Today we’re chatting with our friend, fellow unicorn and amazing red-headed beauty, Courtney Foster-Donahue. Courtney is an Atlanta-based four-time entrepreneur and business strategist who specializes in video content creation and Facebook marketing and advertising. Courtney helps entrepreneurs to win using Facebook through her new programme called Facebook Everything.

With over 1.96 billion people around the world on Facebook today, why are so many businesses claiming that Facebook is dead, turning away from Facebook Ads, or not seeing any benefits in them? We are covering everything from Facebook page optimization, your business Facebook page, Facebook ads, to all the tiny tips to get you maximizing your reach and growing your business. On today’s show we are busting the Facebook myths that will help you turn your business around!

When people think of hiring, they often think that it is a complicated, convoluted, crazy process. But the truth is, it really doesn’t have to be. On today’s show, we break down the logistics of hiring into five basic action steps. First, by recognizing the gap in your business. Second, by putting your feelers out into the hiring marker. Then third, once you’ve got your list, narrowing it down to a promising employee selection. Next, negotiating pricing and then finally, locking it down with a contract. See, not too complicated, right?

Today we’re going to give you the inside scoop into how we do this in our own business as well as give you the resources to enable you to free up some time, protect yourself and your employees and get everyone on the same page and #winning! Whether you’re an employer looking to hire or an employee looking to be hired, take a listen for some tips for a more empowering experience.

Today we have Trena Little on the show, a YouTube queen and Video Content Strategist. She has grown her YouTube channel and audience with video content, and it has really impacted the way that she does business. Not only that, it has also made a big difference in the way that she engages with her people and she is breaking all of that down for us today. Trena has been featured everywhere from The Huffington Post to Modern Entrepreneur, as well as the All Up in Your Lady Business Podcast.

Together, we are talking through all of the major benefits of having your own YouTube channel. Next, we dive into how to get past the overwhelm of creating video content, examples of ways to brainstorm awesome ideas, plus the exact process you should go through for setting up your YouTube channel and posting your video content. We even go over some awesome ways to get your videos to rank on Google. Trena is a powerhouse of information and we are so looking forward to sharing all of her great advice with you.

Today on the podcast we have Jessica Yarbrough, The Mompreneur Coach. Jessica is a successful entrepreneur, marketing strategist, and business coach who helps other women create high-end coaching programs so they can create their own amazing enterprises.

We’re talking about how to shift your mindset to not only own your worth but charge the big bucks for your offers. We dive into talking about the best practices of whether you should charge hourly rates or bundle up your offers in premium, high-end packages. Jessica shares all about how she was able to build her six figure coaching business without fancy funnels, without a large email list, and without spending any money on ads. So you grass-roots people who think that a premium business with premium services and offerings is out of your reach if you’re not putting a whole bunch of money into it, we know you are really going to like this episode!

Today on the podcast, be prepared to laugh a lot because Allison Marshall is a handful. We had a ton of fun interviewing her, as we go back a while. We met up with her for coffee sometime last year and since then, we have partnered up on a few creative projects and it has been really fun to see her and her business grow as she’s transitioned from a full-time wedding photographer into teaching other creative entrepreneurs how to grow a profitable online business. She is here to share her story and the steps that she took to make all of that happen, so if that’s something that you’re wanting to be doing, then this is the episode for you.

Be sure to listen to how Allison transitioned from wedding photography to online sales. We also talk about the things that actually helped her make it happen, like getting people on her list and attracting the right kind of people. She shares her thoughts and processes on being yourself in your brand and things you can create for an opt-in to get people on your list, and also does a quick brainstorm of all the different tactics that she uses and how she is successful at getting people on her list. You can copy and paste those with some freebies that we’re mentioning today! We had a lot of giggles, a lot of passionate yelling and a really good time. Can’t wait for you to get into this one.

As you may or may not know, we had a Five Days to Launch Challenge earlier this June and we ran it literally just for five days, but we did a lot of promotion leading up to it and we wanted to talk to you today about everything that worked, the things we would've changed, how our engagement went throughout and how it's affected our launch so far. While recording this podcast, we’re literally still in the middle of launching, so can't give you final numbers, but we can tell you what we think it did in the beginning. We’re excited to jump in.

