Welcome back to the The Strategy Hour everybody. We hope you are excited about today’s episode because we sure are! Today we are chatting with Haley Williams about selling a business when you realize that you might not love what you are doing. This is an experience Haley had with a project she had been running for the last seven years only a few months ago! This can obviously be quite a difficult process and that is what this chat is all about. Making tough choices that are the best for you. It took some time but Haley found the clarity she needed to feel good about her decision and has not looked back since.

There are a number of choices that are available to us as business owners when these feelings arise. One of the options is to just shut down the business completely, which is quite drastic but is sometimes necessary. The second option is to think about changing the way you work and how the business runs and the last is to let go of it and have someone else buy and take care of it. The last of these is what Haley did and she found it was a lot more about letting go of the identity she had come to correlate to her business and realizing that she was more than that part of herself. Even at TCC, we are also slowly finding our way through this dynamic and learning to value ourselves beyond the work we put into our jobs. So come along for this important journey and hopefully you can come out the side inspired and ready for any necessary changes.

Hey everybody and welcome back to The Strategy Hour Podcast! We have a great episode in store for all of you biz unicorns that we think will be super helpful with a big part of everyone’s lives. Today we are going to be talking about communication, resolution, and how to have those difficult conversations that we all have to have sometimes. You know that when problems arise you have to deal with them in one way or another and that there are good ways and bad ways. Well, today we are going to be showing you one of the better ways to go about it. This episode was inspired by a speech by Sheila Heen from Harvard Law School that Abagail recently witnessed and needless to say, she was inspired. We hoped to pass on some of that inspiration to all our wonderful listeners so you can go out and be your best selves for the world!

During our discussion Abagail leads us through some of the steps that Sheila outlined and we give some examples of what these steps can be from personal experiences. We talk about inner dialogue and intentionality and why certain attitudes lead to having the same fight over and over. We are really trying to help you find a better way to handle conflict resolution and the first part of that is definitely in the way you approach an issue. Abagail explains how stories play a huge role in the way we understand our own perspective. These stories that we tell ourselves often determine how a particular conversation will play out. We also offer some tips for more reading on the subject and look at the book that Emylee has been reading which is dealing with similar subject matter. Ultimately the message of this episode is to slow down and take some time to try and understand someone’s point of view rather than try and prove why you are right. We know! This can be difficult! But don’t you think the world would be better off with a little more understanding? We think so!

Today’s episode of The Strategy Hour is dedicated to YOU and your wonderful questions! We asked our Facebook Group to hit us up with all their questions on anything and everything, and we’re answering as many of those as we can today! We like to have these sessions from time to time because we owe so much to all of you, and what way better for giving back than a little bit of quality time, right?

During this discussion, we answer questions on dream businesses, meeting each other, pivoting careers, our hobbies, health, confidence, new businesses, calendars and much more. As usual we try to be as honest as possible and give you everything we’ve got, because we know how much that little push of inspiration or motivation can do to get you on the track to success. Some of the big takeaways from this episode are following your heart and finding your own path, being kind and peaceful to yourself in the face of disappointment, pushing through challenges and taking opportunities when they present themselves. These are strategies that have worked for us and we are sure they can work for you too!

On this edition of the The Strategy Hour we have a very special guest, Christine McAlister, founder of Life With Passion and author of the new book The Income Replacement Formula. Christine’s business is dedicated to helping hopeful entrepreneurs transition from their day jobs to owning the business of their dreams, and boy, do we love her for it! It is a challenge that almost all business owners have to face and doing it correctly can be so tricky. That’s why Christine’s service is so important!

During the episode we go over the steps that Christine lays out in her book and she details each step with great information to get you started and excited about this shift. We talk mindset, marketing, visibility and much more that you are not going to want to miss! Our guest has one of the longest and most diverse lists of achievements we have ever seen: Olympic broadcaster, horse mother, raising service dogs...amongst other things! So do we even need to say how excited we are to have her here? The point of this episode is to start you on the path where you can quit the slog and start working on your passion full time. Let’s jump right in and get started!

Welcome back to the podcast all you beautiful business unicorns! Today we are doing the monthly round-up and recap of July and we’ll be looking forward to August, so jump on board with us as we take this fun ride. We will mostly be talking about the funnels we have implemented and these helpful changes that we made to our website that have continued to improve our engagement and sales. We will carry on implementing more funnels as time goes on but mapping these ones out and seeing the positive results has been so exciting that we could not resist sharing these successes with y’all!

As our business has grown it has become more and more complex to understand and map the journey our customers and new visitors make within it. It is, as always, vitally important to have a handle on these dynamics and it is always exciting to understand what efforts yield results and where you may be able to improve. It’s so invigorating to see how these funnels impact our programs and we can’t wait to see the growth in sales continue into the future! At times reflecting like this can be be tricky or difficult and we may not alway give ourselves a fair review, but please remember how important it is! When we see the numbers across the last few months, it makes it all worth it!

