Hello friends! It has been a minute since we have talked about the other businesses we run. We thought it was high time for a little update because Abagail has something new and exciting that she has launched (by the time you hear this it will have been out for a minute). We are going to talk about that but we also think there have been some decisions that we have made very intentionally in our side businesses that we want to break down the logistics behind.

We share these things with you, first of all, because it is fun to chat about, but it is also fair for you guys to hear this part of the process because it gives you a look behind the curtain of something new and growing. It also shows you the reality of how a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners are, which is multi-passionate!

Relationships can make all the difference in your business and as many of us have learned, focusing on connections and networking in the right way can take your biz from quiet to booming! Our guest today is Jaclyn Mellone and she helps entrepreneurs exponentially grow their businesses by becoming an authority in their space. One of the ways she helps them do this is through authentic relationships. Jaclyn is a coach, strategist, keynote speaker, momma, guac lover and host of the Go-to Gal Podcast! In this episode, she shares how to create strategic relationships and how to utilize them as more than friendships without being weird about it!

For Jaclyn, it all starts with an authentic connection and she breaks down exactly what that looks like. We also talk about how this translates into creating more friends in your own space and work environment and how to utilize these to continue to grow your business in the long term. We cover leveraging relationships, creating intimate connections that fill your cup, and how to jumpstart your biz in a big way!

This is another one of those episodes where Abagail puts Emylee on the spot in front of the audience. She knows nothing and is expected to come up with something out of thin air. For context, we started our business as creative entrepreneurs and designers and all that. What we did not realize we were doing at the time was influencing people. We started this blog, we were putting out content, and ultimately, a large portion of our business has become what we would call affiliate marketing. It makes up a big percentage of what we are doing. So, Abagail has all this background knowledge of what it takes to be an influencer in an affiliate capacity and has made all of these pivots with her second brand to broaden the ways she is bringing in money for this brand. Emylee is admittedly the laziest influencer out there. It is not that she doesn’t influence people; she definitely does, and there are many examples to prove it. In technical terms, Abagail, based on the size of her audience, would be seen as a micro-influencer. There are so many people out there that want to be influencers but they don’t necessarily know what they need to be looking out for. There are some alarming things brands are starting to include in their contracts, and micro-influencers are agreeing to these things, most probably without any idea of what they actually mean. And they could not only negatively impact your business, but they could destroy your online reputation if you do not pay attention to what is going on.

We feel like the anniversary of the global pandemic that is quickly approaching is hitting us really hard! We just want to remind all of you business owners out there that you have been running a business for the last year in the midst of one of the craziest years any of us will ever go through, especially as a collective. For us, running a business in the midst of all this has been the most surprising thing that has ever happened, because March 2020 was the most afraid we have ever been about the future of our business. A year later though, we are now more confident than ever that we will continue to grow!

We have spoken a lot about the different areas of our business that we have invested in and how they change over time. We want to spend today’s profit report for February talking about how these decisions have ultimately affected our profit and how we are looking at this side of things. We want to talk about why things are just incredibly different now than they were last year and the place of greater maturity at which we have arrived with regards to the way we cope with the supposed ups and downs.

Today on the podcast we have Melissa Harstine. She helps creatives, coaches, and consultants land next-level clients with customer-centric copy and gripping case studies. As a trained journalist, she leverages her research and interview superpowers to write killer copy that makes readers think, “holy guacamole, did they read my journal?!”

We’re breaking down everything about case studies today; what they are, how you can use them to land more clients, how you can use them to vet your clients, and to work with your dream clients. We also dive into how you should set up the interview, how to transcribe it, and how to repurpose your content. Everything about this process makes it seem so tangible and 100% worth it!

Any business that is selling through a one-to-many system is going to, at some point, debate whether or not their strategy is worth their time and energy. That’s why today, we are going to talk a little bit about why we decided to roll out our affiliate program, as well as some of the logistics behind setting it up. When it comes to affiliate programs, there are a few mysteries that need solving, like what kind of software is out there and how to make it work in your business. We are also going to focus on some of the aspects that didn’t make sense for us in the past, because like we said: affiliate programs aren’t always the best idea. So join us and get the lowdown on the dos and definitely don’ts of setting up an affiliate program.

Today on the podcast we have Kaye Putnam. Kaye is is a psychology-driven brand strategist for entrepreneurs. Through work with over a 100 clients, from Fortune 50’s to entrepreneurs, she developed the In Demand Brand method. She has had some crazy success though with her famous opt-in. 55,000 people have taken her psychology quiz all about branding and y’all need to take it too. Inside this episode, all three of us nerd out pretty hardcore. We talk about the psychology behind understanding your competition and establishing your brand presence. We uncover a couple of the most popular archetypes and the least popular ones.

Today we welcome Aandra Bohlen, sales guru, inspiring friend, and all-round badass! She is here to demystify the stigmas around selling and the ways it is being taught. Her work is centered on developing and teaching entrepreneurs how to create an amazing enrollment experience that leads to higher conversion rates. She is an expert on sales calls and mentality and if you did not get the point already, she has it going on! We are going to talk about getting your mindset right and some real techniques for conversion so you are not going to want to miss this, we promise!