We are going to talk all about the challenges of launching and how to use these challenges to launch better, faster, stronger, awesomer, and smarter. We also dive into how to build more engagement, be more valuable, get more people on your list, and have a damn fun time doing it! So if you are ready to have some fun while making some money, then you better not miss this episode.

Today we are chatting with Sagan Morrow, who is a small business strategist, published author, and blogger at SaganMorrow.com. With nearly a decade of experience as a freelance writer/editor/social media manager, Sagan now teaches struggling solopreneurs how to create their own customized, actionable strategies for starting and building their own successful, profitable home-based businesses, without the overwhelm. Sagan is an intersectional feminist with a degree in Rhetoric. She recently launched the Candid Conversations small business podcast with her business partner to share the behind-the-scenes real, raw stories of entrepreneurship, in an effort to inspire and guide others through the uncertain landscape that is being a small business owner.

Sagan and her now business partner launched their podcast in seven days and today we’re going through the steps of how they made that happen, how they figured out the tech, and how they landed a sponsor. We also go over exactly how they got onto iTunes, what kind of hours they put in, and advice that they have for people who are wanting to launch anything in a small amount of time. So if you are ready to get off the fence and get your ideas out into the real world, then you should definitely tune in to today’s episode!

We are here today to congratulate all of you who just came through on the other side of the glorious hill after finishing our free Five Days to Launch Challenge. In this episode, we are going to do a quick recap of what the heck you all learned in the challenge and maybe try to give you one more boost of energy to keep trucking forward. Plus, we are going to give you an invitation to another free challenge for you to learn even more awesome, amazing things for your business.

We have been so impressed by the community that was able to take an idea that they had, turn it into a product, and get it to market in five days. We are briefly going to go over the steps the participants took, so if you missed the challenge and you want to figure out what the heck they did, definitely stay tuned because you can participate in our next one for sure. We are definitely going to do this again because it was an absolute party and, as you know, we will be here again probably in like a week or so giving you a full recap of the challenge and a behind the scenes look from our end. So if this is something that you guys are wanting to incorporate in your own business, you can just copy and paste what we did because we had a blast!

Well, ya’ll know by now that we are pretty much transparent about everything we learn in our business. We immediately take it and we turn around and teach it because we don’t like to hold back. We are over-sharers by nature. You get the good, bad, and the ugly with us and that’s what we are doing today; over-sharing again. Today, we wanted to dive in deeper about the business roadblocks that we have faced.

At the beginning, we consumed a lot of content from people who we knew and who we trusted, and who we saw were doing big things. One of the important pieces that not everyone talks about are the mistakes that they have made in their business and what held them back and prevented them from making more money, faster. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We are just human and we make mistakes like everybody else and the thing is, if we could do anything, we want to help you avoid them or at least make them less bumpy, less crazy, less long and drawn out, and help you find the solution quickly. So let’s jump in and get started!

Today, we are talking about all the frigging mistakes we have ever made and mistakes we see you all making when it comes to launching. So, we are just going to call them for what they are and give you the flip side of what you could be doing to correct or prevent them so you can be way more successful than anyone else you have ever met in your life. Does that sound like a plan?

We are excited to talk to you about all these mistakes so that you can really get in the right mindset. Because a lot of it comes down to mindset, more than anything else. Most of the other problems are technical issues that y’all just need to get with someone and figure out. So get comfy, pull out those notepads, and get ready to pack in some strategy to avoid these pesky mistakes.

Today on the podcast, you are meeting one of our favorite people. Courtney Johnston is here from the Rule Breaker’s Club. We love Courtney because she cuts right to the meat, just like we do, so you can be guaranteed that this is an absolutely no-fluff episode. Courtney is the go-to person for all things sales copy and we are so excited for you to hear all the amazing things she has to share about how to create and sell your signature services.