There tends to be this thing that happens. This thing that has been happening for a while now. This thing where everybody tries to implement the exact same strategy, at the same time. What  ends up happening is everybody starts to look, sound and feel pretty much the same. Have you noticed it? This is where things start to get icky and this icky-ness is what we’re going to be bringing to the surface today.

In this episode, we’ll be highlighting some of the common mistakes we see businesses making. We’re here to help you cut the crap, stop following fickle trends and really get back to laying the foundations of basic business practice. Here we’ll be walking you through our PANCAKES Method to help you identify where you are at in your business and how you can reach those upper-level results. If you need a reality check, a kick in the booty and an actionable gameplan to ground your business for the long haul – then you’re going to love this episode.

Today on the show we welcome Abbey Ashley, founder of The Virtual Savvy. Abbey is a virtual assistant startup coach who is helping women all over the world start their online businesses and launch and grow their VA businesses to $5,000 per month and beyond! Ashley has been featured on Boss Mom, Smart Passive Income and NBC News – so you can image, this girl knows her sh*t! If you’re someone who can’t stand the 9-5 life, being a VA is a great place to start for anyone who is wanting to get their feet wet in the online world.

For anyone who is stuck, not knowing where or how to even begin tapping into the online VA space, this is literally the episode for you. In this episode, Abbey provides so many fantastic ideas for you to get something off the ground as well as how to pivot, niche and scale your VA business so that you can totally crush it. After listening to this episode, you will be able to start making money this very week! So, take some notes and let’s get started.

June was the most slap in the face lesson that Emylee has ever had in business. Abbie, on the other hand, felt like we had it coming. But no matter which way you see it, we’re going to talk about it – and many other delicious things – today in our June Review episode. This June, we launched The Strategy Academy live for the first time since November 2017. We have evergreened the program for the past six months and this launch was to give us a big public push. We did have a successful live launch but it did not reach the goals that we had set.

In this episode, we reflect on the process and the results of our Strategy Academy relaunch and highlight some of the latest changes and additions to TCC. We have some exciting things coming up for July, which we’ll share with you too, and round things off with some strategy, pancakes and spaghetti. By end of this episode, you’ll be reminded that sometimes you don’t need to burn your projects but rather, speak about them in a different way.

On today’s episode of The Strategy Hour we are tackling a very important subject and a problem that is very close to home for most business owners, including ourselves here at TCC. We are going to be looking at the two schools of thought that might be holding up your business’ progress. With the rise in entrepreneurship and self-made business owners there has been a natural growth in literature and thought on the subject. So much of this has been helpful and inspiring in many different ways but there are also ways in which it can be stunting you and your work.

The first popular school of thought we look at is the “hustle ‘till you die” attitude, which has been popularized by many successful entrepreneurs and has so much influence over the way go-getters portray themselves at events and online. We at Think Creative Collective know the value of hard work and persistence but attaching someone else’s or a collectively held image of blood sweat and tears to your own life can have devastating effects on your health, family life and of course your work. The second thing we look at is the idea that hiring and outsourcing is the direct line to success and credibility. After unpacking just how damaging these two ideas can be to you and those around you we look at ways in which you can avoid these problems, taking only the necessary pearls of wisdom from the philosophies and finding your own, healthy pathway to success!

Today’s podcast is really special retrospective as we are looking back on our meetaversary! We met three years ago and those of you who have been with use for a while, know just how special the journey we have made together has been! So we thought we would take this opportunity to look back on the last three years and really just pay tribute to each other and what we have achieved. Although it has not all been smooth sailing and easy terrain the good times have made the challenges that much more manageable. Through all the ups and downs that life has thrown at us, this business we have built together is a blessing and we are both so grateful for it!

We remember exactly how we first met and the first conversations we in the Savvy Community and the phone calls and sleepovers that followed. Once we spent time together we knew it was something special and the honesty we were able to exercise so quickly really showed us how rare our connection was. Very soon after meeting we started to see how we balanced each other out and complemented each other’s strengths and weakness. We hope everyone out there gets to feel this great feeling! We look back at some of the best and worst memories from this period and look forward to what the future might hold. This episode is a bit gushy and is all about us - but we know you care, otherwise you wouldn’t be here! And who doesn’t need a little bit more inspirations and gratefulness in their lives?

Today on the show we welcome Brooke Genn. Brooke is a writer, a photographer, podcast host and one part of a power couple together with her husband, Wilhelm. Brooke has had a really interesting and eclectic past and today works full-time with her spouse, building a business together as well as building a tiny home on wheels. In this episode, we are talking about what it takes to be a power couple. We get into the steps Brooke and her husband took to get her husband to come home and work with her full-time and how they are able to travel the world together and do exactly what they’ve always wanted.

