10 Things Creative Entrepreneurs Should Keep in their Planner

As a creative entrepreneur myself, I am absolutely in love with using a physical paper planner and it’s a tool I do recommend to all other creative business owners as well. For me, my planner is like my second brain, my personal assistant and my life coach all wrapped up in a beautiful black Chanel agenda cover! I know, I know, I can hear some of you already saying that it’s 2020 and business owners should be using digital planning tools to stay organized and optimized, I do agree with you to some extent, but for me, using a paper planner has been the ultimate creative tool to help me get my ideas out of my head and onto paper so I can get down to business. Of course, I do also use some essential digital tools for my business organization and planning, but there are some essential elements that I think all creative business owners and entrepreneurs should have in their planners to take their creativity to the next level.

#1. Braindump Inserts: Most people have a lot on their minds at one time, and for business owners this phenomenon is likely tripled. For that reason I think every entrepreneur should keep sheet in their paper planner where they can perform a brain dump. Getting your thoughts, ideas and tasks out of your head and onto paper is the first, most necessary step to organizing your ideas into actionable plans and this is where the benefit of using a paper planner truly shines. Nothing is more cathartic then taking pen to paper and just letting your ideas flow out of you. This is a process I like to make time for on a monthly basis with the help of my Braindump sheets (part of the Master Planner or available as part of the Brilliant Ideas Bundle).

#2. CEO Strategy Day Templates: The concept of a CEO Strategy Day is a little idea I came up with to help me balance and optimize my business and life. On a CEO Strategy Day I will devote time to self-care, mental mastery and organization. All the things a creative entrepreneur needs to stay creative and focused, but are often easily overlooked. I consider my CEO Strategy Day a reset day for my life and business where I get into alignment with myself and my purpose so that I’m staying on track. If you want to plan your own CEO Strategy Day you can get my FREE Template to use here.

#3. Business Goals: Setting business goals is an important part of the annual business planning process. It theoretically should be the element that all of your business plans and targets stem from, but often business owners set these goals and might do a bit of pre-planning but then forget about them when the going gets tough or they get extremely busy. I think it’s important for all business owners and creative entrepreneurs to keep their goals in their planner, somewhere they can see them and get inspired by them regularly. I keep all my business goals laid out on the creative business plan inserts from the CEO Strategy Planner of course!

#4. Personal Goals: Okay, so you run a business and you have those goals to manage, but you are still a person with desires and dreams that should not be pushed aside for your business goals alone. Knowing who you want to become and what you want to achieve for yourself and your life in general is such an important part of being an entrepreneur. So keep those personal goals in your planner right alongside your business goals. I use the goal sheets that come with my New Years Goal Setting workshop for this, but you could always list them out on your own note paper as well- anything to have those goals visible to you for regular reflection.

#5. Business Objectives: If you run a business, it’s very likely that your work is organized into specific objectives you are trying to hit. Sale goals, systems to develop, new products or services you are creating. Since your planner is the hub of creative inspiration for your business, it’s important to keep these objectives organized on dedicated inserts in your planner. I use my project planning inserts as part of my Master Planner bundle, as well as the strategic business planning inserts that come with the CEO Strategy Planner to keep all my objectives and project plans organized for the year.

#6. Editorial Calendar: If you are not familiar with the term editorial calendar, it is essentially a calendar where your content is laid out. Creative business owners and entrepreneurs have to create or oversee a lot of regular content to keep their audience engaged and informed, and I believe having this essential business tool in your planner is a great way for you to get creative and map out different ideas for your audience across your many platforms. To achieve this, I personally use the multiple awesome marketing inserts from the CEO Strategy Planner to not only map out my editorial calendar for the month but also to brainstorm content ideas and outline them to streamline my content creation process.

#7. Marketing Campaigns: If you are a creative entrepreneur or business person like myself, you likely have many marketing campaigns to manage during a quarter and I think its a great idea to keep that information in your planner so you can not only keep yourself on track, but also inject any new ideas or insights into those plans as you go along. I know a lot of people might think its better to plan campaigns out in digital form, and if you have a team your are managing who does work on those campaigns, I agree with you, but for me and other solopreneurs, I love seeing those plans in physical form in my planner. It is just so helpful to be able to quickly jot down notes and so cathartic to check off tasks for your campaign as you complete them in the physical. I’m telling you, my planner is such a constant motivation for me to execute on my work in a way digital planning software never is. Of course, I use the campaign builder inserts from the CEO Strategy Planner to map these essential marketing plans out in my planner.

