it's okay. Because as the professional, I should have been able to remedy the issues. But everything that I tried to do had just failed. So let's go I guess. So I had everything scheduled. I've done my due diligence, I sent all my questions my interview prep guide, you know, to my client, and I'm super excited, I have a virtual meeting setup. And I have practiced this because it's, it's a new thing for me to have to record virtual meetings. I do it professionally, but we use a different app that I don't have personally, I do it in their apps all the time. The difference is I am always at a secure location. I'm always somewhere that has a steady internet connection, I'm on a desktop, my location around me isn't changing. Or if it is I have a Wi Fi hotspot. Everything is basically provided for through my work. And I've never had an issue ever. I'm the IT person at my day job. I am the IT person for some groups that I volunteer with. I am in the audiovisual team for my church. I'm very tech savvy. I did not expect myself to have the kind of technology week that I did. Because of all the experience that I have with it. I am usually the person you will call if your speaker won't connect if the sound doesn't work, if your Bluetooth just isn't even showing up. Call me. So like I said, I had trialed virtual meeting. And I don't even want to say the name of the client that I used of the the virtual meeting client that I used, because it's not their fault. It's me 100%. Or it was my surroundings. It was it was me 50 50% And my surroundings the other 50%. I'm not claiming this as my my complaint, total error. Yet, asked me in a week again, and I'll probably I'll probably offer up that other 50%. But right now I'm still mad about. So so when I trialed this, I tested it out. I made sure I knew how to record I made sure I knew how to, you know, switch things back and forth use all of the different tools that are available. So I thought I was golden. I decided that because of the time that we chose to record, I would just jump outside and do my meeting. At this little picnic table that we have at my day job. I thought it would be fine because I would be on their Wi Fi. I wouldn't have to worry about the signal. Otherwise I'd have to go to like a McDonald's or something and jump on theirs.
You know, and I think it's so important, and I'm so glad that you're willing to share this story too. Because people need to know that they're not stupid. When technology does not agree with them. It happens a lot. And as much as we wish it didn't happen. It really does especially working in this day and age when you know, primarily you're going to be doing a lot of stuff from your computer and sometimes Doing stuff from your phone. And sometimes technology just does not agree with us doesn't want to do what we ask. And it's good to open up about this kind of stuff. Because I think a lot of times, we get sucked into thinking that it's only happening to me. And if I was just more of an expert than I would know what to do, but it's just not always the case. Okay, so I'd say, the worst technology fail, that I've had in my business. A couple of things, one of them had little to do with B had to do with my toddler, I made the mistake of leaving my computer out on our dining room table. And my husband called me to tell me that it had looked like my two year old had dumped an entire glass of water all over my computer. Now, granted, this is a technology fail, that doesn't have to do with like your expertise, right, or your professionalism or anything along those lines. It's just circumstances. But it definitely derailed me definitely was something I wasn't anticipating, we ended up having to go buy a second computer, just so that I could get work done over the next month or two sides, like just taking on new clients. And so I did that. And we ended up I ended up being able to get my computer back, thank goodness. But it took about six weeks before I got it back. So that was definitely one of them. I would say as far as like, technology fail in, in the aspect in the realm of like developers. So this actually happened to me recently. And I'd say it's kind of like a little bit of a scar, right? So I'm a WordPress developer. And I wear that name, strongly and proud that I understand a lot of code. And I understand the backend of WordPress for the most part. But WordPress is made up of a few different coding languages. One of those languages is called SQL, no SQL is all to do with like your database. It's where if you have a website and you write a blog on it, your blog is stored in your SQL database. And it's a different code than, than every other language that WordPress is usually made up of. And so I'm not super familiar with it. But this girl hired me and she asked me if I would help her troubleshoot this issue she was having, she had malware on her site, we acknowledged it, we were able to get the malware off. But the malware had created all of these posts that were sitting in draft. In her database, they were sitting in drafts inside the WordPress dashboard. They were all spam. And if any of them managed to get published because of the malware, they obviously could easily take somebody to a site that had a virus. And so that would be really bad idea. So we needed to get them all off. And we were trying to figure out a fast way to be able to delete them from her SQL database instead of from the front part of her WordPress, because that would just take absolutely forever. So we created what was called a call and the call pulled up the, you know, the blog post, the draft blog post that should have been the ones that I was looking for. Right? And so I started deleting on mass. I was deleting, I was deleting, like 250 250 of them at a time. And I got through about Whoa, I got through about 1000 I would say in mind you she had probably well, I'd say got through more like 6000 She had this malware had put like 32,000 pending posts on her site. Okay, so I got through all of these. And she told me, Hey, I need for you to stop whatever you're doing. And let's meet up this week, and let's talk about it. And I want to see what you're doing for progress. And I said sure. Yeah, great. Mind you. She knew that this was not like this was a little bit out of my expertise, right. But she was willing to like take a chance on me because I said I really wanted to learn it and see if I could handle it. And she was like, Okay. And after we met, we ended up figuring out that I had deleted 6000 posts that were not supposed to be deleted.
