Like many other small business owners, we understand the constant dilemma of NEEDING to sell products or services but also that awful feeling of being an icky sales lady. This business is your livelihood and you have to succeed to support your family. A steady stream of income is necessary to sustain your business and keep paying your bills. But right now, you need to stop what you are doing because selling isn’t going to work for you or your business.

So babe, here’s what you already know:

You’re an awesome creative pre-preneur who’s ready to finally start her own creative business.

You know what you’re good at, and you’re ready to share your products or skills with the world.

Except you also know that there are about a gazillion other creative businesses out there who do exactly what you want to do. And many of them do it so well, you’re already doubting whether you have what it takes to succeed before you’ve even started.

So you’ve created a stylish blog with a beautiful layout and creative content. You have all of your social media accounts linked and a brand new subscriber list ready to be filled to its capacity, and your feelings of accomplishment are out of this world! After being in a world of blogging bliss, few months or so go by and you realize with a quick look at your analytics that nothing is happening on your website.

Want to know the worst part? It’s actually true. Ain’t nobody reading your blog but your momma and maybe your best friend when she has the time. This is the painful reality for the majority of bloggers. It’s a vicious cycle that happens continuously and that I see all too often, even having been there myself. It's frustrating to think that you're actually an amazing blogger who has a powerful message to share and the only thing holding you back is an audience. In this day and age, it isn’t enough to put up a blog and post content.  You need a strategic marketing plan to get people to come to know who you are and read what you have to say. 

Your business is missing its marketing department: let’s talk social media for a minute. When was the last time you sat down and looked at your social media efforts with the eye of a business boss? Are you able to look at your posts on the various platforms you’re on and tell us the data? Do you have reasons as to why you posted that image or that caption on that day or time? Or is what you’re doing on social media similar to your mindset when you’re strolling through the Dollar Spot at Target?

Look, we’ve all been there. We create accounts for our business on all the platforms and post here and there thinking we’ll unlock the code. We keep half-assing our presence and wondering why we’re not A) growing, B) making sales, and C) enjoying it. We look at everyone else’s account and think that they’ve must have found the magic pill for social media success.

Social media is ever-changing. It feels like you blink and the “kids” are into some new platform, chatting about some new trend. As much as we’d love to tell you if you follow these 5 steps that you would magically have it all figured out - sorry, that ain’t happening.

What we can tell you, however, is that it isn’t as complicated as you keep making it in your head. This isn’t plastic surgery. No one is in mortal danger if you “do something wrong”. Social Media is one giant science experiment. You get to test, hypothesize, and analyze results. Once that’s all done you just start over. The learning game is never really over. You just keep going and adapting.