We have a crowd favorite on the podcast today: Megan Stone, owner of Sweet Chubby Cheeks. Megan is a proud Momma of two wonderful kiddos. Her designs are inspired by her daughter, and the need she had to find quality outfits for photo sessions and headbands for everyday wear. She quickly found that other moms had the same desire and Sweet Chubby Cheeks was born!

Today we are getting super deep, super real, a little personal, crossing those those boundaries of what you should and shouldn’t talk about. Yeah, we are talking all about when your spouse is your employee and how the dynamics of that really works. We are talking about “retiring” your husband / wife and how Megan has been able to successfully do so. She is giving us an idea of the work that she took to get there and some of the stumbling blocks she faced in the beginning. We are diving into it, so keep listening to hear more!

Today we are recording a live version of us going through our monthly review sheet. What we’re really going to talk about is the process and we are going through the entire thing step by step, just as we normally do, so you guys can see it all - how long it takes, what we talk about, what we ask ourselves, what are we looking at, what numbers are we pulling and we’re doing it in real time. We’ve pulled up the websites that we usually gather data from but we haven't crunched the numbers yet. We are doing it on air so you guys can see realistically how all this works.

It’s August review and we use our worksheets that we’ve created for some awesome students of ours and our community which are available in both The Follow Through Method and Rock Your Biz. We are going through our typical review of what we would do at the end of a month and then planning for the following month. This episode might be a bit different to listen to. We are testing it so do let us know if you love it or hate it at the end of it. So keep listening to hear how all this works!

Today we are talking all things systems. Our main concept is all about working backwards to achieve a goal. This may not be a new concept, but it is one of the topics we get the most questions about. So we are going to answer a bunch of the questions we have received about achieving your goals and tackling them head on! Often, identifying an end goal can be confusing, overwhelming and lead to a lot of self-doubt. Especially if your business is new. We are here to tell you why you need to have an end goal in mind, no matter where you are in your business.

If the thought of reaching that goal makes you want to freeze, we want to show you how you can break it down into mini-tasks and work your way backwards to achieve it – without getting too dizzy. What if you’re close to a deadline and not even close to reaching your mini-goals? What do you do and how do you tackle it? This is what we’re going to be talking about today. This entrepreneur life is all about baby steps and we want you to know that you can reach your end goal. So let us help you and take a listen!

Today we have our friend and ultimate boss babe, or should we say, legal babe, Christina Scalera on the show. We are super excited to get into this episode with you guys because today we are going to be chatting about something us creatives (honestly) don’t always think about. Now you’re wondering what that is, right?

Well, Christina helps creative entrepreneurs and wedding professionals make lots of money doing what they love. She is also out to cause a Ruckus™ in the legal world with legal marketing that doesn't suck. Today she is here to help us, creatives, make sure that we are protected and making smart and safe decisions online, especially in the world of collaboration.

Today we are talking about the thing that we have created to help you get more organized, get your hot mess systems in gear and sort out what you need to be thinking about, asking yourself and doing if you truly want to have a productive work day and system to get more done in your business (yes, that was a mouthful). You might think that we’re going to come in here and just talk to you just about Trello for Business, which is incredible. But what we’ve noticed is that some of y’all that enroll in that amazing program still feel overwhelmed and you don’t know how to get all the shit you have right now into Trello in an organized manner. Well, we are here to help you avoid getting stressed out and overwhelmed in the process.

We made something for you. We could have recorded more content for the course, which we would have done, BUT we decided to do it a little differently. We put together a challenge for y’all to get your booty in gear, get yourself organized, have a plan in place, get your life in order, and plan for profit, plus then a system to keep it going over the long haul. Best yet, it’s FREE! You’re welcome. Our 4 Days To Sexy Systems is coming to you on September 5th. Keep listening to find out more.

Holy moly guacamole! It’s episode 100! On today’s milestone episode, we have one of the most integral behind-the-scenes members on The Strategy Hour: Nicholette von Reiche. You might not hear her (or see her), but Nicholette is always buzzing around in the background as our business manager, graphics guru and tech ninja. Today, we’re talking all about growing a team, the state of TCC, what’s coming up for the podcast and all about the future of the biz.