In this episode, we talk about common mistakes that people make on their sales pages, key areas that every single sales page should have, and how to brag about yourself without it being weird or awkward. Courtney even has some tips on how you can make a very sexy sales page super convincing to the people you want to be talking to, without worrying about a really lengthy, long copy. We also dive into how to grab testimonials and what to include in your frequently asked questions, so you can make sure that you are protected and that you are getting the right people buying the stuff that you are selling. This is a meaty one, and we cover each topic in a ton of detail. We also reference even more free valuable content inside this episode, so stay tuned!

Today on the podcast, we have Amy Northard CPA, accountant for creatives. Amy has been a friend of ours for what feels like centuries at this point, and we have known her longer than we have known each other. She is awesome and makes everything sound so simple that you think maybe you could do it yourself, even though you can’t. Amy is so knowledgeable about all things taxes, bookkeeping, making things stress free, and making things easy to understand.

You are going to learn a lot in today’s episode, like what type of business you should be and how to even form it. She also shares her favorite apps, tools, and softwares to keep track of all your numbers. We go over the questions you should ask before you are ready to hire a CPA, things that you guys are forgetting to deduct, and stuff that you actually cannot deduct, that you might have thought you could. We also talk about the icky quarterly taxes and how to make that process super simple for you moving forward so that you are not scared and stressed out come tax season. So just relax, settle in, and give this one a listen.

Today on the podcast, we have our good friend Steph Crowder from Courage and Clarity
Podcast and Fizzle. If you have not yet seen Fizzle and its amazing membership platform full of
incredible courses for small business owners, you guys should definitely check it out. Steph is
one of our podcasting buddy friends. We meet with Steph and a couple of other ladies, twice a
month and chat all things podcasting, growth tactics, marketing, guest ideas, and all that good
stuff in our podcasting mastermind. She is an incredible human being, and we love her to
pieces. Steph is super knowledgeable, super kind, and we can’t wait for you to learn from her
today.
 

Inside this episode, Steph is giving you a step by step of all the things you need to do to
interview potential customers in order to validate your kick ass business idea. We are also
getting a behind the scenes look of a thriving membership site, and Steph is talking all about
creating amazing customer service in your business and the step-by-step creation process of
creating courses inside of Fizzle. It’s a great episode, we get really in depth especially on that
membership piece and the business idea piece, so we are really excited for you to dive in and
take away some awesome knowledge bombs from Steph.

Hello little business babies! We are so excited to chat to you about reaching our first 100K downloads on the podcast in just four short months. We absolutely cannot believe how great you guys have been, and we are so thankful for the amazing support that we have been given. Each and every download, share, and review makes a huge difference to the impact that we are able to have on all of you creative biz bosses out there.

For today’s episode, we are going to be talking about how we got to a 100,000 downloads, the effect that having a podcast has had on our business, our marketing game plan, and some strategies that we think have helped and made a difference. Keep in mind, there is one major caveat to all of what we are going to be talking about today — with podcasting, there really is no one-size-fits-all formula. It is still such a mysterious medium and people are continuously trying to understand how it works and how to interact with it, which makes it really hard to measure. So please keep that in mind as we are sharing some of our experiences, and find out what you can take and apply to your own podcast.

Today on the podcast, we have Kelly Parker Smith of Hello World Paper Co. For those of you who don’t know, Kelly is a retired third grade teacher who started an Etsy shop and has had a booming business ever since. She has over $400,000 in sales on Etsy and even started her own podcast where she talks all about what it’s like to be an Etsy shop owner and run a product-based business. Kelly has been on Etsy for almost a decade, so she knows the ins and outs of why the platform is such a total rock star for product-based businesses.

On today’s episode, Kelly shares with us why she chose Etsy to sell on in the first place and how to build an audience when you are first getting started. She even talks about some pros and cons of Etsy and how some of those cons can actually work in your favor. Kelly lets you know how to stand out in the sea of many Etsy shops and gives some strategies to communicate with your customers outside of Etsy. She also gives some secret tips and tricks to maximize your presence, improve your SEO on Etsy, and get found quicker. So get out your notebook, especially if you are considering hopping over to Etsy, because there is a lot of good stuff in this episode.