#8. Inspiration or Mood Board: Like many successful entrepreneurs, I keep an inspiration or mood board in my home office to help me stay focused on the vision I am creating for my business, however, I also like to keep a portable version of it in my planner. I think this is another one of the many reasons why physical planners can be such a boost to your creativity as a business owner because you can fill it with things that inspire you. Now, I personally have my vision board printed out on a sheet of vellum in my planner that I can turn to whenever I need a pick me up or want to feel inspired and aligned with my vision. But you can create a planner sized vision board in whatever form works for you!

#9. Follow Up List: As an entrepreneur or business owner, I bet you are also someone who is hooked on personal development. It’s natural, anyone striving for big things in their life is usually also drawn to personal development in many different forms and when you start to walk that path, you find that there are an endless number of recommendations you receive from friends, business besties and through your own research. I’m talking about book recommendations, different classes and courses you hear about. Different communities you might want to join, skills you might want to work on, videos to watch and technology you might want to check out. I keep a list of all these things in my planner to future reference. We might not have the time to take in everything that is brought to us, but having a running list means we have the ideas right there waiting for us when we need more inspiration, ideas or solutions!

#10. Daily Journaling Inserts: It’s no secret that one of my rituals for success is my daily journaling practice. When you hear entrepreneurs and business owners talking about how essentially the practice of journaling is for helping them set the tone for their day, it is not an exaggeration. My daily journaling practice is like therapy for me and a chance each morning for me to get into alignment with my goals and best life. I use the High Vibe Bible Journaling inserts as my daily journaling practice and it had made such a positive impact in my life and business, especially in getting clear on what I want to manifest and helping me bring those desires to fruition.

WANT ALL MY PERSONAL & BUSINESS PLANNING TOOLS?

If you want to set your planner up to keep your life and business organized inside one planning system, here are all of the inserts you’ll need to get from The Charmed Shop!

• Master Planner Bundle

• Master Meal Planner Bundle

• CEO Strategy Planner

• High Vibe Bible

I hope this helps you set up your perfect planner to keep all areas of your life streamlined for success!

xoxo,

Welcome to May 2020 My Charmed Ones!

I sincerely hope you and yours are doing well, staying safe, healthy and productive at home. All is well with me and in my neck of the woods, and I’ve been focused a lot lately on keeping motivated with my new consistent work schedule.

As you know, earlier this year I got back on my three weekly blog post, one weekly video schedule, and since quarantine hit, I have been making those videos live classes. All of this new work has been a welcome distraction during this time for me, but, it’s still a habit I’m working to develop consistency around. So, I thought today I should share some of my insight with you on how I’ve been keeping consistent and disciplined over the past few weeks and months because I’d bet that with the drama on the world stage right now, many of you might feel like you have every reason not to do the tasks on your to do list. Am I right? So, if you have been feeling overwhelmed managing your time and expectations, hopefully I can share some tips for finding consistent motivation.

The first thing I wanted to talk to you about on this topic is actually a podcast episode I listened to recently that really resonated with something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The Podcast is You’re Welcome by Hilary Rushford if you want to check it out, and the episode I am going to be talking about today Ep. 58 Productivity Guilt During Quarantine + the Idealization of Time. It’s that last part that I want to talk to you all about, the idealization of time, because this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

So, I’ve mentioned before that I think right now, we’ve been given a tremendous opportunity with this pandemic to really go inward and work on ourselves and our goals. I’m not saying that the pandemic is a good thing, clearly it’s not, but I am saying that in every challenge comes an opportunity and suddenly, many of us who were once on the hamster wheel of time management have been given an influx of time. That’s not everyone, many people right now are more busy at home. especially parents who are now remote workers, plus teachers to their children, in addition to their myriad of other responsibilities. But, many of us do have more time in one way or another right now, and I see this as an opportunity for people to buckle down and execute on the goals they have firmly placed into the Someday category. You know what I am talking about- those goals you said you wanted to go after someday when you had more time. Well, we have more time right now, so are you doing all the things you said you were going to do once more time arrived?