You make it sound so easy. You know, no, really, that's really great advice. So I'm super happy to hear you say things like that. I think that I have one more question for you today. So how do you stay ahead of technology failures in your business? What are things that you do to protect yourself from having a horrible, awful no good, dirty, rotten week like I did.
totally understand that. Well, thank you all so so much. And thank you Lacey for being here. I appreciate everyone's time and just for your support so far. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a rating leave us a review. Share it to your friends and family. I would love to grow this little community that we're starting here. That's all I've got for today. Thanks for hanging out, you know, I hope you have an awesome day. We'll chat soon. Bye. Thanks for listening to the No Mercy business coaching and consulting podcast with Emily Woodruff. We specialize in branding and design for women, by women
Transcribed by https://otter.ai/referrals/94MUP1Y7
Find Lacy at www.anaddwoman.com or www.thewovenagency.com and on Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok.
Show Links:
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll
License code: PUNVFPIYAPDWVUDB
Girls in Business Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/721080359037147
Social:
www.Instagram.com/emily_a_woodruff
www.Facebook.com/emilyawoodruffbusiness
www.pinterest.com/emilyawoodruff
Learn more about Emily A Woodruff:
www.emilyawoodruff.com
Welcome to the No Mercy business coaching podcast with Emily Woodruff. The podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and the lows, will talk with small business owners from all over the US and share insights on how to help manage your business without the extra fluff, and connect with other women, just like you. Let's dive in.
where it's at, for sure. So the next tip that I have relates back to the taxes, hire an accountant or using an accounting program. I seriously cannot emphasize this one enough. Business Taxes are not the same as personal taxes. A professional accountant or professional accounting system will help you to manage your proper write offs, your tax rates, mileage used etc for your business. I have used my tax professional for the past six or seven years. And I honestly couldn't run my business without her. One year. We used a big box company and I was overwhelmed by their processes and the method of their delivery. Find somebody who gets you and your business and partner with them. Stick with them. It gets easier every year as they learn you and your business with time and they know exactly what to expect and you will know exactly what to expect. Taxes are literally my least favorite business tour and I will absolutely hire it out to ensure that I don't have to interact with it any more than necessary. So number four, this is a big one. hire an accountant for using accounting program. Moving on. Number five, take advantage of mobile apps in this day and age. Everything is mobile everything is on the internet. Everything is Go Go Go and I know that you know us. Instagram Facebook photo filters pay Pinterest, Canva time management to do lists etc. The list is just, it is endless on productivity apps that are incredibly useful for the average small business owner. I look forward to doing a review of my favorite apps that I use daily for my business in a later post. But today, seriously, just go to your app store and search for Apps for Business, and share your favorite ones with me, there are tons that are available for free. All of the ones that I mentioned at the beginning of this, this one, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Canva, those are all free. Now, there's definitely paid versions available for most of those. There's definitely things that paying for, you know, if you give a little bit of money, you'll get a deeper a deeper integration. But there are tons of ways to do this for free, because let's remember, we're trying to do things cost efficient, not cheap, cost efficient. Right? Right. And the final tip that I have, it feels like we just breezed through this. But that's okay, you guys are busy. And so am I and that is totally fine. Speaking of which this tip fits right in schedule, your time to stay organized. And yes, I said it schedule the time to stay organized. If you don't create time to manage your business, you won't be able to schedule time to go through emails, schedule time to file your paperwork, schedule time to follow up on client contracts. We all have our own best peak work hours. And it's really important for you to learn where you thrive and how you can be the most productive in your business. I have learned that I personally do very well at reading my emails first thing in the morning. And doing creative things later in the day. If I am working on a design project, I cannot do it when I first wake up from work from for work. If I have to write a you know if I have to write a report, or if I have to analyze something, I'm top tier in the morning for that, or I'm really great about responding to emails or scheduling things or just cleaning up some general clutter that I might have around or something along those lines. But I have really learned that I need to block my time to be able to be the most productive. So I try very hard to reserve my creative time for the end of the day. And honestly the end of the week. The way that my work week looks like Mondays are pure chaos for me in a great way, but they are pure chaos. And I simply do not have the time to breathe an ounce of creativity. Mondays are blocked for administrative tasks always. I don't schedule extra meetings for Mondays, I don't schedule anything, if I have the ability to because I have certain tasks that absolutely have to get done on Mondays every single week. And if I don't do them, it will cause a huge rift within my company. In the middle of the week, I'm you know, I'm following up with things that I've done earlier in the week, I'm putting out fires, I am responding to immediate needs. And then it seems like by the end of the week, I've caught up I've had a little bit more time to digest what what has gone on, you know, through the week, and I can envision how much extra time I'll have like on a Friday. Some days, I'm fortunate enough to be able to work on design things all days on Fridays, all the day all day. And I love it. It is so fun. I have to be able to for me personally, I have to feel like I can get into a creative project.
