Strange & Charmed

How to Build Traffic to Your Site

How to Build Traffic to Your Site

When you’re first getting started as a blogger, it’s easy to get obsessed with your site traffic stats and get discouraged if you’re not seeing immediate results. Often times, I find that bloggers may think they are doing all the right things to encourage traffic to their sites like blogging regularly and covering a variety of topics that may interest their ideal audience, however, when it comes to building traffic to a site, you need more than a “if you build it, they will come” mentality. If your site isn’t getting the traffic you would expect or building momentum towards a growing readership, there are a few things you need to work on to make it happen.

Understand your audience & niche

If you want to build significant traffic to your site, you really have to understand your audience and niche! You may have a general idea of who you’re writing for and the people who visit your site, but sometimes, those two groups aren’t the same thing. When it comes to attracting a readership, you need to really understand who is coming to your site right now and why, OR if you aren’t getting much traffic, you need to get very specific with yourself on who you are trying to attract, and what sort of niche content you are able to create that would keep their attention. It’s not enough to write posts you think your ideal audience wants to read, you really need to go out there an make an effort to understand them by finding those individuals and talking to them on a deep and meaningful level about the things they are looking for online. You may think you know, but if you are creating content that isn’t gaining traction, you don’t know. Digging deep with market research will give you insight to help you create niche content that truly attracts your ideal audience.

Write interesting long form blog posts with images and graphics

Trends in blogging have been shifting for some time now and it’s now become evident that longer form blog posts are what readers are looking for. Statistics show 1,500 word posts are a sweet spot, but of course, the gist of this is that you need to be producing highly valuable content which tends to be longer in nature. Writing a 1,500 word journal entry most likely won’t do the trick, instead, you will want to focus on creating content that answers your audiences frequently asked questions, teaches them skills they desire to have or shares insights on topics that they are looking to engage with online. It’s probably not the word count that is keeping people hooked, instead, its the fact that a longer blog post has more information on the topic they are interested in, and a greater chance of keep their attention and turning them into repeat readers who share the helpful content they find. Don’t forget that words alone aren’t the key to engagement, and that if you want to get people’s attention with your posts, you will need to make sure to include illustrative images in the form of blog post headers that help add content to a post topic or informative graphics that add to the quality of the post.

Share your posts on other platforms

If you are looking to build traffic to your site via your content, it’s not enough to write a great post and let it sit their on your site. Without even a small, engaged audience, the likelihood of your great content being seen is slim. Although great SEO practices can help your post turn up in search results, why wait for your audience to come to you when you have the opportunity to bring the content directly to them? That’s why it’s up to you to share that content everywhere you can. Link your posts to Pinterest with one of your great images, tweet about your content using relevant hashtags that will help it get discovered, and of course, link your posts in Facebook where it can be liked, shared and hopefully lead to more traffic.

Find other creators with similar audiences and guest post

When your content alone isn’t helping your traffic grow, a quick fix for instant traffic can be getting yourself in front of the audiences of other creators. This can be especially helpful if you are just getting started because finding a ready-made audience that fits your ideal readership can be a quick way to gain fans and page views. In this situation, you will want to identify other established creators who have relevant followings slightly larger than yours, engage with them, and negotiate a guest posting opportunity. You will need to do most of the work by contacting and pitching a great piece of content to the established creator, but if you can get them to agree to it, you will be able to spread the influence of your content to other corners of the internet.

Locate where your audience interacts online and become an influencer there

There are forums and Facebook groups for a multitude of different communities online, and these established sites are a great place to go to find your ideal audience and direct them back to your site and your content if you take the time to establish yourself as an influencer there. It’s not enough to find a Facebook page and start leaving links to your content. In most cases, actions like that can get you banned or marked as spam, however, if you take the time to get engaged as a true audience member and then interact with as many relevant people as possible on the platform, you will gain the trust of that community and can start directing traffic to your own site. Becoming an influencer on other online communities isn’t really that difficult I find. If you really take a hard look, you will see that with every forum or Facebook group, individuals rise to the top by frequently engaging with the community by being helpful and engaging others. You will need to dedicate time to this effort, but when most people are engaging minimally, you can stand out by engaging often. It wouldn’t be out of the question to go from a complete unknown to a leader of a community online in just a few short weeks or months of dedicated service to that community.

