Can you believe it’s already time for another profit report? Literally, before we hopped on to record this show we were like what happened last month, what month was even last month? We couldn’t have told you! There has been a lot going on, and it’s not so much business – it’s like, life is crazy right now and we are keeping it together but hanging on by a thread. It’s a lot!

But August went so well despite what typically happens, which is sometimes a hot mess. And we definitely want to get into all the data around that, but one thing we did, as most of you would have, was throw out our 2020 plan. We didn’t even have one and just have been taking every month at a time. We expected we would have a dip in August, and then when we got on here, we were like, ‘Oh my gosh.’

Today on the show we have Rachel Proctor, an author, speaker, and second-generation entrepreneur who helps people turn ideas into successful online businesses. She is a self-proclaimed market research junkie, she’s hit seven figures, and she knows what she’s doing, having built a versatile and trusted learning resource hub for aspiring and successful business owners. In this episode, we get into Rachel’s belief and strategy that there is no better time to start a business than right now, even in a crazy 2020, even with less time – now is still the opportune moment! She explains why she believes that and dishes out tangible steps to figure out what to offer, how to find out what you’re good at, how to find people to pay you, perfect your process, grow, and everything in between. So, for those of you who had an idea and dropped it once the pandemic hit or are just ready to take the leap but don’t know where to start, tune in to learn more!

Are y’all ready to start hearing Jingle Bells? Well, you need to prepare yourself cause the holiday season is fast approaching even though it felt like we all lived in a time warp this year. Usually, we are not great with planning far in advance, but this year, while the weather is still warm, we thought we would jump ahead and create a holiday master marketing game plan. Q4 has this weird way of flying by in the blink of an eye, so we want to share with you some of our top strategies to make the most of the festive season. Because, while the world is in recovery mode and things are uncertain, we know that people are still spending their dollar bills, and the predictions suggest that people will spend more money online this year than they ever have. Whether you are in products, services, coaching, or something else, people are spending their cash on the internet, so let’s capitalize on that and see how we can leverage this fact this coming season. While we do not know what exactly you will be offering these holidays, we can help you work backward (from the end of December to where we are currently) to give you a pretty clear idea of what you need to work on and when. So, fill up your cup and be ready to take down notes, cause this is going to be a goodie!

Let’s get into our July 2020 profit report! This year has just been super satisfying. Around fall last year we had decided and declared out loud to you that we were on this mission to get to 30% recurring profit each month, and at the time it felt like climbing a mountain. We were just really struggling and had spent all this time and money trying to figure out who makes up our team, what our products are, and how we are selling them, but something about this year just really clicked for us!

We started sharing our profit reports last fall with this goal to hold ourselves accountable. We know you guys like to hear behind the scenes. We also restructured how we did our profit reports. We don’t do it like how a lot of others do it where we don’t share our actual numbers – not that we don’t want to, but we honestly think they are distracting and put you in a space of ‘comparisonitis’, and no-one needs to suffer from that. So we wanted to showcase more of the percentages, breakdowns of our expenses, our profits, and just big picture decisions that we make every month in order to reach our goals.

It’s been a hot minute since we had this conversation and we think we have some fresh takes on this taboo topic that seems to happen in every single niche, in every single industry, and that is the conversation about pricing! We have so many thoughts and ideas around this and think there are a lot of very strong opinions about what you should and should not do and so we just want to put a disclaimer at the top of the whole episode to say, “You do whatever you want, and that’s okay!” Nevertheless, we want to have this conversation again because we both have our own businesses on the side of Boss Project.

Abagail will share how pricing impacts her marketing and clients, some complexities about pricing, and how she has felt differently about this topic over the years. For Emylee, the maker community is rampant with conversations about pricing, but she believes the questions being asked are often actually about something different to pricing. So, Emylee will pick apart what this means for her, and talk about the different conversations that actually need to be had!

