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 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.

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.

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 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.

Inside today’s episode, we are talking all about launching and specifically a launch we just had where we made $37,000 in a matter of a week. We’re going to talk to you all about what changed, what we did differently, some systems we added on to try our new take on Facebook ads, and exactly how we got the results we did. We’re even going to dive into some data and what worked and what didn’t.

We have been waiting to do this episode because we wanted to come back with all the final results and it would be helpful for you guys to know perhaps how we launched before so you can really see the value of the changes that we have made and how we approached it differently this time around. Really, it comes down to two things that we changed, so stay tuned as we dive into the details in this episode.