I hope this post gives you some new insights or strategies to help you grow traffic to your blog or site. Remember, if you are putting in the effort and not seeing results after a consistent period of time, you most likely need to adjust something you are doing. I never recommend making major changes to your presence online unless you see you’re making major mistakes, but sometimes little tweaks can yield big results! I also want to make sure you understand that growing a large following of traffic to a site is something that takes time and setting reasonable goals is important to keeping your expectations balanced, but if you find that you are making no traction, something needs to change! Don’t keep doing the same things over and over and expect different results. Online, the best strategy for growth is it keep at it and to approach a problem from different directions until a solution is reached!

xoxo,

Business

Financial Planning Tips for Entrepreneurs

Financial Planning Tips for Entrepreneurs

As I am now coming up on the second annual tax season for my business, I thought it would be a good time to share some of my financial planning tips for other entrepreneurs or small business owners. Financial planning has been a topic that I’ve prioritized for a number of years, but once I became a full time business owner, the responsibility for my finances transitioned from being a task that my employer took care of, to a task that I needed to take over! Tasks like paying taxes, putting money away for retirement, and of course, making sure my business is turning a profit! So today, I want to share some tips and topics that you will want to think about implementing in your own life for business and personal financial success.

Set Financial Goals for Your Business & Personal Savings

To get started on your financial planning journey as an entrepreneur, you first need to set financial goals. For me, I like to set a goal for my yearly income and revenue. On one hand, I set a number for how much income I want to generate and then another number for the amount of money I get to keep after expenses are paid. To me, although I really want to make sure that annual income is high, it’s more important to me that my revenue be high. What I mean by this is that I would rather hit $60,000 in income in a year and get to keep $40,000 of it because I had $20,000 in expenses, as opposed to making $75,000 a year but only keeping $35,000 after $40,000 in expenses. Remember, it takes money to make money, so when you set your financial goals, you need to be realistic in the amount of money you will be spending as well as the money you will bring in. Now, when it comes to your personal savings, luckily this is a little more straight forward because you can determine the amount of money you want to save on an annual basis or you can decide on a percentage of income that you will put away into savings.

Sign up for business checking, savings and credit card accounts

Another financial planning tip I have for you as an entrepreneur is to sign up for business checking, savings and credit card accounts so that you keep your personal money separate from your business money. This is such a time saver when it comes to tracking your income and expenses on a monthly basis. It also makes it easier for you to pay bills and taxes because you can set aside money into savings for big expenses and use a business credit card or check card to autopay your monthly reoccurring expenses.

Track your Income & Expenses on a monthly basis

I think it’s a best practice to make sure you keep on top of your income and expenses on a monthly basis! For me this means I calculate my total income from all my income streams, and then I go through my business accounts and statements and calculate my total expenses. I also like to go through my business expenses and distribute or categorize each expense on a quarterly basis. You can see more of my Quarterly Business Review Process in this YouTube video!

Set up weekly or monthly auto-deductions to your personal 401K, IRA or Savings Account

In order to establish a good savings pattern for your personal finances, I think it’s a good idea to set up regular auto deductions to your personal savings accounts. Now, I’m no financial advisor so the amount of money you want to save and the types of accounts you will put that money into will vary. I’d suggest speaking to a certified financial planner to make those sorts of decisions, but no matter what you decide, you should consider setting up those contributions as auto-deductions so you don’t need to think about it or have to rely on your own time and energy to get that important money to where it belongs!

Set aside money for quarterly estimated taxes or yearly taxes

It’s a plain fact that if your business is making money, you will need to pay taxes! So, to prevent any unfortunate money situations, make sure you are setting aside money to pay those taxes, either by calculating and making quarterly estimated tax payments OR by keeping track of your tax burden throughout the year and putting money aside to pay at tax time. Again, I’m not a professional financial planner or business financial expert, however, I find that paying my quarterly estimated taxes on time helps me to ensure I don’t owe money at the end of the year! This process will certainly vary from country to country, so check your own local tax laws or talk to your state to learn more.