And just run and not feel like I'm limited on my time and not feel like I'm going to have other tasks pulling at me. I have to be able to get through all of my administrative stuff before I'm able to really fuel my creative juices, you know. So those are my six best top tips for managing your small business. I'll run through it one more time. Number one is to set up separate personal and business accounts. Number two, set aside money for taxes annually. Number three is to set up a filing system for hire an accountant or use an accounting program. Five, take advantage of mobile apps, six schedule time to stay organized. And then number seven is to subscribe to this pot. cast and keep listening in. Just kidding about I mean, I'm not kidding. But that's not one of the six tips I'm sharing with you today. Thanks so much for being here. Again, I love spending a little bit of time back and forth with you. I would love it. If you could follow me on Instagram, follow me on Facebook, respond to these messages. And let me know that you are loving them. If there's something that you're interested in hearing about, I want to hear from you. I love interacting with my clients and with my client base. And as always, if you are looking for some design work, or you're, you're in the process of branding your own business, stay tuned because some podcasts about branding your business are coming. I want to teach you. I want to teach you some things about how to do this for yourself and how to get yourself focused the right way before you dive too far into the branding process. It's more than just choosing a logo and picking your favorite colors. There's a lot that goes into developing a brand and I can't wait to go through that with you. Thanks, guys for being here. I hope you have an awesome, awesome day. Stay well. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the No Mercy business coaching and consulting podcast with Emily Woodruff. We specialize in branding and design for women, by women
Transcribed by https://otter.ai/referrals/94MUP1Y7
Show Links:
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll
License code: PUNVFPIYAPDWVUDB
Girls in Business Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/721080359037147
Social:
www.Instagram.com/emily_a_woodruff
www.Facebook.com/emilyawoodruffbusiness
www.pinterest.com/emilyawoodruff
Learn more about Emily A Woodruff:
www.emilyawoodruff.com
It’s totally normal to feel anxious or nervous before you jump on a Discovery call, but it doesn’t have to be your normal! In this virtual day and age we are living in, it has become commonplace to be a part of a discovery call more frequently than ever before. Once you are camera ready, here’s my top 3 tips on how to exude confidence during your discovery call and help you land your next client!
| The most important tip to start with is this: Be confident. Easier said than done though, right? While I wish I could speak light into your life and pump you up before every call you make, here are some things that YOU can do to make sure you are prepared to take on the call and portray confidence & professionalism: 1- Use Google Docs –Google Docs is a great, FREE resource available to anyone with a Gmail account. -Take notes throughout the call and make special note of these questions: What did you learn about the company or client through your call? What are some recommendations for the company that you can make after reviewing their proposal or portfolio? -Keep record of their website, social media links and any specific job details they may have mentioned 2- Prepare Questions Ahead of Time -Ask how they prefer to communicate- this can be a HUGE gain on your end if you start communication with them in THEIR favorite method -What goals they have by bringing you + your company onto their team -Who your direct contact will be for the project 3- Positivity -Remember: It’s just two people (or three?) talking to each other. No pressure here. -If it doesn’t end in a signed contract, reference the call as a learning experience and evaluate how you can present your business better on the next one. Then shake it off and move on to the next one. That’s it! These are my top 3 tips for your next Discovery call! Land your new, potential client, review these steps to be as prepared as possible, smile, and dig in. Your confidence will grow with every call and soon, you’ll be teaching others how to handle Discovery Calls with THEIR clients. Transcribed by https://otter.ai/referrals/94MUP1Y7 Show Links: Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll License code: PUNVFPIYAPDWVUDB Girls in Business Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/721080359037147 Social: www.Instagram.com/emily_a_woodruff www.Facebook.com/emilyawoodruffbusiness www.pinterest.com/emilyawoodruff Learn more about Emily A Woodruff: www.emilyawoodruff.com |
What You Might Not Know About Web Development... and ADHD
with Special Guest: Lacy Estelle
Emily
Okay, so thank you guys for joining the no mercy, business coaching and consulting podcast. My name is Emily Woodruff. I'm your host. And today I have Lacey Estelle joining us. She is from the woven agency. Hi, Lacey.
Lacy
Why don't you? Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started with woven. So I started woven from a need that I saw in the website development side of things for women. So originally, I actually was a blogger. And I still have my blog. And actually now I also have a podcast as well. And I started out talking about mental health.