My assumption is, and what Hilary discussed in her podcast episode was, that no, lots of us are not using the extra time we now have to go after our goals. There is a good reason for this- time was never the reason why you were not going after those goals to begin with. I say this all the time, but it’s truly evident right now in our current situation that time is a construct. You have, and always have had, the same 24 hours in a day that each and every other successful, goal oriented person has, but you aren’t executing on those objectives, not for a lack of time, but for a lack of motivation. Actually, it’s like a mix of motivation, discipline, clarity keeping you from executing, but all of it is a mental block and you are blaming it on time.

I want to be very clear, I am not saying this to judge or attack you if you happen to be getting triggered by this conversation. I am saying this as a friend and hopefully a trusted source of productivity advice who truly wants to see you succeed. But you can’t succeed if you don’t acknowledge the true issue here. Time was never the issue. What the exact issue is for each of you in this situation will be different, but it stems from a limiting belief you have held in your mind that is confining you to a pattern of behaviors in which you consistently prioritize other things (or nothing at all) over the completion of your goals.

You have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce (I love to use that quote) and, yes, right now Beyonce might have much better resources at her disposal than you, but she didn’t always. It was consistent planning and action that made Beyonce the woman she is today. And if you don’t resonate with Beyonce, substitute her for any number of successful individuals. The point is, all of us get the same amount of time and the same amount of opportunities in a day to go after our objectives, and so we have to stop using time as an excuse and start addresses the real issue holding us back from action.

I am not immune from this conversation myself, either! In fact, I want to use the example of myself to explain how I have been overcoming my own obstacles and taking more strategic action. Let’s go back to those three factors that I think really do impact our ability to take action and those are clarity, motivation and discipline. Without those three elements in alignment, it’s difficult to take strategic action that yields results.

# 1. Clarity: I define clarity as understanding where I am trying to go, what I am trying to achieve and having a set of parameters for how I want to achieve my goal. In her podcast episode Hilary talks about the fact that each of us has a list of things we believe we should do if we had the time, and yet many of us never do the things on that list. To me, this issue comes down to a lack of clarity and the importance of switching up the language we use to describe this very common issue. So, yes, we have all been faced with ideas of things we should do, but I think we need to start thinking of this list of shoulds as a list of coulds. If you are into Law of Attract you have probably heard Ester Hicks and Abraham talk about life being a series of experiences intended to highlight the contrasts of desires. Meaning, there are lots of different experiences we have in life and can have, and it’s up to us to filter through all of them and determine which we desire and which we do not. In the podcast, Hilary uses the example of her father, who is an author and speaker to illustrate the point that as humans we have more ideas than time to execute. She explains that her father knows he should turn his book into an audiobook but he hasn’t had the time to do it yet. But, time isn’t the issue, right, it’s desire. Whether or not he should turn the book into an audiobook isn’t the question, really the task is simply a could until he gets clear on whether or not that is a true priority for him. Plenty of people never turn their books into audiobooks and for good reason, maybe it’s not worth the time or effort, maybe there is a specific strategy they are following or perhaps they just don’t like audiobooks and prefer their book to be in physical form. This is what I mean when I say it’s important to have a set of parameters for how you want to achieve a goal because truthfully the options are endless for things we could do, but clarity around our values will help us define the path of execution for anything we do desire to accomplish. Let’s use an example from my own life and business. I am told all the time that I should sell my inserts as a physical product, not just a digital. Or I am told I should write a book, or I should start a podcast. But when I ask myself should I and I evaluate these ideas based on my values, I keep coming to the conclusion that those options are not in alignment with my objectives. So, it is very important that we treat these shoulds as coulds until they pass the litmus test of clarity and are formally identified as objectives we wish to pursue. If we don’t we run the risk of shoulding ourselves to death, meaning, we allow all the options that we have to overwhelm us and paralyze us into inaction.