We find out what Brooke has learned from working with her husband and how they have navigated this transition, having their own independence what it takes to run a business when you and your partner are so emotionally tied. A lot of us have thought on and off about working with our spouses but Brooke and her husband are successfully doing it! There is a lot to be learned from this episode about business and about relationships… even if you aren’t working together.

Today we are welcoming you to a brand new series that we are kicking off right here, right now! The monthly series is called Boss Talk and it’s an unscripted, uncensored, roundtable, brainstorming session between Abbie, Emylee and our lovely visiting guests. We’ll be diving into hot topics in the industry right now and will kick off every episode by posing a question to each of us in the discussion, which we’ll flesh out throughout the show. Today’s question is, “What are your thoughts on the phrase "community over competition?" And here to help us answer it, is the delightful boss babe, Steph Crowder of Courage & Clarity.

Here in this series, there is no holding back, no sugar-coating, no censoring. It’s just us, cracking open beers and navigating important questions that you’re probably wondering about too… So, are you someone who is all for community, or all for competition? Or is it about striking a healthy balance between the two? But how do we do that and are authentic communities really possible? This is an important and topical debate across all industries right now and one that we’re not sure people are speaking about as honestly as openly as we’d like. This series is all about real, off-the-cuff, honest opinions and if that’s your jam, then come and join us!

Today on the show we are doing our monthly review for April 2018. Our monthly review is a popular episode that we do every month. In the past, we have gone into a lot of depth with all of our numbers and our tracking. However, we have decided to narrow it down a little bit to be a more of an overview. If you want all the nitty-gritty’s, you can find them inside The Goal Crusher Club. In the episode, we are a little goofy because well, April was crazy! We just got back from a week-long trip to Chicago for the She Did It Her Way Summit. We did some strategizing in our hotel room (which we covered in post-it notes and crazy-lady handwriting) and will be reporting back on our plans and goals for the future. We’ll also be discussing our experience switching email providers (again) from Infusionsoft to ActiveCampaign, as well as how we got 100 members into the Goal Crusher Club through some darn fine teamwork.

In addition to that, we get into some deeper identity crises we’ve been experiencing in our business and the “Aha” moment in Chicago that reminded us that the destination is the journey. Our biggest glory moment this month has been the positive shifts we have seen in our team and how we have come to learn that teamwork takes, well, so much work. Work that is so worth it! We end off this episode with some good ol’ fashion funnel talk and our improvements to work toward for next month. We hope this episode will inspire you to keep going, even if you don’t have it all figured out yet. We sure don’t, but hey, we’re enjoying the ride. Bring it on May!

Today on the podcast we welcome Justine Nelson. Justine is a friend and previous co-worker who embarked on a personal journey to get rid of debt… and then decided to teach other people how to do it too. Justine is the founder of Debt Free Millennials, an online resource blog and coaching center helping thousands of millennials ditch debt and live like a boss. Today we are speaking about all the fun things – like student loans, debt culture and budgeting. We are also going to be discussing how to navigate conversations around debt with your partner and family and how having a budget and goals in your personal life leads to amazing things in your business life.

We hear how this Midwest millennial got into debt in the first place, how she broke out of debt's chains and was able to start a business from the ground up and do things in her life that she never even imagined. Since Justine has been in the dark pits of debt herself, she is a really great person to get some tips and advice from on how to cope with these financial practicalities, as well as the emotional strain that debt can place on your relationships. If you are feeling overwhelmed by your own debt, Justine is going to show you just how doable (and surprisingly fun) paying off your debt can be. If you want to live that debt free life and grow the business you have always dreamed of growing, then this inspirational episode is a great place to start!

Welcome to Part 4 of the Goal Crusher Club Series! Today we are talking about one of Abbie’s favorite things on the planet – creating Key Performance Indicators in your business, otherwise known as KPI’s. We will be walking you through some of the things you need to be tracking on a month to month basis that will genuinely help you realize the health and wellness of your business and exactly what you need to be paying attention to. KPI’s are going to give you all the knowledge you need about where you should be spending your time; what needs more babying and perhaps what needs to be cut. If you aren’t tracking these things you may never be able to recognize what might be an issue in your business, or which aspect of your business you need to grow. This leaves you guessing over and over again and this is not where you want to be!

Ultimately, it comes down to performance and numbers and this is where identifying your KPI’s come in! In this episode, we are going to get you tracking like you’re on safari. We’re going to be explain exactly how to track your data over a launch period and show you exactly how to calculate your earnings per lead, your cost per lead and the additional numbers you should be paying attention to. We are also going to be showing you how to analyze your monthly data; including your most popular posts and your most engaged customer and how you can use them to propel your business forward with confidence.