We want to break down the TCC journey and let you know who has a role in the business. We can lift the curtain a bit to show you that it isn’t just us in here – but that it was just us for a long time! We have laid a lot of foundations over the course of our first business year and if you are currently laying the foundations in your own business, hopefully this will give you a glimpse into your future. We’re so excited about our first 100 episodes and we can’t wait to do a hundred more! Send the champagne, people! And let’s get into some strategy.

Lately, we have gotten some questions from our students, audience members and community about how we have evolved in our course creation journey, and so we decided to take you back. Not all the way back, not necessarily to our client days, but at least from the beginning stages of creating our first course all the way through to today. We’ll tell you what has changed and how we have been able to grow and better serve our community.

The purpose behind doing this is to really showcase to you all that you can start small (we did).  Nothing has to be perfect, just run with something and run the heck out of it until you add on something else. Dive into this episode if courses are something you’re interested in trying and learn from our mistakes. Keep listening so you can take some of our advice and see some bomb-ass results a year into it applying it.

Today we are bringing on Wedding and Portrait Photographer, Katie Doherty of La Rousse Shoppe. Katie is a service and a product-based business babe. She started out as a teacher, had a passion for photography, saw a gap in the market and filled it with a $200k+ business that is as passive and automated as possible while continuously growing and expanding.

In this episode, Katie is sharing with us on how her dream was born. We get a peek into some of the resources and tools she uses to make it all happen and we find out more about what she actually sells. We are super excited about what she’s spilling in this episode, so keep listening.

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.

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 on the podcast, we welcome back Katie Hunt of Trade Show Bootcamp. Katie is our very first second-time guest! We met Katie last summer at the Savvy Experience and have been friends ever since. Katie has this depth of knowledge about an entirely different world of wholesale and the stationery industry that we are just not privy to, and she is not holding back! In fact, she doesn’t hold back, ever.

She gives so much insight in this episode; we are talking all about saving for trade shows, how to budget for them so that there are no surprise costs, and the pros and cons of going to a national show versus a smaller local show. We also dive into how to balance retail and wholesale, and how to nurture those relationships after you snag some wholesale clients. We even go into more on how to add value, how to get your customers ordering more, and how to bring them on like they are family and VIPs. There are a lot of ideas in this episode and a lot of action steps, so we can’t wait for you to dive in!

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.

Alright guys, we are back for another tactical throwback. Today, we are taking it back and sitting down to interview Abagail about all of the lessons she’s learned, the mistakes she’s made, and how the heck she got clients when she was doing one-on-one client work for branding, design, and website business building. So today we are going to give the quick version of what Abbie did before TCC, because not everyone knows that she has not been doing Think Creative Collective forever. We will learn a bit more about what she used to do, and dive into the tactics she used to grow her business.

Prior to TCC, Abagail worked in the corporate design world. After completing her fine arts degree, she went straight out of the gate and started working for big and small businesses alike. She worked with businesses of all shapes and sizes, anywhere from billion dollar, to nonprofit, to educational businesses. She even worked for a startup and then eventually was laid off, which is really where she faced her crossroads and had to make a decision about whether to start her own business or simply look for another job. Abbie was definitely ready for a challenge and decided to pursue her dream of having her own business. So get ready, get your socks on, it’s going to be a good one.

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.

Today on the podcast, we are taking you all back to the days before TCC even existed. It is kind of crazy but, believe it or not, we both used to run different businesses. Emylee used to be a photographer and she was pretty darn good at it, so we are doing a little interview style throwback with her today. She left a five figure photography business to form TCC and before that, Emylee graduated with a degree in fine art photography, minors in a whole bunch of other areas and kind of went ahead on her own, always carrying that entrepreneurial spirit.

Emylee started her entrepreneurial journey with her very own cupcake business, which turned out to be a big, fat failure, but then she went back to photography and turned it into a business. We are going to talk about what it was like to run a photography business, what it was like to get clients, how to package, how to price, how to just get your business up and running, the gear she used, and so much more.