Can you believe it!? Today is the 100th episode of the Social Media for Mompreneurs Podcast. This episode covers the four biggest business lessons I’ve learned over the last four years and the mistakes I’ve made? I dive into the order of business, how to prioritize your business actions, questions to ask yourself before you start a project and what it really takes to be successful.
And to celebrate the 100th episode, I’m offering a pretty big discount on the social brand accelerator program. This program is an online self-paced Instagram course, walking you through a three part brand blueprint to help you leverage, grow and profit from Instagram. It also has bonus trainings, including how to find and use the right hashtags, how to simplify Instagram reels and how to save an immense amount of time on content creation.
At checkout use the code save50.
Full transcription available at the bottom of this blog post
Before you go, I’d love to connect with you and give you some gifts to help you grow your online presence!
Instagram @allisonscholes
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Personal Branding Workbook: https://bossladyinsweatpants.com/rock-your-personal-brand/
Full transcription:
As I sit here and reflect on my business and my journey for the last four years or so. I think it’s really important to point out that it hasn’t been easy being a multi-passionate solo-preneur and juggling the kids’ home life, cleaning the house. You know how it is.
It’s not an easy process. And I think there’s a lot of women out there who kind of want to give up and throw in the towel because in my opinion, when we are scrolling Instagram, when we are scrolling Facebook, unfortunately we only see the good highlights of their journey or, you know, the wonderful things that are happening to women entrepreneurs, the successes. I think it’s really important to point out that, to get to those successes or milestones. There’s a lot of ups and downs growing a business is not a straight line. It is a roller coaster, you know, up and down jig JAG here. It’s crazy. So I want to tell you how I started my journey and I started backwards. I thought to have a successful business. I had to have all my ducks in a row. I had to have the gorgeous website and I had to have the email list and have a course from day one.
So let me share you the four biggest business lessons that I’ve learned. And probably the number one lesson that I’ve learned is the order of business. Because like I said, I started backwards. I started with a website. I started with a course. And to be honest with you, did I really have, you know, did I really know what I was doing when I built that course? No. And did I understand my brand when I made my website? No, that’s why I’ve made so many changes. So many pivots over the last four years, but now I feel that I can share my lessons or mistakes with you. So it’s a lot easier for you to build your business and enjoy your journey. So let’s talk about the order of business, hands down, first, what you need, and it’s not a website and it’s not even an email list.
You need brand clarity, understand who you are and your I deal person. What’s your purpose. And what do you provide? You need to have complete clarity over this before you can even take the next steps to building your brand and your business. The second step is to set goals and map out your action steps. Where do you see yourself in a year? Where do you see yourself? In two years, you have to set those goals and you have to map out how you’re going to implement strategies and take actions to reach those goals. Now, once you’ve set those goals, number three, you need to time block and time block the non-negotiable business actions. What are those non-negotiable things or actions that will help you get to your goals? Finally, number finally, I’m saying finally, no, there’s a few steps in here. Step number four, pick your primary social media platform.
And the reason I say primary is I think a lot of you I’ve made this mistake. You feel that you need to be everywhere and you feel you need to be everywhere all the time. Pick your primary social media platform where you think your ideal audience is at. And that’s where you want to be to build your audience and make connections. And here you’re just going to provide free value over and over. Think about it. I did this wrong. I built a website and I built a course, but I had no audience. So of course, no one’s going to come to my website. And do you think I made a sale on that first, really bad course? Nope. I made $0 in my first year of business because I did it backwards. I had no brand clarity and I didn’t even have an audience. So get the brand clarity, set the goals, time, block your non-negotiable business actions, and then get on a social media platform.
Even if it’s going to be Instagram, is it going to be YouTube, Facebook and start building your audience and make connections? You have to have an audience and you have to build that know, like know like and trust factor before they even come to you for more. So make sure in the beginning that you are providing free value over and over, yes, you’re going to feel like you’re on a hamster wheel of repeating yourself with your value, but that’s what you need to do to get noticed and to start building those connections. Once you’ve done that, then you can create your freebie or your landing page. Now they’re going to come off of that platform. They are going to give you their email in exchange for a freebie. They want that immediate win. So now at this point, you’re going to start building your email list and then you need to nurture your list.
