As a product-based business owner, you are the face of your business. You know your line better than anyone else and are ready to chat up buyers + retailers about your awesome assortment of products. As an introvert, though, chances are you will find needing to be so “on” all the time exhausting. Running a business as an introvert comes with its own set of challenges because our natural tendencies don’t always align with how our extroverted clients + customers think.

While it’s tempting to sit back and hope that people will find you and purchase your products, you know that your business and marketing strategy is what sets you apart from the competition. For many introverts, all the “look at me and my business” talk can leave us ready to run for the hills. If you have ever struggled with finding a balance between putting yourself out there (because you know you have to) and staying true to your introvert roots, then today’s post has your name written all over it.

Here’s a little secret: I’ve been self-employed for more than 12 years, but I’ve only been a business owner for two years. Yep, for a full decade I was “just a freelancer”.

My answer to the “what do you do?” question used to be, “I’m a freelance writer”. Not a business owner, not a CEO, not a badass boss babe. I was just a writer who happened to make a pretty good living doing it.

By now, we all know that Instagram is the place to be for creatives. This network provides an amazing opportunity to build authentic relationships that feel intimate and true. Plus, Instagram is all about beautiful, artistic, bold images. But while we pride ourselves on being creative, let’s be honest here: it is hard to post stunning content every single day. At the same time, we stumble upon these gorgeous feeds with hundreds of thousands of followers and we start doubting our abilities. We get impostor syndrome, and think that our Insta feed will never look nearly as cool and polished.

We’ve never been more laser focused! April was the month of launching and learning and boy, did we do just that. Inside this income report you will see where we got a 3047% ROI, how we were able to have our biggest launch to date in 7 days, and some insight into transitioning a baby to the nanny life.

The idea of selling your creative business may seem completely crazy. Maybe you left a corporate job to start your business or maybe it’s been a dream that’s years in the making. You have passion for your business, and your soul is in every detail.

This is exactly how I felt about my first business. I started and ran a wedding blog for five years, and boy, did I love that thing. The first two years all I thought about was blog posts, SEO, photo shoots and advertisers. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, but I will never forget the day I realized that I was making as much on my blog as I was at my 9–5 job. I poured my heart and soul into every single post, and it always rewarded me for my efforts.
As life moved on and I got busier, the passion for my business waned. I still loved my blog but it was not as easy to put the time in, and as it grew it needed more and more from me. I never considered selling until someone suggested it, and I was a little shocked. Even though I had two employees and was making a solid full time salary, I couldn’t imagine who would want to buy my small little passion project. The business was so much a part of me, it also totally freaked me out to think what I would do if I sold it.

March already feels like decades ago, but so many important things happened that set us up for success in April that it would be a shame to just skip over the nitty gritty details. Inside this income report you will find out exactly what we have been investing in and spending time learning about behind the scenes, as well as our brand new tool to help automate some of the processes.

Why do 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 in which we showcase the good, the bad and the ugly. That means we talk about money on months when we bring home the bacon and on months when 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.

The day I discovered Kiwi for Gmail was the day I realized there really was actually a better way. If you are anything like me, you are constantly switching between different Gmail accounts, trying to figure out where you saved your last Google doc and just wishing that, for the love of all things bacon flavored, it would stop logging you out when you didn’t ask it to. Kiwi for Gmail is a simple application that allows people to utilize Gmail + the G-Suite right on their desktop… sweet, seriously.

As creatives, we never seem to be short of ideas and things that we want to try. Unfortunately, though, this can often mean that we rush into things too quickly and get caught up in the excitement, only to wonder what in the world we were thinking a little later on. I’ve been there too. I started my first Etsy shop in 2010 and literally just created things I loved and put them online. My shop had everything, from jewellery to leather bags, artwork, scarves, fashion and printed fabric. I sat and waited for the sales to come in, but they didn’t. It was so disappointing to not have any sales and sit wondering what I’d done wrong. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, so I thought I’d give you the benefit of my initial failure and hopefully get you started on the right foot

YouTube can seem like a pretty scary obstacle to tackle. Not only is it video (eeek, your face is now out there for the world to see!), but how do you create a video strategy that’s manageable for you?! What is a video strategy? What you do know is, if you are going to take on a new platform you want to have a strategic plan and have a measurable ROI from your new endeavor!

I feel ya! I am a mom to 2 little ones under 3 and I’m not going to take on a new platform that will suck up more of my time (I’m looking at you Facebook), let alone a platform where I need to get showered and dolled up every week just to film videos!  

This is exactly why having a plan will not only save you time BUT will allow your videos to convert at a much higher rate. I plan out my videos ahead of time and film as many as possible in one day thanks to my video strategy. This allows me to stay consistent with my video content.