Book Writer + Small Business Strategist
In mid-July this year, my business partner Dan “broke up” with me, for lack of a better term. He realized that he no longer wants to be a business owner and that he was more interested in the benefits of working from home/being one’s own boss, rather than the actual reality of it.
Fair enough. So we amicably agreed to go our separate ways.
The last few months have been pretty tough.
Back in July (right around the time that my business partner broke up with me), I made a drastic change: I decided to finally take action on something I’d always wanted to do but had never prioritized. I decided to write romance novellas. And since I began writing those books, I’ve had a lot of questions about what my writing process is like! So I wanted to share my romance novel writing process with you today.
Dan and I started our small business podcast, Candid Conversations, in March 2017, and pretty much exactly a year later, we went on an undetermined hiatus.
What goes into the making of a podcast? Who did we interview, what kind of stories do they have to share? How did our podcast lead to the creation of our business, and how did we navigate the juggling between our podcast and our business?
They say it takes 21 days to build a habit. If time management is something you struggle with, then why not take the next three weeks to turn that all around? Use these effective time management strategies to make small changes, every day, that add up to big results! You’ll have better time management in your business in no time.
Even better? Each one of these effective time management strategies will take you just 10 or 20 minutes to accomplish,
Managing a freelance business can be overwhelming for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is that so many freelancers have no idea where they should spend their time… and, as a result, they end up wasting a lot of time. But no more! Ask yourself the 7 questions in this blog post to help you identify where YOU should spend your time, depending on your unique business and the type of services you offer…
You know you could save time and work more efficiently by streamlining and automating aspects of your small business… but how do you go about doing that? I’m breaking it all down for you in this article to teach you exactly how to automate your small business!
Automating and streamlining processes in your business is especially useful for navigating the busy times of your business, or when you’re going on holidays, or even when you have something stressful in your personal life that’s impacting your business.
The following is an adapted excerpt from Keep Your Clients. If you’d like more client communication tips and client retention strategies, and to learn exactly what you need to do to KEEP your clients once you’ve got them, then you’re going to love that program! Learn more about the Keep Your Clients e-course.
Once you’ve marketed your business, built a relationship, pitched your services,
Business overwhelm is a reality for all of us—regardless of how good you might be at time management. Luckily, there are strategies you can implement to help reduce business overwhelm in your life.
This blog post outlines what you can do, step by step, to reduce business overwhelm. As you’ll see, there are many things you can do… so to keep yourself from getting even more overwhelmed, consider breaking these ideas down by doing just one or two tasks each day!
Whether you’re a solopreneur, in a business partnership, or part of a larger team, business meetings matter. Productive business meetings can enable you to have more direction and clarity with your business, improve communication and business relationships, and increase your confidence, motivation, and excitement for moving forward with your business ideas.
The problem? Many business meetings aren’t streamlined enough to be worth it. You’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever sat in a business meeting and asked yourself questions like,
So you’re getting ready to pitch a prospect—that’s awesome! When you’re preparing to make the pitch, it’s helpful to know some of the most common mistakes to avoid. We’ve made plenty of business pitching mistakes over the years that we don’t want you to have to repeat.
These are the top 5 biggest business pitch mistakes we’ve made, and how you can avoid them:
1) Cold-calling a prospect.
Let’s be real: no one likes to be “sold” to.
So you’re getting ready to go in for the pitch… but are you prepared for pitching a client? There are a few key things you need to know before you pitch clients!
Getting clients for your freelance business goes something like this: first, you identify your ideal client and build a prospect list. Then, you cultivate relationships with clients, prepare for the pitch, and make the pitch.
While you’re marketing your business and starting to pitch to clients, one of the things that can be most helpful for reducing overwhelm and staying focused with your end goals is to create a directory of potential clients. When you know how to build a prospect list, then you can be much more organized in your business management and marketing efforts!
The idea behind creating a prospect directory is that you can brainstorm ideas for all of the clients you would LOVE to work with,
In this episode of the Candid Conversations small business podcast, your co-hosts Dan and Sagan share a behind-the-scenes look at how their business, Juxta Communications, has grown over the last 10 months. Dan and Sagan chat about shifting directions in business, tips on managing bookkeeping, what it’s like to have an intern, the importance of recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses, and the hard truth if you’re struggling with quitting your 9 to 5 job.
The following is an adapted excerpt from Pitching Clients 101. You can learn more about how to market your business, including get a fillable worksheet for your very own marketing strategy template, in that e-course.
Marketing is a REALLY important piece of any business. As Stew pointed out in episode 7 of the Candid Conversations podcast,
“The better product doesn’t always win… A great product that is marketed well will win.”
How very true that is!
In this episode of the Candid Conversations small business podcast, your co-hosts Dan and Sagan interview Amanda Kinden of Oh Doughnuts. Amanda shares what it’s like to start and manage a doughnut shop, her tips on branding and marketing in business, how to have sustainable practices in your own business, challenges unique to the food and doughnut industry, and how she balances her love of making doughnuts with the needs of running her business.