Today, we are talking to JB and Brittany Jacquot, who own their own media company out of San Francisco where they do video and photography for brands, influencers, and high-end weddings. Like so many people our age, they jumped on TikTok at the beginning of quarantine. This has translated into over 100,000 followers and a booked wedding in less than 24 hours! So, you best believe they got some hot tips for us. They break down every single thing they have learned about the platform — how to make the perfect viral video, how to get people to sign up for a freebie or opt-in, and how to get people to follow you or other channels. They also share actual numbers and stats so you can have a better understanding of the kinds of expectations you should set for yourself when you are growing your own or your business’s TikTok following, and you are trying to monetize it.

They talk really candidly about how they broke down and thought about who they want to target, what they wanted to share, and how they wanted to get people to move over to different channels so they could actually use it to make money, rather than gaining followers for the sake of having followers. We know you will get a lot of ideas on how to utilize this for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and even video content in general. It's a really great one, and we can’t wait to see what you all come up with on TikTok after this!

In this episode, we get into exciting topics like email marketing, conversions, texting, relationships, and more! We talk about what we get up to in Boss Project (our main gig) and our side hustles, because we have accumulated some valuable experience over the years. Emylee sells handmade accessories (physical products) and hosts her website on Shopify, and every month she learns more and more about e-commerce and all things product-based. Abagail started her wellness company after going through a serious car accident, and as she journeyed to improve her health, people wanted to join her. She used her story to build a group coaching program called Jumpstart where she helps women lose weight and focus on their health. She is also a leader in the Young Living network marketing business.

While it can be overwhelming to run different businesses, we find that it triggers different parts of the brain and keeps things fresh! As we grow, we realize how important automation is and why we should leverage key tools to make things more streamlined in all of our businesses. Stay tuned to hear about our most trusted apps and tools!

Hey everybody and welcome to another fantastic episode of The Strategy Hour Podcast! Today we are joined by one of our favorite people in the world, a real internet bestie and the Instagram King, Tyler J. McCall! Tyler is here to talk to us about his speciality, how to get Instagram working for you immediately. Of course, Instagram, like all social platforms is constantly evolving so Tyler will be talking about what the best strategies are right now, but also looking at some of the more timeless rules of the framework. Tyler has helped a huge amount of entrepreneurs (including us!) to grow their Instagram following and engagement through the lessons he teaches. For Tyler, it really is quite simple: if you follow a few easy rules, have fun, and bring your own personality to your account you really can’t go wrong!

During our conversation we cover some of the basics around content and captions and the move away from highly curated profiles. Tyler also stresses the importance of knowledge of your audience and how this informs your strategy. We get into the nitty gritty of telling your brand’s story and how to convey this in an effective and engaging way as well as looking at the values that underscore everything that you post. One of the biggest recent developments on Instagram is obviously the Stories feature and Tyler breaks down some lessons for approaching that area and also reiterates just how important they are to your reach, engagement, and potential profits. Lastly, we cover some tips and ideas for personal versus business profiles and how to go about starting out on the platform for newbies. Jump in, it’s going to be a fun ride!

The 'gram is a topic near and dear to our hearts, and it’s one we know every entrepreneur who we cross paths with thinks about on a daily basis. For most of the people that we know, it’s their happy place — that’s definitely the case for us! Today's guest does things differently on this incredible platform. Natasha Samuel, Founder of Sol Studio Marketing, is not simply posting stories or putting things on her feed. Of course, she is still doing these important things intentionally, but she has some other tricks up her sleeve that most people probably have not thought about when it comes to their Instagram account, so you definitely want to stick around to hear what she has to say.

At the end of the day, the dollars are not what matter. We want you to see profit – more income in your business. Revenue is fancy. Revenue feels sexy. Revenue does not give you the lifestyle you want though. If you’re not keeping any of that revenue, then it is irrelevant. So we want to help you keep more revenue, that is make more profit so you can increase how much you’re getting paid and also just save for crazy times! So today, we are excited to talk about our June 2020 profit report.

