Our guest today is Meg Clark, the owner and founder of Clapping Dog Media, where she is the master of growing organic traffic. Using a combination of data, proven techniques, and years of experience, she attracts web visitors that not only stick around, but turn into paying customers. Simply put, she connects the dots of data to get your business found!

If you’ve been dipping your toe into the ad space lately, you would have been hearing that a lot has changed. Although people say that every year and the changes are usually not so significant, this year is different; because of some really big Apple changes, the game kind of did change, and we now have to think about a whole lot of new things when it comes to paid advertising. In this episode, we are joined by Tony Rulli, co-founder of the digital marketing agency, Intentional Spark.

Today, Tony is going to be going over what those changes actually mean for marketers and advertisers, and he’s going to share his best recommendations for how to not necessarily combat those changes (because you can’t really) but how to still get the information that you need to sell your product or service.

Today, we want to talk about what it takes to build a sustainable business. One that is focused on making income for the long term, and some of the projects we are focused on internally that we think are just a little bit different to what we see other online business owners spending their time and energy on. To continue with our analogy from last time where we talked about your “Tinder date", we’re now going to segue into "How to make the relationship a bit more official”.

But keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be forever. You’re not necessarily married to everything you put out into the world, but there is some commitment required when you start to think about how you build a business that creates sustainable, consistent cash flow. So if you want to hear about our helpful hints and top tips for creating that amazing content your business needs, let's get into it!

We have the best thing since sliced bread to share with you. Big, big, big news. We are beyond excited. For the first time ever (note the sarcasm), we are giving more value to our members and our students because we love you and are obsessed with your success. It should come as no surprise to anyone that we just want to continue to see you improve your results. We are constantly looking at our programs and our offers to identify how we can help you be more successful, how we can arm you with the tools, strategies, and systems to be the most effective you can be. And we have been taking a good, long, hard look at everything we have done inside The Creative Template Shop, and we love it. It's not changing. All of that is staying AND it's growing and becoming even better!

While we can’t tell you what this episode is going to look like, we can tell you where we are at. Being an entrepreneur is hard. It presents challenges that you don’t anticipate. Things pop up that you never imagined dealing with and you are pushed to grow as a person as you continue to grow your business. We wish we could say that it was always easy or that we always know what to do, but we don’t. The idea for this episode started when Emylee inboxed Jessica Eley and their conversation led to a lot of tears.

We want to preface this conversation by saying there are a handful of conversations that we have had like this where we are truly in the weeds and workshopping things as we go. We will probably get clarity just by talking it out with you guys and we love that we have the space to do that. It is not going to be an episode that ends with a resounding conclusion or strategy. We want to talk about the challenges that come with growth and clear out some of the junk in our brains in the hope that you won’t feel as alone if you were thinking some of the same things.

In this episode, we share some of the surprising influencers in your business that could be distracting you from making CEO decisions, how to execute based on where you want to be versus where you are today, and when to shift from finite thinking to future-focused thinking. We also highlight the importance of trusting your intuition, not letting your goals hold you back, and taking your future into your own hands, so make sure to tune in today!

If you have ever considered using TikTok or Instagram Reels in your marketing strategy, this is the episode for you! Tuning in, you’ll learn some actionable and tangible ways that you can start thinking about these platforms and how to use them in order to actually make money, so make sure not to miss this informative and practical guide to help you make TikTok work for your business!

Today on the podcast we have Melanie Fountain. She is a Pinterest coach and strategist. She started her business in January 2019 as a virtual assistant and quickly found a passion and talent in growing her clients’ businesses through Pinterest marketing. We are going to help you learn how to do that today! If you are creating content in any shape or form then you need to know what is working for Pinterest in 2021.

We are doing an update for all the best Pinterest strategies that you can manage in your content, so you can create new routines while you are creating that amazing content. We talk about all the new stuff including video pins and story pins, how to grow your followers on Pinterest, and why that might start to matter now when it hasn't over the last couple of years. Our conversation also covers everything else you can do to make sure that you are taking advantage of the amazing platform that is Pinterest!

If you have been listening to us for a minute, you will have heard us alluding to the fact that we are headed toward a growth phase of our business and our lives. We were having a conversation the other day about why we are ready for this now versus when we weren't, what's different, and what we think we need to shift in order to do it. One of the things that came up is that we realized that we had perfected delegating tasks in our business that stabilize it, make it do the thing that it's meant to be doing, and not let it slip back and fall.

On the flip side, what we haven't done and what we don't know how to do yet is delegate, hire for, plan and help other people grow the business. So, we talked about this the other day, when just a couple of years ago, if one of us was out of the office, there would be a direct impact on our sales because there would be less posting on social media and less content creation, which means we would have to plan and account for that. We grew out of that phase, so now one of us can head off for a week, and it does not impact our sales at all! This is fantastic, but the next phase for us is about more than just being able to go on vacation and see the business grow; it's about not having to be one of the two brains that contribute to the growth.