Aandra has almost 30 years of experience in sales and we are so lucky to get to throw a bunch of questions at her, things we know you would love to have answered. We discuss getting past money-mentality blocks, perfecting your pitch and how to translate sales onto social media and your content creation process. Aandra has a bunch of great reframes of the sales thought process and we promise that this conversation is going to help do better and think better about your sales game. We also have a great activity that we really want you to do, so stay tuned for that!

It's 2021, and we are diving into our profit reports. If you are new to this segment of the show, we really like to dive deep into what it takes to run an online business while avoiding comparison and not having to question your every move. So, instead of sharing dollars and cents, we share percentages, and we share strategies. We also dive into sharing behind-the-scenes thoughts and actions so you can see what makes sense for you without having to worry about whether you are in the right place and questioning where you’re at.

We have a good accompanying episode to this one, where we break down the strategies we are trying to tackle for this quarter, and more specifically, we break down the accompanying expenses to those strategies. So if you want to hear more about them, definitely listen to that episode too. Now, without further ado, let’s dive into today’s profit report.

Okay, we are finally here for the episode we have said we were going to give you. Today we are going to share a sneak peek behind the scenes of what we are doing and what we are focussing on for Q1, including not just big projects, but also some exciting shifts we’ve had in our team! If you have been following us for any length of time, you know we do a big planning dream-dump and break down our quarters into these “sexy chunks,” as we refer to them.

Historically speaking, Q1 has always been a time for us to reevaluate and to really clean up and optimize our existing systems. That’s worked for us because, in terms of outside obligations, we are home the most in Q1. We also have the least going on with others in our business and we can really focus on what’s going on internally. It’s a great time to hole in and not go anywhere, especially because it’s the worst part of winter. So when we have no choice but to be cooped up inside, we use it as an opportunity to perfect everything for the rest of their year so that when spring blooms, we can come out of our shells ready and prepared. Join us today and get the three-step blueprint to our 2021 Q1 masterplan.

Do you want to increase your sales? Of course, you do, we all do! There are so many strategies out there on how to do this and today we are picking out four that have been highly effective for us! We hope that sharing this with you will help you to decide which strategies are best for you and your hustle. When we speak about our work we are referring to Boss Project, our main thing and then each of our own side gigs. Some of the strategies have worked better in different places but we will be unpacking all of that, do not worry!

The cool thing is that you get to try these out for yourself and see which suits you. We want you to think about which fits with your goals and lifestyle, as well as its conversion efficacy. These are the most important metrics for you to keep an eye on while testing things out. Don't forget to keep the conversation going over on Instagram, you know we love to hear from you, so hit us up with any thoughts or questions!

Hey friends, so we are putting an introduction on the top of this episode because we had every intention to talk about all of our plans for Q1 and the cool, exciting stuff that we are trying, the people we recently hired, and the strategies we are starting. And then, somehow, we got down a rabbit hole of intuitive business ownership, contentment, our problem with happiness, and everything in between!

So we are going to save our episode about Q1 for another time, and what you are hearing today is slightly different than what you think you might be getting ready to hear! But it is still a really good episode, so stay until the very end. We also have a disclaimer that relates to a lot of what we say today at the very end, so you need to stay till then to hear it!

2020 feels a bit like a lifetime ago, even though we are only a few weeks into January. Even though we projected and gave you some ideas of where we might land, we are still so surprised with how last year ended up going for us. For all of us, 2020 will be a standout year for good and bad reasons. For us, it was ridiculous how our business year ended up. When big things happen in the world, you don’t know how they’re going to impact you, your partner, your family, your business, the climate, and the people buying your product. Everything.

Being in charge of how you make money is sometimes scary when you can’t control all of those scenarios. So, we are so thankful that we had the time and space in January 2020 to set the expectations of what we wanted to do, and more importantly, what we didn’t want to do for the year. This really helped because when shit hit the fan (and continued to hit the fan throughout the year), we were really focused on securing our foundation. And, in December 2020, this is what caught us.

In today’s episode, we speak with Dresean Ryan. He started his SEO career only four years ago after bootstrapping it and learning everything he could to make a better life for himself. Dresean has gone on to work with some large companies like Etna, Signa, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. He helps his clients make millions of dollars just by improving their search engine optimization.

Today we are diving into how you can DIY this process and how you can learn how to hire the right kind of person. Dresean breaks down SEO in an easily-understandable, digestible way to keep things simple for you. He supplies listeners with actionable steps to outlining your content, deciding what your content should be, and then creating that content. To do this, Dresean uses a bunch of excellent tools — both free and paid — and references his amazing resources at the end, including his very own program you can use or even pass on to your VA. This ensures that even if you’re not up to speed with SEO in your business, someone on your team definitely will be. Let’s get to it then!

We get a million DMs from people saying they are ready to strike out on their own and telling us they will listen and start with services. If you have been listening for some time now, you will know just how much we believe in service-based businesses. But before you do anything, as always, we recommend you listen to our second episode, back in 2017, the year we launched the show, where we had Abagail on as a guest.

In that episode, Emylee interviewed her to find out how she replaced her corporate income after getting laid off. Since we reference that episode a billion times, we thought it would be fun to do a 2021 version, where we find out how Abagail would handle the same situation today. Some of the things might be similar, but what are the new strategies Abagail would leverage now? Technology and marketing have changed so much that there are sure to be a few new ways to bounce back quicker.