#2. Motivation: To me, the next part of this equation is motivation, meaning that initial spark that triggers action to begin. Some people believe that motivation is required consistently in order to start and complete an objective, but that isn’t how I see it. I believe motivation just needs to inspire the start of an action. So, we need to feel like, yes, we can achieve the goal, it is possible and feasible. If you are someone who has an idea that you would like to take action on, perhaps you have had that moment of clarity and know what you want to achieve and have made a plan to get it done but haven’t been able to take action yet, what you need in this situation is that spark of motivation. For me, motivation comes from knowing that I am not the first person who has done anything in this world. So, if someone else can do it, so can I. A lot of inaction or the inability to start on a project for myself often comes because I am afraid of failure, but reminding myself that others have done something takes the edge off. Even if I can’t find an example of someone who has done the precise thing I am doing, I can usually find an example of someone who is doing something close to what I am doing. For example, recently, I have been hosting live classes on Saturday afternoon on my Youtube channel in a way I never have before. These classes are like nothing I have really seen on YouTube before within the planning and productivity community, and because of that fact and all the equipment and technology required on the back end, I get a little nervous doing the classes. But I know I am not reinventing the wheel here. I know there have been other creators in other genres who have gone live like this. Gaming streamers are the best equivalent I can think of who also have a complex tech setup and are managing an event on their own with a large live audience. So, I know I can do it. Just because other planner people don’t host these events doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t. Most of the time, it is this sort of motivation that helps me put myself out there in new ways when I am afraid of trying something new for my audience.

#3. Discipline: As I mentioned earlier, I believe motivation is the initial spark required to overcome mental obstacles and take action, but it isn’t necessary after an objective has begun. What you need after you get started on a goal is discipline! Self- discipline is the mental muscle that keeps us coming back and working on an objective after the motivation has ended. For many people, including myself, this is where the struggle begins. It’s not in finding clarity and it’s not the motivation to get started, it’s the discipline required to show up over and over again until the work is complete. I know many of you reading this believe I am naturally very self-disciplined, but I would not agree. I have struggle often with discipline and have to find creative ways to get myself to execute and complete work all the time. The first element that helps me with this is having a plan and making sure I have clear visibility to everything I need to do. So writing out my top three tasks in a day and making sure I have that complete list of work with my next-action on it is crucial for me. But the list itself isn’t enough for me. I can stare at a to do list all day and never take action on a task, so I have developed a formula for myself to get to work. First, I need to slow down to understand what is holding me back that day. It can vary of course. Perhaps I see that the tasks aren’t what I desire to do, or I have another priority that has taken precedence. Often though, I am just feeling tired or overwhelmed with my work. So, I give myself permission to take a short break to get my head straight. Usually, if I spend this break relaxing in meditation I can calm the mental blocks enough that they dissolve and then I am no longer afraid to tackle the to do list. Or, sometimes I take a bath to relax my muscles physically. Or, other times, I will watch some funny videos on YouTube or TikTok to lift my energy and vibration. Once my energy is lifted, when I come back to my to do list, I can sense my increased capacity for the day and I’m ready to get down to work.

That is my formula and process for consistently motivation myself to start and complete my work. I’ve been using this process a lot lately because in these challenging times, it’s so easy to get down about what is happening in the world and it can drain your energy and capacity to get things done. It’s so important that we have grace with ourselves and acknowledge where we are struggling because when we dig deeper at that struggle we will find the obstacles that are holding us back from executing on those objectives we desire to achieve. It doesn’t matter why you want something, your desire is valid and you are worthy of it. Sometimes, it just takes some good self-awareness and analysis to understand what blocks are truly standing in our way.

So, this is the process I am going to continue to work on through the month of May as I develop that consistency and self-disciple to execute on my new content calendar and the other projects I have on my business plan to execute. I know I have big dreams for my life and where I am heading and its so important to me that I complete the work I plan for myself so that all the dominos fall properly throughout my year.

Okay, well with that here’s to another great month ahead! I hope this post has been insightful for you and I’d love to hear more about what you are working on this month in the comments below!

xoxo,

Four (4) Ways to Upgrade Your Digital Marketing

My philosophy to online business and digital marketing success is to work on the concept of iterations. Meaning, get started now with what you have, do what you can to make the most of what you’ve got to gain experience, and then update your marketing intentionally through strategic upgrades. Your business and content marketing doesn’t have to be perfect out of the gate to get started and begin growing, and using the concept of interactions means you can take your time building your business and customer base without feeling overwhelmed by perfectionism. Once your business has started selling some products or services successfully, and has begun creating regular content on platforms, then you can take the next step of investing in and upgrading your digital marketing strategically. You don’t want to upgrade everything all at once, take your time and choose upgrades that you believe will make your life easier, and help your content marketing stand out in the platforms that you use and rely on to sell. If you are at this point and ready to make some strategic investments in your content, here are 4 ways you can get started upgrading your digital marketing