And when I started, I was bootstrapping. You know, I was doing everything myself. So I had to learn the back end of WordPress, I had to learn marketing, using a Google search bar. And as I went along, I fell for a lot of really sleazy salesy pitches from what I like to call bro marketers. And I think that's actually a fairly common term. Now, a lot of the Russell Brunson followers, people that swear they'll help you make a million dollars and all this other stuff. And what really bothered me is how out of touch, they were with the feminine side of business, most of the women that I meet, who are wanting to do any sort of business, they have bigger dreams in mind than just making money for themselves or for their families, a lot of times, they want to make a difference in their communities, or they want to give back in other ways. And I saw a lot of these male marketers, and nothing against I'm not trying to be sexist or anything along those lines. But I just noticed that a lot of them were out of touch with the feminine aesthetic and the feminine mission of, you know, women who are in business. And so as I went along, I started to offer doing marketing consulting for female small business owners. And then it kind of evolved into mainly doing website development, because what I noticed a lot of them had were issues of their, their sites weren't set up on a good foundation. So I would go in, and a lot of times, I would say, okay, I can help you with this, this and this, but sometimes I get on their back end, and I'd be like, wait, I can't actually do that yet for you, because not going to work, because we don't have a good foundation set up. So that's when I kind of niched into just doing website development and helping people to optimize their sites for conversions. Andso that's how woven was born. And woven was named out of the idea that God is weaving together our journeys. And I integrate my faith directly with my business. So I wanted the idea to come across that, you know, your business doesn't have to be separate from your journey. A lot of times people relate to brands best by understanding their story. And so their story needs to come through in their their sight. And so yeah, so that's what I do. And thank goodness I found you to because you are so helpful to me with all the things that I'm not very good at. So
Emily
awesome. I love that I love the story of the name of your business. I think it's really neat. And that it's like that it's not so in your face, about your faith, but it's there. It's definitely there and you don't have to dig too far for it but To the average person, they might not catch on to it right away. And I just love it. So, thanks.
Lacy
You're welcome.
Emily
So what are what are some things? I know I sent you some things ahead of time, but I'm going to kind of just jump around. Okay. What are some stereotypes? Like, what's a number one stereotype that you get for your line of work? And how? Why don't you take it and break it down?
Lacy
I think there's kind of there's two, one, if I tell it that if I tell somebody that I'm a web developer, a lot of times they assume that I can do any sort of coding possible. And that's just not really true.
Lacy
I work mainly in WordPress, and there's actually three different code languages in WordPress. And to work in on the development side of WordPress, you don't even have to know all of those code languages. So, you know, where are you people imagine that I'm like the guy in a chair for like a superhero, you know, and I'm doing all of the coding and the back end, I like to think of like Felicity with the arrow from the CW series, but I'm really, it's really not like that as much as I wish it kind of was because that sounds way cooler than what I actually do.
Lacy
The other stereotype
Lacy
the, the other stereotype, I think, that I get a lot is that anybody can do what I do. And people make a lot of big promises these days, and they, they don't deliver on them, or, you know, they sometimes it's hard as a website developer to convey the value in having somebody that can make your site not just
Lacy
run fast, and not just, you know, have the name your business where
Lacy
you have a lot of a lot of overlap with people saying, Oh, well, I can help you do this. And I can help you convert. And
Lacy
it just doesn't, it's not as simple as people will think that it is because quality really does matter. And so I know that a lot of people will sometimes be like, Oh, well, I hired this company from, you know, out of the country. And they did this and this and this, and they only charged me this much. And I think it looks okay. But then they'll come to me because they're like, but it's not converting or I'm not getting sales, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And I'm like, well, and I mean, this in the nicest way is, is the people who are creating the stuff for you, they really have to be in touch with who your end customer is.
Lacy
It's not something that just anybody can do, even if they understand, you know, you're even if they understand how you design a website and things along those lines, it's it really matters that they actually understand your entire customer journey and the mission that you're trying to accomplish. Because that's conveyed in your brand throughout absolutely everything you're doing, including your site. So I know that doesn't exactly like, pin down specific stereotypes. But I think those are the two ones that those are the two mentalities that when I meet with clients that I really have to try to break them away from, that this is not something that just anybody can do. And then it's also that I'm not a whiz, I can't do absolutely everything I've had a lot of people ask me, like, can you make my Google listing number one, and I'm like, I can do everything I can to help you get higher up on the Google list. But Google juice is like still a mystery to most developers that I know. So it's not a complete mystery. We know, for the most part, what it likes, but there's no magic button that I know of, that you don't know of, that just magically pops you right up there at the top, except for paper clicks, basically. So and I think I think a lot of people are misunderstood about that, that they can just pay somebody to say, Hey, get me number one, instead of realizing that they have work that they have to do on their end to it's not all just about how you code their website, or how you create a certain ad, it all it all is connected. And if they pay you to do it, they still have to run their page, they still have to run their social media accounts, they still are an active partner. And I think that's the missing link that a lot of small business owners are missing out on Yes, and I think me and you kind of been talking about this a little bit about how a lot of people get into business thinking that you know, just having the knowledge of what they can do you know, say like say it's a skilled trades for instance, say it's a plumber contractor or something along those lines, somebody who totally is assuming that their their business is not online, right because they work hands on they're doing something
Lacy
you know, out in, you know, they're they're working one on one with people and they're working with their hands.
