We’ve been getting a lot of questions about our side hustles, the things we work on outside of Boss Project. Since we’re right back at the beginning stages with these projects, we thought it might be a good idea to share things as we implement and test them out. In this episode, we are going to dive into Abagail’s side hustle, sharing with listeners her processes, struggles and everything she’s learning. 

She gives us the inside scoop on why she decided to take on this new endeavor, why she is personally invested in the health and wellness space, and what she hopes to offer other women who are in the same boat. Despite some people’s hesitancy about this type of business, Abagail shares how network marketing has been serving her well and then elaborates about the relevance of blogging, social media, email lists, Facebook ads, and other common strategies in her business. Finally, you will hear some great pointers for creating more consistency in your business! 

Today on the show we welcome Justine Nelson, founder of Debt Free Millennials. Justine is on a mission to advocate for a debt-free lifestyle, and today you will learn how this is relevant for your business and how it can fuel your personal financial goals. By the age of 25, Justine Nelson had paid off $35,000 in student loan debt making an average of $37,000 per year. Grit, discipline and a motivation to kick debt's ass for good helped her achieve this goal within two and a half years.

In this episode, we talk about leveraging your side hustle to pay off debt or save for that dream vacation, Justine’s go-to worksheets and business books, and a list of things you can do each month to ensure that you stay on track with your goals. We also talk about bookkeeping systems, budgeting, planning for annual subscriptions, and setting measurable goals. Now that 2020 is in full swing, why not tune in to this episode and learn how to get your debt and savings dealt with? 

Today we get to talk about one of our favorite things — meetings the Traction way! While most people hate meetings, we are going to share a few things that might change your mind. Meetings are notorious for consuming a lot of time, often with little real progress, but we will present you with an outline that will make every meeting you have from here on out a super productive, efficient one. We’ve spoken about the book Traction many times, but we want to remind you once more to go read it because this is where this outline and our guidelines around meetings come from. 

Sometimes a meeting is not necessary and a Slack message or quick update will suffice, but other times having a meeting makes sense, and therefore it’s important to know how to approach them. Having a weekly meeting keeps all parties fully informed on decisions made, as it can be easy to think everybody is in the loop when they’re not. If you are someone who has little patience for inefficiency and is always looking for the quickest, most productive ways to communicate and do things, this outline is perfect for you! This is as applicable to small teams as it is big ones, and don’t hesitate to ask your contractor to attend these meetings. Be sure to tune in to this episode to get the best strategy for efficient meetings!  

As we all know, ’tis the season to set new goals, make resolutions, and ditch those nasty habits that were holding us back in 2019. We’ve already seen a whole range of resolutions from all of you; everything from what you want to learn, what you want to get better at, and what you want to let go of in the new year. Within those we’ve seen one similar theme constantly pop up, and that is removing or scaling down on social media, specifically Facebook and Instagram. 

So, in today’s episode we want to dive into our relationship with social media and offer some reframes that will be truly helpful in redefining this relationship, especially as it pertains to your business. As with all trends, there are always highs and lows and the conversation we are seeing nowadays is painting social media in a bad light. So instead of being bogged down by all that is bad about social media, we want to give you the tools to refocus on your business needs. Stay tuned as we go through our top tips to help you get a head start on your resolutions for 2020!

Spoiler alert! This whole episode is a giant spoiler alert because you are finding out something before it launches – and we are stoked! We are seven days out from doing the biggest thing since our signature program came out. We hope for your sake you’re listening to this after the launch so you don’t have to wait seven whole days for it. And we can tell you, we’ve been working on this project for more than a year, and we were pretty sure it would be a huge surprise to all of you, so we wanted it perfectly polished. 

We’ve given it tons of thought and came up with the solutions for all your design worries. If you’re not a graphic designer and are always fretting over getting your branding right and looking professional, don’t worry, the dark days are over. Tune into this episode for the big reveal that will be a game-changer for your business in 2020! 

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 focusing solely on the copy side of things and how to get yours 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. Tt can be applied in all of those areas just as effectively, that's how versatile it is, so get your notes ready and let's get into some strategy!

Can you believe it? The year 2019 is over and we’re starting 2020 in just a few hours! We’re talking about our New Year’s Eve plans and how Emylee is going to navigate a house full of party people – thanks to marrying a frat guy who has a million friends! But speaking about plans to enter the new year on a high note, today we share with you our biggest lessons from 2019 and how they should impact your (and our) strategies for 2020. Tricky situations are unavoidable, and we offer you some solid advice for mitigating their potentially negative effects. 

As business owners, we are required to keep learning and developing all the time – otherwise, we simply won’t be able to keep up and we’d never reach our full potential. There are logistics and technicalities you must deal with at some point, whether it’s your thing or not, because entrepreneurs and business owners need to fulfill a multitude of roles and responsibilities. We reckon you can give yourself a pat on the back for what you have achieved in your business this year. It’s not easy, and it takes a lot of grit. Join us for this last episode of 2019 to hear more about break-even points, short-term sacrifices, distractions, and a whole lot more! 

Today on the show we are joined by the wonderful, the amazing, the multi-talented, Jessica Eley. If you do not already know Jessica, well you should! She is a mindset coach for high-achievers and has helped loads of business owners improve their practices and reach for the stars. She goes deep, wide and everywhere in-between with them and today we will be talking about the two different types of people there are in this world; be-ers and do-ers!

Jessica unpacks how figuring out which of these types you are can make such a difference to the way you approach life and business. She explains the pros and cons of each and how striving for more balance can serve you so well moving forward. We talk about the types of tools and strategies that work for each and we give great examples of how these play out. Jessica is definitely more of a be-er, while Emylee is definitely a do-er, the conversation has a natural contrasting dynamic, which you will definitely appreciate. Join us as we dive deep with Jessica!

