In terms of content sharing, specifically blog post sharing, Pinterest is Queen. It’s hands down the best platform to get your content in front of the most people organically (they don’t need to be following you to see your content), so spending time here as an online business owner is a no-brainer.

We’ve gone over our daily Pinterest formula and strategies to harness the power of Pinterest before, but today we’re letting you know about a secret weapon that makes it all happen….faster.

It’s Trade Show season!! Trade Shows are one of my FAVORITE ways to build wholesale business, grow brand recognition and connect with retail stores. There’s a special magic that happens when you get to spend a few days with similar small businesses, in a booth that was once only a concept on a piece of paper.  You make tons of new friends (even though yes, they are technically the competition) and get to connect with some of the BEST buyers and retailers throughout the country. It’s as exciting as it is exhausting!

Trade Shows can cost your business thousands of dollars, so when you decide to take the leap you want to be as prepared as possible. Whether it’s your first show or fiftieth, the key to a successful show is plenty of preparation. These are my top 21 tips to make sure you rock your next trade show and make the most of your investment!

There comes a point in every entrepreneur’s life when they realize they need a little bit of help. Or a lot a bit of help (yes, “a lot a bit” is a thing, thank you). Most of the time when someone finally admits this to themselves or out loud on social media, they don’t know where to start — they just know they’re overwhelmed. Now, I’ll say this and leave it here — there are many different types of virtual assistants and it can get cray-cray sorting through them all, but by knowing your business, you’ll be able to wade through the different types easier. But today we’re focusing on what to do before you decide to hire someone.

We all know that it can be difficult to work for yourself and that stress and burnout are real concerns. As an entrepreneur, you often have to deal with unusual working hours, time pressures, risk of failure constantly looming, irregular money coming in, and limited social interaction.

The number of new small business owners and entrepreneurs is rising every day, and prioritizing your self care is an integral part of success. Self care is any activity that you do voluntarily which helps you maintain your physical, mental or emotional health. It can help you feel healthy, relaxed and ready to take on your work and responsibilities. Sounds like something we all need, right? But I wonder how many of you are engaging in enough self care to balance out the incredible stress that comes from running your own business.

From ideation to outlining, drafting, editing, to formatting, consistently creating content for your business can feel like a never-ending to-do list. No sooner are you done with one blog post, vlog, or podcast episode, and it’s time to move on to the next one.

But what if instead of creating more content, you could just add just a few extra steps to the content you’re already taking the time to create and turn it into two, three, or even four additional pieces of content?

That, my friends, is what’s called content repurposing, and if you do it strategically, you can save a ton of time along with your creative sanity.

If you own a business, especially if a portion of your prospecting is done online, you have undoubtedly been asked, “What do you do exactly?”. We’ve struggled with this question ourselves in the past, and used to find ourselves stumbling over our words, feeling like we needed to adjust our elevator pitches based on who we were talking to at the time. It’s easy to become a little frustrated, although you can’t show it, because even though you understand your business and your business model, not everybody else does. Plain and simple, people are not in your head. They don’t read everything you write. And they definitely have no idea what you’ve already said to other people.

When selling a product or service, you are automatically categorized. You might be the local boutique or the big-box name brand, but these are just categories. And once you’re in a category, people compare you to others in the same category. Instead of making yourself or your business what you “think” you are supposed to be like, make it more about YOU.

Woah! What a way to start the year. January was a total whirlwind. In just a few short weeks we launched a new program, started a podcast and Emylee adopted Penelope! We definitely learned a lot, pivoted and restructured a whole bunch — so read on to see all the strategies we started to implement in January of 2017.

Why we do income reports?

In an effort to be as transparent as possible in our own business we have chosen to make 2017 the year we showcase the good, the bad and the ugly. That means we talk about money on months we bring home the bacon and on months we’d rather not discuss finances. We hope you learn a LOT from these reports. Replicate and tweak our strategies to use in your own business. Get inspired, learn from our mistakes and grow your own online business.

Hiring new consultants, contractors, and team members is a big step in your business, but once you’re ready to take it your workload decreases and your business is able to improve in multiple ways, leaving you to work on your strengths and be the bad-ass lady boss you are (instead of the boss, chief bottle-washer and Jill-of-all-trades).

A blog editor may not have made the top of the list when you dreamed about bringing someone on to help you. But…

You only have twenty-six small letters and a handful of dots and dashes to wow, inspire, share, create, and convince. Surely you want to combine these in the best way possible?

In preparation for working from home once we our babe was here, I did a lot of Googling. I mostly found articles that said stuff like “work while she sleeps!”, “time block your tasks!” or “don’t expect to do anything for at least 4 months!”. I hated all of that advice.

First, let’s get real for a second. I’m freaking napping while she sleeps (especially in the early days) or staring at her or hosting yet another person who has chosen to stop by to meet her. The thought of hammering out a blog post at that time was laughable