Lacy
But actually every business these days with online
Lacy
every single business is online. And, and it's so much more about making sure that you're connecting with your customers first, I mean, the first thing you do, when you're like, oh, I need a plumber, you Google it,
UnLacy
you Google it. And if you're having, you know, it's one thing to have just your Google listing is like, populating high. But it's a whole nother thing that if somebody gets to your website, they actually feel a connection with you, and feel like I can trust this person, I think this, this is the person we should use. And then it actually is all stuff you need for them to have or experience way before they even get to writing their check. Because the fact that pricing for most people these days, as much as they will say it matters, it doesn't matter, as long as the solution that you're giving them is they they can trust, you're going to be able to give it to them. And the only way for them to build that trust with you is word of mouth, or other people's trusted resources like Google reviews, or a website that conveys your branding really, really well and relates to your ideal customer in a way that makes them say, Yeah, I think I can buy from this person because I trust them.
Emily
Totally agree. So that kind of leads into my next question, what, what would you say is the biggest challenge that you're facing in your day to day work right now.
Lacy
You know, I really struggle with conveying my value
Lacy
to people, especially right now, with the economy being so wonky and weird on explaining to people why it's so important for them to have a great website, and a website that
Lacy
you know, that will work for them is it's become a little bit harder, if people are just, they're just not, they're not willing to spend the money to get what they need. And hang on one second. You want a new shirt?
Lacy
Okay, sorry. Um, so, that's been a difficult part of things.
Lacy
Just, you know, I can get somebody on the phone, I can tell them all the things I can do for them. And a lot of times, they're like, I don't think I need all of that, when really, they do, they do need it, and they don't realize it, or they just don't see the value in it. Because a lot of times, they've already been doing things just fine. You know, either. So one of the things one of the primary clients that I have is like ecommerce clients who are wanting people to purchase things online.
Lacy
But at the same time, there's they seem to be doing just fine by, you know, just selling on Facebook marketplace, lifting, lifting things, piece by piece, or they seem to be doing okay, just having a store shelf and their best friend's boutique, they, they start to feel like well, I'll wait, I don't need to spend the extra money to have my site really doing things for me. But ultimately, that is the trick or that is I say trick, it's really not a trick. But that's the key to having success, even in a really volatile market like we have right now. Because if your website is already doing a lot of the grunt work for you, as far as getting in touch and talking to people, then it has ample value that you can't even fathom right now. And it's gonna, there's gonna come a point where you're going to realize that that is the case. So that is definitely the biggest challenge I'm facing right now is just helping people to understand the value of what I'm doing for them, or what I can offer for them. And having them understand why it's, it's a worthy expense. But otherwise.
Lacy
Otherwise, that's it. That's it. I mean, also juggling, because, you know, I have four kids. So I trying to manage my time with all of my businesses has been a definite difficulty. And that's something that I think I just
Lacy
has an ongoing challenge.
Emily
So sure. Well, and just like that, having to deal with a kid who needs a shirt, we totally welcome that sort of thing here. You know, I tried to treat it like it's kind of a church, like, your kid's gonna scream in the middle of the sermon. They're gonna throw on the floor, life's gonna happen. We welcome them because we welcome you and we want other people to be comfortable in that same situation. So tell your kids Hi.
Lacy
I will. I will top five for sure.
Emily
So what, what inspires you the most to keep doing what you're doing and keep at it every single day, despite the challenges that you're facing?
Lacy
You know, I and I know I talked briefly about how I got started and doing blogging and podcasting and everything else. And right now, what I've actually been doing is kind of just going back to my roots of why I started everything that I started in the first place, and that was originally to help women I wanted to do help women who had had the mental struggle that I have had for years of just not feeling valuable, and not understanding my worth, and, and not understanding my capabilities.
Lacy
So, you know, doing my podcast right now, that I do that has absolutely nothing to do with, but does have to do with like mental health on specifically ADHD, that's really been something that helps me to align myself with everything that I'm doing. So it's definitely
Lacy
gives me that feeling of, you know, I know that I am made to help women in whatever capacity they come to me as whether they come to me for my content that I originally started with, or whether they come to me for business.
Lacy
And, and then seeing that, you know, come to life, I know, I sent you a message this morning, and kind of just telling you that somebody had reached out to me and told me that they really enjoyed what I what I'm talking about. And then but I also will hear from my also hear from my clients, my my business owner, clients who are like, really, really happy with the things that can supply them, or they'll tell me, you know, oh, this this, we I launched a, a membership portal for one of my clients two weeks ago, where that membership portal actually gave them some passive income that didn't require for them to create more products. But it also helped to curate a better relationship for, you know, their brand, with their ideal customers, you know, the customers that are wanting to spend money with them that can see the value in a paying membership. And, you know, when we, when we settled from all that they were like, Thank you, thank you so much, because this was so
Lacy
helpful, and it wasn't something they would have thought of. And, you know, for, for me, that really, that really inspires me to keep going and to know that I'm actually helping people to impact, you know, the things that they want to do. And that client of mine has a, she has a zest for wanting to create some sort of manufacturing job in her community, because there's everywhere around her the nearest place that has like Steady, steady work like that, for people that want to, you know, punch in a nine to five clock is hours away. So that's her dream. And I think that she's, I think she's well on her way to that.