So whatever that looks like to you, you just need to get into the habit of either. You’re going to email your list once a week with value, or maybe it’s every other week. I would say a minimum of twice a month, nurture your list. They’re going to continue to get to know you now, not only through your social media platform, but then they’re going to get to know you through your email list. Then you can work on your website, all right, work on your website, generate more freebies, have an about me page. And then you can create the thing you sell. And you can finally begin to monetize. Once you are monetizing from your business, and then you’re ready to level up, then get into masterclasses and work with one-on-one coaches. In the beginning. If you don’t even have an audience, you don’t even have an email list going.
I don’t want you to worry about that masterclass or that one-on-one coach make sure that you nail down your brand clarity. You have goals. You are time-blocking. You have an audience, you have your freebie, you’re nurturing your email list. You have at least a good website going a few pages on your website. And then you’ve created the thing that you sell. Then you can level up with masterclasses and working with one on one coaches. So that’s kind of the order of operations. And keep in mind if you’re thinking to yourself, I started backwards. Well, guess what? I started backwards as well. So don’t be hard on yourself, but just keep in mind the order of business. And if you ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels and you’re not really sure what you should be, don’t be doing. Go back to that first step, get some brand clarity, understand who you are, understand who your ideal person is.
And then what is your purpose and what do you do? What do you provide and why do you do it? Go back to brand clarity. Anytime you feel stuck, or anytime you feel like you’re spinning your wheels in your business and you’re not getting anywhere, go back to brand clarity. All right, here’s the second lesson that I’ve learned busy, doesn’t equal business. This kind of goes back to clarity over confusion. We need to make sure that we are prioritizing what’s important. Um, and that includes living your life. So here is what I’ve done to kind of structure my week. So I’m not just sitting at my desk per tending or trying to be busy, because if you’re at your desk, working on things that you know, not going to help you build your business, you’re not going to grow. You’re not going to move the needle.
So map out the, you know, you want to make a list of the things in your business that are a priority. They are non-negotiable. You need to do these each and every week to build your audience, build your brand, and it’s going to help you move the needle. So for example, my Mondays are always my social media content creation days. That way later in the week, I can work on other things that are non-negotiable in my business, like interviews and podcasts editing for this show. I have a day set just for client work. I have a day set just for email marketing and personal development. So come up with the weekly structure. So you don’t feel busy all the time. You want to have clarity on your week and then think about when you are creating your weekly structure, answer these three questions. Does it bring you joy?
Does it serve or help your audience? And does it make you money? If you can’t answer two yeses of those three questions, put it to the back burner. It’s not going to help you right now, move the needle in your business. So again, those questions are, does it bring you joy? Does it serve or help your audience? And does it make you money? So if you can’t answer two yeses out of those three, it’s not a priority. It’s not important. Put it in, you know, out of list for down the road on a rainy day future project. All right, number three, doing more. Isn’t better. It kind of goes back to that busy. You need to give yourself grace and a lot of breaks. You guys, you need to learn to trust the process and stay on track. Multi-passionate can be a double edge sword.
And I S I struggle with this all the time. You’re not, I am constantly coming up with ideas in my head. I always think of these new freebies or these new trainings or workshops and challenges. I feel like my mind is constantly going and I have to go back to my brand clarity and I have to remember doing more. Isn’t always better. Remember to live your life, go back to why you’re doing what you’re doing and what is the purpose of your business. All right. Number four, niche is everything. It’s okay. If you’re starting out a little broad in your business to kind of figure out what you’re doing, but you want to have a niche in your business. Don’t try to attract everybody because in the end, you’re going to attract nobody. So make sure you are niching down. Clarity, clears the path to success.
Let me say that again. Clarity clears the path to success. And just one final note, don’t go it alone. That was my biggest mistake. I thought that I could figure out how to build and run a business all on my own. As I was juggling, mom, life find a group of entrepreneurs who are approximately at your same level and work together, collaborate, bounce ideas off of each other. These are your people who become your true friends and cheerleaders. All right, those are my four biggest business lessons I want to hear from you. Let me know if any of these resonated with you, share it in your Instagram story. Send me a DM. Let me know if you have any more questions on the order of business, I can help you with your own brand clarity, but I’m cheering you on. I know you will be successful. Just remember you got to trust the process and you have to stay on track as always stay sassy, sparkle and wear sweats. Thank you for tuning in today. If you love today’s episode, then please head over to iTunes, social media for mompreneurs and leave a review. Your review helps grow the show, and don’t forget head to boss, lady, and sweatpants.com to grab all my freebies and hang out with me on Instagram @allisonscholes. I’ll see you soon.