Today on the podcast we have Jamie King, the owner of Flex & Flow PDX (originally Fit Approach) joining us! Together with her cousin/business partner, she has built a successful online fitness community, but that’s not what we are talking about today. Nope, we discuss company culture, how to establish it based on who you are as a human being, integrating it into your business, and how you can maintain it even when you have a virtual team.

We also talk about the evolution of our company culture and what our business values are. We have often alluded to company culture in our conversations, but since it is something that seems abstract and isn’t necessarily featured on the everyday to-do-list, we tend to easily forget about it. For a long time, we let our company culture be what it was and watched the evolution of it over the years, but now we are trying to give it more direction. We aim to cultivate a relaxed, easy-going culture that promotes independence and functions on a trust basis. But company culture does not happen overnight either; it develops when you show up consistently over time. At the same time, company culture is in everything you do: every social media post, every graphic, every email you send out—so be mindful about it. We had such a great conversation with Jamie today, so be sure to listen in!

Hey everybody, we are thrilled to bring you this episode with our good friend Shunta Grant! You might remember our Episode 441 that was all about tiny offers and why they might not be for everyone. Well, our guest today is the founder of the Best Today Brand and Guide and more recently the Right Now Routine™, which is the bombshell tiny offer she developed. The way she is marketing this pocket product (with cool gamification aspects!) is just next level, so we talk about that and how we swiped the idea for our own marketing for the Creative Template Shop. We also get into how creating a low-priced offer was right for her in her business at this moment and what kind of groundwork she had to do before she could even begin creating it. She shares how leaning into something that is fun, simple, and feels good produces miraculous results and how you can implement it in your marketing strategies. Be sure to give this episode a listen: you will not only love it but also walk away more inspired and much better equipped!

Today we are talking about launching various types of business, sharing a bit about what we are doing with the Creative Template Shop, and what the different avenues of our business entail. We sell courses, run a membership, sell products, and run a coaching business, so between all of that, things can get intense! We are always curious about the behind-the-scenes of a launch and what people are having success with, but the truth is, there are no guarantees. There is no perfect equation. At some point, you just have to jump. What is more important is taking an approach that you feel aligned with and excited about because your enthusiasm and confidence is what will win people over. In this episode, we break down a few strategies that we have used in our various businesses to help us grow—the kind of intel you do not want to miss out on!

In this episode, we talk about launching. We recently posted a fill-in-the-blank about how the idea of doing a launch made you feel, and you guys made us laugh! You came up with such funny descriptions ranging from super excitement to wanting to jump off a cliff—and we totally feel ya! The majority of you expressed some degree of anxiety, though. And we get it, because for so long, launching felt like this burden that put so much pressure on who we were and how our business was performing, it never used to feel good to us either. Fortunately, that’s changed a lot over the years and today we’re sharing how you can adjust your mindset about launching, so that it becomes a fun and profitable thing to do.

Today we are going to be talking about the 23 launch mistakes that your business can’t afford to make. But before we get started, first and foremost, we want to encourage you to get into the mindset of treating every single thing in your business like a launch. Whether that’s an Instagram post, a blog post, creating a course, new brand colors – treat it like a launch. Because if you do not treat it like a launch, it becomes one of those things that sits in your to-do list and doesn’t get done! As soon as you treat it like a launch, you will take the steps you need to in order to make it happen.

We have gone through the process of launching an obscene amount of times, and we have helped so many others do the same. Through these experiences have noticed a pattern of common mistakes made throughout the launch process, and today we want to share the top 23 mistakes we see happening in a launch. From aiming for perfection, to poor planning and promotion, or just not reaching out for support. There are small (and big) things we can do to maximize any launch and keep our sanity in the process! We believe in you and If you’re thinking about launching, you are in the process of launching, or you are just wondering how you can improve on your next launch – this episode is an absolute must!