Lacy
But it's just the small things that, you know, they come back to me and they say, thank you. And when you do that, you're kind of like, okay, this is this is worth, you know, worth worth canceling vacation for or this is worth, you know, not getting to go to every little thing right now, just because of the change that it can help people to create.
Emily
That's great. It's so exciting.
Emily
So on a related note, I guess you would mention that your podcast is about it relates to mental health. And I know you personally, so I know some of your daily struggles. But how? How do you show up for yourself every single day to get the job done? And if you have any advice for our listeners on how to do that themselves?
Lacy
I take medication
Lacy
but no, but but genuinely, they will say
Lacy
because they and you know me? And because like you said we do we know each other personally.
Lacy
I'm still in the middle of like a bunch of medical findings, I guess. But I can say like, showing up for myself looks different for me in every phase of my life.
Lacy
I have a really big,
Lacy
really, I know you've seen it because you've been at my house. But I have a really big I like framed
Lacy
Sinai in my living room that says the most important work you will ever do is within the walls of your home. And I feel like I'm not home right now. But for me, the best way for me to show up for myself, or for my goals or for anything else is to always realign myself with that. Because I have to remember that I didn't get into doing these things because I wanted to work all the time or because I
Lacy
wanted to feel like I was working for somebody else. Again. I got into it because I wanted to not only impact change for the women that I work with, but also for my own family to be able to see that hard work pays off. But then also that,
Lacy
that if you if you ever
Lacy
value your work more than you value, you know your family or the legacy that you're leaving behind.
Lacy
You miss the point
Lacy
So, I think for me, showing up for myself,
Lacy
probably looks differently than it does for others. Because for me, showing up for myself actually means showing up for my family, and showing up for the goals that we have. And reminding myself that they're actually the most important thing. And so I do kind of, I asked myself, you know, if I'm doing this now, what am I sacrificing in the long term.
Lacy
And it helps, it helps me because sometimes, I get bogged down with so many tasks that I'm like, This just feels never ending. And this wasn't what I wanted. When I decided to work for myself, I didn't want to be working, you know, 12 hour days instead of eight hour days.
Lacy
But my mental health definitely requires that I work certain hours. So I have to make myself work during those hours when my mental health throughout the day is the best. And I also, I read my Bible, I try, I strive to read my Bible every day before I work, because for me, that's like telling myself that I'm going to make sure I put the not put the cart before the horse, right, because I want to be in alignment with God's plan for my life. And so I always try to read my Bible before I start my work for the day. That helps me keep that perspective.
Lacy
And then, I also I tried to eat decent. And most recently, I've tried to start at least hitting 10,000 steps every day.
Lacy
I don't do it, like, Oh, I gotta go, I gotta go for a walk or anything along those lines. I just, I just take note on my smartwatch when you know when I've been sitting for a long period of time, and I get up and walk around, helps me to stay focused. So the primary thing that I talk about on my podcast is mainly like I said, ADHD, but with that also comes, you know, anxiety. And in my case, I have PTSD as well. So.
Lacy
So doing all of those things combined, trying to eat decent, does not always happen. But I try
Lacy
and just trying to be aware of the things my body needs. And also reminding myself that if I if I put the cart before the horse, and if I'm if I'm throwing myself into work, it actually creates more stress for me, because I know that's not my ultimate goal. Oh,
Emily
that's great. I think we are about out of time here. Is there anything else that you would want to share?
Emily
With our listeners before we kind of tell them where? Where to find you? Hmm, um
Lacy
you know, kind of surprised me with that one. I talked your ear off. So
Lacy
I'm not so sure. But I will tell you, I will tell you this if you came to Emily's podcasts, because you're wondering if, if you need more guidance on your business. Emily is in valuable. I get lucky because she's just like one of my best friends. So I get to get her guidance because I pester her and I bug the crap out of her and make her deal with me. Right? Ultimately,
Lacy
every you know, if you're a creative, and you're thinking to yourself, like, Oh, I just, I just want to do this. And I want to do that. But like in your mind you're like, but I can't figure out how to get from point A to point B. Emily, is that person for you? So I know, that's just my shameless plug. Because the fact that like, I genuinely genuinely think that this is your calling, because of the fact that you can fill in all of those gaps for somebody who, you know, has these really great ideas, but just doesn't always know how to bring them to fruition. So I guess that's my last little tidbit to drop there that if you listen to this podcast, and you're thinking, okay, maybe I want to talk more to Emily, you do? Because she's phenomenal. And she really knows her stuff. So
Emily
well, thanks. I was hoping for something about your business, but that's fine.
Lacy
Well, you know me, so I just, well, in my business.