We run ads for everything under the sun, and we have for a long time. Something we did very early on was make a conscious decision to not look at the comments on ads because sometimes there are just troll-type comments, and we don’t need to leave our headspace there. Funnily enough, Abagail’s husband is our ad comment moderator, so it is very rare for us to see a negative comment. But, for some reason, the other day, Emylee was scrolling one of our new Creative Template Shop ads, which is so beautiful and cute. The ad contains our slogan which we have been using for over a year. Emylee was compelled to look at the comment, which was along the lines of, “Oh, so that’s all that marketing is, is beautiful graphics? That's not all that marketing is, so it’s weird that you say that.” The specifics of the comment aren’t that important, but we do want to have a conversation not only about what marketing is, but what marketing means to two visual artists, and why we have our Creative Template Shop slogan, which was very intentional. We believe that it’s something that really makes our business stand out from anything else that we see out there.

Today on the show, we have Monica Schrock, who is cautiously optimistic and is an introverted copywriter who works as a marketing consultant. She has a mean coffee habit and a serious nerd streak. She revels at the intersection between intention and strategy, hoping to make the world a better place one word at a time. Monica has spent the last 14 years navigating the extroverted field of marketing, helping 200 clients craft their brand message and increase their sales from double to over ten times. We are talking about all the tips and tricks she has learned on that journey on the show today.

So, if you resonate as a fellow introverted entrepreneur, who started their business to maybe escape ever having to talk to anyone again, and then realizing that you have to do that in order to make sales, put your offer out there, and grow your business, this episode is for you. We are talking about how to set boundaries, how to schedule (or not schedule) your week in a way that fits your personality so that you can actually get stuff done without feeling guilty and feel like you’re putting marketing and sales messaging out there that doesn’t make you feel icky.

Today we are going to talk about doing #allthethings, or rather, not doing them. We know a lot of you have so many things on your plate and are really struggling with what to let go of. You are feeling married to every department that you are the head of, and not really seeing or understanding how you could give up any of those things. So with that in mind, we want to holler at you in the way that we do best and permit you and help you let go of some stuff if you have been trudging along in your workspace, your day, and your business.

We used to be the people who didn’t only not want to pay to give up things but also were super intimidated and concerned with delegation. It has been something we have had to work hard to do because we used to be aware of everything that happens in our business and we were at the point where if we didn’t let go of some of it, we were going to slow down the business. So we have had some life experience in this department and hope you can take away some of the lessons we have learned and apply them in your own life and business after this episode!

In today’s episode, we welcome Rachel Rodgers, a woman of color, mother of four, and seven-figure business owner – in that order. Rachel started her career working on The Hill with nonprofits, federal judges, and Hillary Clinton. When she realized that changing the world is easier when you have some cash in your bank account, she decided to build a million-dollar business and then teach other women how to do the same. Her new book, We Should All Be Millionaires, from Harper’s Leadership is out now! (as of release, not recording)

For this show, we break down our favorite parts of Rachel’s book, which not only addresses our ingrained mindsets around money issues but also provides activities you can do, from homework assignments to different mindset reframes to help you better your headspace, grow, and move forward, whether you have a business or you just want to be a literal millionaire!

Today on our show, we have Ariel Kuhn, who started out as a photographer and has since grown her business to focus more on brand strategy, working with small business owners as they figure out how to grow online. She helps these businesses with everything from brand strategy to photography, copywriting, web design, and mentorship so they can take their business to the next level. Ariel has been around the Boss Project / TCC block for a while, and she is actually a current Strategy Academy student. She shares the evolution of her business, why she decided to invest in the program, the art of her pivot, what it means to her to feel good about what you’re doing in your business, and what to do with all the extra ideas you might have. We also discuss various things she has learned in the program that could help other small business owners who are in a similar position. So, if you have an existing business and have been stressing out about all of the brilliant ideas you have in your brain and what to do next, this episode will give you clarity.

Today our guest is Jennifer Turner, the founder of Gemini where she helps online business owners improve their copywriting and design to create higher conversion rates. Gemini is an online branding and education platform and Jennifer is the rare combination of a trained copywriter and designer! Their MO is unifying a business' voice in the copy and design to tell a stronger story. We love it! Today we will be focussing solely on the copy side of things and how to get your up to scratch!

We are super excited for Jennifer to dive into her four-step formula for high converting copy and it is honestly one of the best formulas we have found in a long time! These kinds of frameworks can sometimes put you in a box or make you sound a bit robotic and this one is a really cool way to insert your story and your audience's story while coming up with something that gets your conversion rate all the way up! This can be used for freebies, opt-ins or paid services and programs, it can be applied in those areas just as effectively, that's how versatile it is, so get your notes ready and let's get into some strategy!