Upgrade #1: Create custom branded graphics and images
This was probably the first digital marketing upgrade I made for myself and my business when I was getting started because it was a small investment in my time more so than money. I’ve discussed before the perils of using graphics and images you find online for your business or blog because if you don’t own an image or it wasn’t created for your brand specifically your risking your brand recognition (and risking a lawsuit if you use copyrighted images without permission). So, if you haven’t started creating your own custom branded graphics and images yet I recommend it. Start taking your own images that are in line with your brand imagery, and start designing graphics for social platforms that use your brands specific colors, fonts and style. It might seem convenient to use in-platform design elements to send a message to your following in Instagram, for example, but as your followers scroll through their feeds or stories, nothing about those graphics will indicate your brand to them. You can take your own images on a smart phone, the cameras on them now are phenomenal and then edit the images in photo editing apps like FaceTune and Afterlight. You can create custom graphics as well in apps like Photoshop or Canva. There are lots of easy, inexpensive ways to get started creating your own customer images and graphics, so this is an upgrade you have no excuse not to make as soon as possible and it will go a long way for your brand recognition!

Upgrade #2: Invest in professional camera equipment
Once you get used to creating your own custom branded graphics and images, it’s time to up the ante on your visual marketing and invest in professional grade camera equipment. I’m talking about a DSLR camera, a decent lens, and perhaps some professional lights. Although a smartphone camera will take you a long way in this day and age, most popular brands use DSLR or other professional grade cameras to create their visual marketing like images and videos. If you want to learn more about the exact tools I use for my visual marketing, I will leave you a link to my Female Entrepreneur Online Business Toolkit Video where you can learn about and get links to all my must have and most used tools!

Upgrade #3: Design your own gif’s and photo/video illustrations or graphic elements
If you use social media like Instagram to promote your business and stay in contact with your customers, you are going to want to eventually upgrade your brand visuals by designing your own custom gifs, and illustrations. This is something simple you can do to increase brand awareness when it comes to your social media presence. If you’re not exactly sure what this means, I am talking about those stickers and added affects you can use on your IG stories feature. For more information, definitely check out my IG Story Hacks Video for better instructions and more examples.

Upgrade #4: Work with a professional copywriter on key marketing text
When you are marketing your business online, there is a lot of messaging you need to put out to your audience and although copywriting is a skill that you can develop over time, once you reach the point of making consistent income from your digital marketing, it may be time to get a little outside help and work with a professional copywriter. You won’t need them to write everything for you, but it’s good to get help from someone who knows how to write digital marketing copy for certain aspects of your business. Sales pages, key email sequences and campaign copy would be the places I would start with some professional help. You have no idea how big of an impact little changes to messaging can be, and a pro will be able to help you craft your message in a more persuasive and market friendly way. Of course, make sure you work with someone who has a good reputation and track record for getting results with other business owners in the same or similar niche as yours.

So those are four ways to upgrade your digital marketing as your business begins to grow and develop. Again, I want to stress that it is so important that if you have an idea for a business online, to get started now with what you have and do what you can and then work your way up. No one said you have to be a success overnight and if you’re worried about making mistakes, now is the time to make them while you are small and have far less eyes on your content! Use the concept of interactions to make improvements as you learn and as your business grows, and you will end up building a very sustainable business for yourself step by step! I do hope these ideas give you some key inspiration to get started with or get upgrading your own business. I would love to hear about any other ideas you have for upgrades to digital marketing that you think moves the needle, so leave me a comment below.

xoxo,

36 Business or Sidehustle Ideas You Can Start from Home Today!

Now more than ever, the concept of working for oneself and starting an online business is extremely appealing. With the advent of the “gig” economy, where the popularity of on demand services have shown just how easy it is to make money through an app on your phone, I believe we are about to see a revolution in the way people work. Over the next decade I firmly believe there will be less people commuting to work for the typical 9 to 5, and more people performing remote services at home and on their own schedules. The days of the structured path of college degree, corporate job security and retirement at 65 are ending and making way for a more flexible, work from home, entrepreneurial economy. So, if you have been thinking about starting your own business, but want to explore some ideas and options before getting started, here are 36 business or side hustle ideas you can start from home today!