Lacy
My main thing right now is I really just want I want to help in whatever capacity I can. So if you're listening to this, and you're thinking maybe I have ADHD, that's really where I would love to connect with you. And if you if your ADHD actually makes you think that maybe you want to start a business, I'll totally happily connect with you again on that aspect of helping you create a website and build a brand and all that stuff. But obviously, I usually work closely alongside Emily for all that stuff, too. So So I guess you have that too. But ultimately, if they're listening to this, I would hope that they're thinking, yeah, maybe I need more business help. And that's not me. That's you. So
Emily
you, you mentioned earlier about having somebody message you today and tell you how, how much your podcast is really impacting them. And I think that this is a good shameless plug for me to mention the
Emily
girls and the girls, oh my gosh, the girls in business Facebook group, I think that would be a great place because today we're talking about what wins you've had in your business in the last week. And I think that's super relevant. So if you're not part of that group, Lacy is also an administrator. And it for me,
Emily
it's just our networking group, a way to link arms with one another and kind of encourage each other throughout the week. Or if you have issues that you're facing in your business, and you, you can't necessarily do it yourself, it's a way to network and find some other people who might have different skills than you. And to do it for free. And to potentially, you know, work with one another and share our client lists and things along those not share a client list, but partner, partner on things with our clients is what I'm trying to say.
Emily
So if you get a chance to take a minute and check that out, Lacey, I think you put that there. And then if you just want to tell everybody where they can connect with you online, that would be great. Yeah, so if you are wanting to connect with me for my podcast, you can find that at an add woman.com But then you can also find my blog, which is more geared about about me and my parenting journey and that's at Lacey estelle.com Lacey with no E because I don't have any in my name. And then if you're also needing to connect with me for website design or development it's an unfinished because I'm a procrastinator, but I do have somewhat of a website up at the woven agency.com I'm usually just too busy doing everybody else's websites to finish my own. So
Emily
awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today and for all your support thus far and I'm sure in the future
Emily
and just for your friendship and for being here. So thank you guys for being here.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai/referrals/94MUP1Y7
Find Lacy at www.anaddwoman.com or www.thewovenagency.com and on Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok.
Connect with Emily at www.emilyawoodruff.com or by email at hello@emilyawoodruff.com and on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest
Moving into 2022, smartphone photography is increasingly becoming more popular for small business owners, bloggers, creatives, photographers and even consumers. This is due to the ease of access and efficiency from start to finish! With so many editing capabilities, photo apps and social media platforms to share on, it is easily accessible for all users. Many smartphones now have cameras with high quality cameras, which gives you the ability to snap your images anywhere at anytime. These tips are useful for both Android and iPhone platforms.
IDENTIFY YOUR SUBJECT
Before you begin shooting, make sure you are aware of what exactly you are wanting to capture. Sometimes, photos happen on the fly, others are strategically planned. Be sure to keep your main object in focus and clearly displayed.
COMPOSITION 101
Learning composition is essential to any level of photographic expertise. The method in which you arrange your photo will result in the impact of your frame. Learn the basics of composition and experiment until you know what suits your brand best! What works for some will not always work for other brands.
SIMPLICITY IS KEY
Don’t overthink your photo, sometimes less IS truly more. Creatives around the globe will remind you that white space = good space, though our consumer brains don’t always agree with that. The use of negative space and minimalist details can allow your brain to hone in on the specific details you have included and will make a quicker response to your message without complicating it.
USE AVAILABLE LIGHT
Lighting can be tricky when shooting on the scene, so having an off-camera flash or shooting at the “golden hour” can be ideal! If these aren’t options, utilize the lighting that is already available in the setting you are shooting. Available light can include natural lighting, artificial lighting or the perfect combination of both. Play with shadows and have fun while you create! It is equally important to continue to do research on lighting.
DON’T ZOOM
When using your smartphone, resist the urge to pinch in and zoom in on the image- the quality of your end image takes a big hit and the resolution suffers when zooming. Take a step or two IN after taking your first shot and allow yourself to have a different range for your focal length. Most smartphones have the capability of utilizing clip-on lenses, which can be helpful in this case, too!
UTILIZE PROPS
Props are a great way to include your personality into your photoshoots and they also add to styled shoots. Be sure to pay attention to your surroundings and look for things like: outlets, cords, animals doing silly things in the background, antennas poking out, etc. Utilizing props can look like a color-coordinated photoshoot or all-one-subject. They are a great way to fuel your creative brain!
EXPERIMENT WITH SETTINGS
Don’t just live in auto! Most smartphones have an advanced tab that allows you to manipulate the starting point for your photos. If your phone doesn’t come with this, don’t worry- there are tons available for FREE in the app stores.
USE A TRIPOD
I cannot stress this enough: USE THE TRIPOD. They are essential for long-exposure shots and when doing flat lays, so you aren’t hunched over throughout all of your set changes. They also completely remove shutter shake from the list of things that can go wrong in a photo shoot. USE. THE. TRIPOD.
USE PRESETS
Find your style and save it. Take a screen shot of the settings used on your most-clicked images. These are the images that convert! Using the same style in your photos will help emphasize your brand and image, which is important in developing your business. You can download free presets and filters for multiple editing platforms, or you can grab mine for lightroom here.