Welcome to the November profit report! All businesses experience ups and downs – we do too – and sometimes what at first seems like a minor thing turns out to have a big impact on profitability. You all know by now that we’re all about profit here at Boss Project and we’ve spent too much time focused on the top line that we missed many of the intricacies going on in the background of our business. We’ve been showing you how to stabilize your profit and our own goal is to get to that 30% mark, but we also understand that there are many moving parts – things that are beyond our control – that ultimately determine your profit. For starters, it’s imperative for you to know exactly what comes in and goes out of your business every single month and to be truly aware: you can’t fix something if you didn’t know it was broken! Three factors impacted us negatively in November, two of them were actually preventable, but now we know and we won’t make those same mistakes again. 

When we talk about being aware, you have to know your awareness not only drives your decision-making, but it makes you alter your focus on the flip side. It’s not necessarily that you need to decrease your costs, but it’s about looking carefully at what the root problem is. Something might even seem like an issue when it really isn’t. That’s why you never make decisions on a whim: decisions should be made after digging deeper to find the underlying problem. When you have this kind of information, you might look at your results differently. Join us again today as we take you through the highs and lows of November 2019! 

Today our guest is Claire Diaz-Ortiz! Claire is an author, renowned speaker, and startup investor. She was an early employee at Twitter and has taken that essential expertise into her work as a consultant and authority on social media and online branding. Her books have been published in 12 countries and won many awards. She has been featured widely in both print and broadcast media. Today we are referring specifically to her latest book, Social Media Success for Every Brand and unpacking some of the lessons she has compiled in its pages. 

When we say Claire is a social media genius we really mean it! In our conversation, we unpack the difference between direct marketing and brand marketing and why you should not be targeting an immediate sale on social media platforms. Claire breaks down a few common mistakes made by brands and big businesses on the various social sites we all use and shares some very easy and quick strategies you can start implementing today to get things going!

It’s that time of the year again — we’re sharing our favorite words for 2020 and how they relate to your business! This past year, Abagail’s word has been “react”. She worked hard at learning to process her emotions in healthier ways and to not overreact to situations, trying to find that delicate balance between allowing yourself to feel the feelings but also not letting them guide your decision-making. 

Emylee, on the other hand, wanted to approach this year with “ease”, knowing that she had many changes ahead, such as moving to a new house and figuring out childcare. What she learned in the process was that she needed to make a decision that worked for her at that moment instead of trying to make long-term, “forever” decisions for every little thing. In this episode, we share our new words for 2020, and they’re good! Why not choose a word of your own (and share it with us over on Instagram) to guide you through the year; a word that summarizes the mindset you would like to adopt and take into the new year? Be sure to join our conversation to learn the whats, whys, and hows! 

Today on the podcast our guest is Claire Pelletreau, a Facebook ads and conversion optimization expert. Her genius involves brainstorming, strategizing, training and overseeing aspects of ad spend for her clients – but that’s not what we’re picking her brain for today. We hear her take on what it means to show up in your business and focus on things that increase profits. We also talk about the nagging sense that you’re not growing as you ought to in your business and those things that lead to self-sabotage. If you’ve ever suffered from imposter syndrome, this episode offers you loads of questions and points of consideration that will help you to move past those gnarly mindsets. 

So Emylee has been following a new Instagram account and just wanted to share some of the amazing data that she has been geeking out over for the last while! We have selected four specific posts that she found thought-provoking and worth talking about and will be unpacking what they are about and what we can learn from them. The account is called Chartr Daily and they post charts and graphs that represent interesting statistics and facts from the business world. They often add some commentary and discussion in the description, as well as having a newsletter with more detailed information. 

Here at the Strategy Hour, we love looking at charts! They might be slightly more difficult to make but that does not mean we cannot appreciate and enjoy what they are communicating! The four charts we have selected to discuss in today's episode are especially applicable to us, our industry and the conversations we have been having on this podcast, so head over to have a look at the posts and let's get into some strategy!

On the Strategy Hour Podcast today, we are joined by the wonderful and amazing Rachel Green! She is one of the first people we connected with when we were starting out in the online business world. She has been in business for the last seven years, helping hundreds of businesses grow and succeed. As a brand strategist, designer and educator, Rachel has generated over 5 million dollars in sales for her clients and her focus on empowering female business owners is truly inspiring!

In this episode, we are breaking down what a brand strategy is, why it is important to start there and the questions that you need to ask when figuring this all out. Rachel offers some great thoughts to work through in order to help you make sure your story and brand are pushing you forward. She is all about progression, not just pretty branding and logos! We really respect Rachel's perspective on the strategic part of branding and we know you will all find it very useful. So buckle up and let's get into some strategy!

In the creative entrepreneur world, there are so many talents and you guys are doing great! But the one thing we’re seeing, and we’ve done the same thing, is that design work sometimes falls a little short. You might be a photographer, fine artist or wedding planner but do not necessarily have the expertise when it comes to your branding — that’s a set of skills entirely on its own. It could be an email header, a social media announcement or an infographic you need to whip up, and it’s not as easy as it looks. Graphic designers are trained to know what works and have a sharp eye to identify off-balance designs, but we regular folk don’t have that same skill. 

So, today Emylee gets to direct questions at Abagail who, as you all know, is a kick-ass designer. Wearing her designer hat, she will advise you about representing your brand in the most professional manner even though you lack professional skills. As much as we focus on teaching you guys about increasing profit, the way you show your brand to the world can be a make or break aspect. The bottom line is this: when you use the same styles, colors and fonts consistently, you become recognized as a brand, and that is your goal.