Coaching
If you are looking to get a business up and running quickly and you have an area of expertise that you could use to support others on a similar journey, becoming a coach might be a great option for you. Coaching is an area that has gained a lot of popularity in the last few years online, and you don’t necessarily need any sort of accreditation to get started, you just need a clear niche and a reliable process for working with clients to help them get clear on their goals and support their growth. Here are some common coaching business’ you might consider starting.

• Life Coach
• Health Coach
• Nutrition Coach
• Business Coach
• Self Care Coach
• Success Coach

Consulting
As with coaching, consulting is another business or side hustle idea that you can begin with quickly if you have specialized knowledge in a specific field. The key difference here with consulting however, is that you need to have the knowledge and experience to get results for your clients. Where coaches are there for guidance and support, consultants need strategic knowledge and the confidence to make recommendations that will lead their clients to their desired outcomes. Here are some common consulting business’ you might consider starting.

• Design Consultant
• Business Consultant
• Management Consultant
• Financial Consultant
• Style Consultant
• Family Life Consultant

Writing
As much as we live in a visually driven society, everywhere you look you will find the written word, and if you have strong written communication skills, you could use them to create a business. Don’t underestimate the amount of small business owners out there who desperately need help with various writing tasks in their businesses, and if you want to use your skills for your own benefit, there are plenty of ways to use your writing skills to earn an income through product or content creation. Here are a few business ideas you might consider if you are interested in writing.

• EBooks
• Workbooks
• Blog Posts
• Transcription
• Copywriting
• Editor

Assisting
As I eluded to already, there is a tremendous market online for small business support services, and just because writing might not be your strong suit doesn’t mean you don’t have other skills or qualities that would be valuable in creating your own business around assisting other businesses. Here are a few b2b (business-to-business) style ideas that are always in high demand.

• Virtual Assistant
• Bookkeeper
• Project Manager
• Marketing Coordinator
• Video Editing
• Content Planning

Creating
Are you a natural born creator? If you love taking an artistic idea from vision to fruition you might want to consider starting a business around your craft. As with writing, creating is a skill that you can use as the basis for your own business or to provide a service to others. Here are a few creative business ideas you might want to consider starting.

• Crafts
• Artwork
• Music
• Graphic Design
• Build Websites
• Photography

Teaching
Some people, myself included, are just natural born teachers. They can take a subject and break it down in a way that makes it manageable for others to understand and learn. And depending on the areas you have a skill in teaching, you can create any number of information based tools to help share you skills with others. Here are a few teaching based business ideas that you can use to create products or content that you can sell online.

• Video Lectures
• ECourse
• YouTube video series
• Virtual Master Class
• Tutoring
• Podcast

So, those are 36 business or side hustle ideas you can start from home today. I hope this list gave you some inspiration for a business you could begin for yourself utilizing your natural talents and interests. I’d love to hear which appeal to you and which you might want me to provide more information on in the future!

xoxo,

There is a lot of chatter out there in terms of different advice or strategies for marketing your business. It can definitely be overwhelming deciding where to start, what your strategy is going to be and which platforms to use, but there is one single element of your marketing that you have to have in place before you even get to those questions. In fact, this one marketing element is the single factor that is going to help you choose those strategies, those platforms and nearly every single element of your brand marketing.

That number one most essential marketing element is your Ideal Customer Avatar. Also known as an ideal or target customer profile, however you want to think about it, this is a model for the precise customer you are looking to attract, sell to and serve.

Knowing your Ideal Customer Avatar is the step one for all business marketing, but if you have already started your business and still haven’t clearly defined that ideal customer yet there are many problems that doing so can solve.

Defining your ideal customer avatar will help you:

• Choose the right platforms to use
• Build an audience
• Grow a stagnant audience
• Increase engagement from your existing audience
• Create content ideas
• Fill your editorial calendar
• Secure new leads and sales
• Identify new products or services to expand your revenue
• Determine your price structure for your products and services

That’s like every element of your business marketing, right?

I know it might sound too good to be true, but I’m totally serious when I say that having this one marketing element decided on, knowing who your idea customer is, can impact everything about the direction and success of your business. This is such an important aspect of all businesses that in order to fully explain this concept and help you define your customer avatar, I have built a free video workshop on the topic that I highly recommend you watch and take notes on immediately!

So click here to get on-demand access to the workshop and learn exactly how to create your own ideal customer avatar and all the ways it will help skyrocket your business marketing!