BACKUP YOUR PHOTOS
As most of us know, smartphones can be corrupted, crash, get damaged, or worse- lost, and in an instant, our hard work is GONE. Backing up to cloud and hard drive locations, frequently, will ensure that your photos are safe and sound when you get back up and running. Most of the time, you can utilize your backups from multiple platforms and access from varying locations!
BOOK A COACHING SESSION
Shameless plug. My name is Emily and I’m a professional portrait photographer. I have owned my business for over 10 years and would LOVE to chat with you about how to better your product photos or take on the task for you, if this seems overwhelming! If you’ve got your photos and are ready for the next step, give me a call and we can build your plan to success!
I hope that this was helpful to you as you dig into taking better smartphone photography your small business.
Thank you so much for tuning into the No Mercy Business Coaching & Consulting Podcast with Emily A Woodruff. We specialize in branding and design for women by women. Until next time.
Show Links:
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll
License code: PUNVFPIYAPDWVUDB
Girls in Business Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/721080359037147
Social:
www.Instagram.com/emily_a_woodruff
www.Facebook.com/emilyawoodruffbusiness
www.pinterest.com/emilyawoodruff
Learn more about Emily A Woodruff:
www.emilyawoodruff.com
An introduction to Emily A Woodruff and what we have planned. Take a few minutes to say hello and get aquainted. We can't wait to chat.
Episode 1 Welcome to the Podcast, Meet your host!:
Welcome to the No Mercy - Business Coaching Podcast with Emily A Woodruff, the podcast that walks you through managing your own small business through the highs and lows. We’ll talk with small business owners from all over the U.S. and share insights on how to help manage your business, without the extra fluff, and connect with other women just like you. Lets dive in.
Hey everyone, My name, as you may have guessed it, is Emily A Woodruff. I want to take the time to share my business journey thus far and help you to get to know who’s behind the microphone.
I’ve always had a knack for design and color theory. I love pairing fun colors together, working with elements that don’t seem like they belong and pairing them. My dad tells me nearly every time I finish a project, “Em, I didn’t know where you were going in the beginning but I KNEW you would figure it out and it would be amazing when it was done. You always do a great job.” I started exploring design when I joined the high school yearbook team. Then I started creating Open House invitations for friends’ graduation parties and I was appointed the Yearbook Editor the following year. I took a few artsy courses in college but mostly abandoned my design dreams.
I began pursuing photography after I took a black and white film course in college and owned my first SLR. I started down the same route, doing sessions for friends at super low costs and finally booking some weddings. I took several online courses, watched tons of trainings and tutorials, followed photographers and read plenty of books and articles on the art of photography. I fell in love with it. Eventually, my husband and I purchased a second property that had a little run down trailer on it, which turned into my studio. I filled it with props, prints of my work, a desk- a real desk! I had a space that was just mine and I was so thrilled. Business was really thriving and I was loving every second of it. Enter 2020 and Covid.
Covid literally killed my photography business. Not solely because the trade was shut down by our governor, but business just really started to dwindle. It made me doubt my abilities, made me doubt my purpose, I got VERY close to selling off my props, lenses and cameras and just stepping away completely. Spoiler alert, i’m still doing photography.
A friend of mine launched her full time web design business and started hiring me for small design tasks. I recognized an excitement and thrill in myself that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I looked forward to those emails and eventually, started creating products on my own.
Currently, I have multiplied my own pinterest views by over 6 times and am taking on new clients for my design business. I specialize in logo design and branding for women in small business and i absolutely love it.
I can’t wait to bring some of my industry friends on the show with me in the next few weeks. We have a lineup that includes finances, small business coaching, course creation, starting your own podcast or business and so much more. My hope is to help you to connect with other people in the industry who can meet the needs of your business. We don’t all have to struggle just because we are business owners. My goal is to link arms with as many women in business as possible and truly help one another to make our businesses thrive.
SO with this super short introductory episode, I want to leave you with this: You can do great things and I want to help empower you to do them. As you are working to fulfill your dreams, keep an idea bank on hand- whether that be a google doc, a small journal you keep in your bag, a notepad in your phone- keep an ongoing list with you so that you can add or address items as they come about.
I’d truly love to hear from you and learn where you are coming from. Tell me about your small business or the business you are dreaming of! I’d also love to have you join my free online community on Facebook, just search Girls in Business - Emily A Woodruff. You can post your daily biz struggles in there or connect with other women just like us and link arms as we move forward in the girlboss world.
Thanks for being here with me today, we’ll chat soon.
Show Links:
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll
License code: PUNVFPIYAPDWVUDB
Girls in Business Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/721080359037147
Social:
www.Instagram.com/emily_a_woodruff
www.Facebook.com/emilyawoodruffbusiness
www.pinterest.com/emilyawoodruff
Learn more about Emily A Woodruff:
www.emilyawoodruff.com