I can’t wait to hear how this simple marketing element transforms your business and your brand marketing for the better. Let me know how it goes and if you have further questions I can address for you on the concept!

xoxo,

7 Foolproof Strategies for Growing a Follow on Any Platform

There are a lot of platforms online these days and as much as I know it would be popular to teach in-depth on each one and exploit the secrets to grow a following with it, after evaluating many different platforms, I understand the real secret is that growing a following on any platform involves the exact same strategies.  Yep! Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are not specific secrets for each individual platform, if you want to grow a following on Twitter, it’s the same as growing a following on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok! And the reason is clear, because people are the same no matter which platform they are using. Fundamentally speaking, the same things that draw attention, spark curiosity, and precipitate loyalty on one platform will work for them all, because they draw on human nature. So, today I’m going to share with you the seven foolproof strategies for growing your following on any platform so you can get to work growing a following on the platform of your choosing!

#1. Get clear on your branding and messaging

Whenever you start with an online platform, its important that you have your branding and messaging worked out to inform the types of content you will be sharing or creating on that platform as well as the specific audience you will be trying to attract. If you have a business or personal brand outside of this platform and this is going to be an extension of it, you will use that. If you don’t have anything else going on and this is going to be a fresh start, spend some time understanding what your goals are for the platforms, what you are trying to accomplish, why you want to accomplish it and how you plan to accomplish it. In terms of messaging, keep it simple. Have a clear, easy to understand purpose that you demonstrate through your content.

#2. Learn how to properly use the platform

You can’t expect to grow a following on a platform if you are using it wrong. That is to say, you are using it in a way that’s a departure from what people usually expect of that platform. Do your research, find out how the platform is used and then check out some of your favorite personalities or brands on the platform. Often times big brands or notable personalities are at the forefront of innovation for a platform, so check out what other big timers are doing and learn from their example what works and what doesn’t.

#3. Determine your perfect balance of content curation vs content creation

When it comes to most platforms, the content you share will either be your original work or content you have shared from others, which is commonly known as curated content. On most platforms, users will balance content curation and content creation, but their is no magic formula for a perfect balance. Some users have accounts that are all original, some have all curated and many mix both. Find what you are comfortable with and try to stick to it!

#4. Get on a consistent posting schedule

Speaking of sticking to what you are comfortable with, the same goes for your posting schedule. Unfortunately, there are no foolproof rules for when to post content to a specific platform for significant success. Yes, you can look up popular posting times and stick to those, but it doesn’t seem to make a significant difference for most people. What does make a difference however, is defining your posting schedule, the precise days and times you will be posting, and sticking to that consistently. Consistency breeds loyalty on all platforms, and the more loyal followers you have, the faster you will grow!

#5. Cater to a community on the platform

Although it’s great to be a niche brand, even the most unique are still a subset of some larger community online. Make sure you know what community your brand belongs to, and keep up with that community in terms of the trends in how they use the platform and by following or engaging with people in that community regularly. No need to become a copy or start obsessively following the trends, but understanding where your greater community is headed is a great way to stay on the same page with them, and if you can find a way to work the trends into your content in a way that’s natural to you- the more success you will have!

#6. Interact with others on the platform

On any platform, interaction will garner you respect a favor among your followers. Just like consistency, interaction, by replying to comments and also engaging independently with others in your community, will help to build loyalty. The best way to do this is to have a genuine interest in the platform you are using and to go to it, not just to post content but to also consume the content of others. When you really enjoy a platform and use it regularly, it shows, and your following will grow the more you go out and engage!

#7. Make sure your content is valuable

When it comes down to it, people will follow you on a platform if your content is valuable to them. Meaning that it gives them something they want, like information, inspiration, or entertainment. All valuable content online can be boiled down to one of those three buckets (information, inspiration or entertainment) and as long as you are sharing content that either gives people information they are looking for, makes them feel good or keeps them entertained, your following will grow!

Oh course, when it comes to growing a following on any platform, you are going to need a foolproof planning tool that gives you the ability to brainstorm, outline and map out your content and marketing plans across all your platforms. That’s precisely why I designed the CEO Strategy Planner with a set of defined content planning inserts to streamline this process for you!

Click here to purchase your copy of the CEO Strategy Planner and get your creative ideas out of your head and onto paper so you can get down to business!

xoxo,