I hope these tips have given you some insight into financial planning as an entrepreneur. I know financial planning can be a scary concept to some, but with some good insight and the guidance of a certified financial planner, you should be armed with enough knowledge to take your personal and business finances into your own hands and start hitting your financial goals! If you have any additional tips or resources you would like to share, please do so in the comments!

xoxo,

Productivity

5 Quick PR Tips for Bloggers, YouTubers & Business Owners

5 Quick PR Tips for Bloggers, YouTubers & Business Owners

For many small businesses and brands, the concept of PR may seem like something that only big business and influential figures have to worry about. We see PR firms that represent brands or celebrities and we may be intimidated by the concept of public relations or think we shouldn’t hire out our PR. Now, as a small business owner myself who also blogs and creates content for YouTube, I am often approached by my fans, and other businesses or brands that want to work with me. All of that falls under the category of Public Relations and although we all can’t afford PR representation, we need to get in the habit of putting our best foot forward when dealing with the public. So today I just want to share 5 Quick PR tips that I have relied on through the years that I believe have helped me streamline my PR without needing outside representation or some cumbersome PR strategy!

#1. Create a Media Kit

I think that all brands and businesses that plan to work with customers or others brands should have a media kit. I made my first media kit for my blog years ago and try to update it once a year or whenever I am pursuing or about to contact a brand I want to work with. You can create a simple one page media kit that includes a brief “about me” along with your key stats and services you are available for. If you don’t know how to structure your media kit, a quick Pinterest search will yield many different examples that you can turn into your own template! Now, when it comes to using your media kit, you will want to send this file in PDF form along with any emails you may send to brands or businesses soliciting a collaborative effort. If you want to work with a brand, having this kit is like a resume that the brand can use to identify whether you and your brand will work with their objectives. You can also create a media kit if you are a service based business to send to potential clients that may outline your services, pricing and experience! I think anyone operating online would benefit from having a media kit, so consider creating yours asap!

#2. Use a business email address

This may be a given for some people, but you’d be surprised how often I see people using email addresses that just aren’t professional or a representation of their brand/business. It’s essential for putting your best foot forward to have a dedicated business email address that you can keep separate from any personal email account you may also use. This is an easy PR tip that you can implement asap with free email clients like gmail or yahoo!

#3. Make sure to engage on social posts that include your brand

It’s a great PR rule of thumb to engage with any and all social posts or mentions you may receive. I always make sure to like, retweet, and respond to all mentions on Twitter, Instagram or elsewhere online that I see! It’s just a best practice that shows that you are present in your brand and open to interaction with your followers. Nothing is worse for PR than a brand or business that doesn’t make every reasonable effort to respond and engage with followers or fans that are talking about you positively online!

#4. Reply to all your emails

I know this one may be hard, but like #3 above, replying to your emails is a best practice for any serious brand or business owner. I know what it’s like to get bulk or spam solicitations from companies and also manage emails for customer service and general inquiries, however, on the other end of each and every email you receive is a person who is reaching out to your brand and if they don’t get a response, you have most likely lost an opportunity for a sale, a connection or even simply the opportunity to create a loyal fan. If you have trouble replying to all your emails, consider creating canned email responses that you can quickly copy and paste to address frequently asked questions or specific customer service inquiries, or hire an assistant to help you manage your email. Either way, make sure you respond to your emails in a timely manner!

#5. Double check all the content and products you create for brand consistency

When you’re managing a brand or a business, I think it’s easy for us to feel like we are getting stretched thin with our ideas for content and products. I know I have felt this way on many occasions in the past few years and the result ends up being that I may create content or products that aren’t consistent with my overall brand. Since your brand is your fingerprint online, you need to keep it safe and strong by double checking that everything you produce is in line with that brand. If not, any content or products that don’t align have the ability to dilute your brand which weakens it. In order to ensure your content and products are in line with your brand, consider creating a litmus test question that you can ask and answer for each item you create to ensure it’s in line with what your brand is all about. For me this question is “Does this help people work smarter, not harder?” If I can honestly answer that question with a “yes” then I proceed with publishing my content or product to the world. If not, I need to reevaluate what I was doing and get that answer turned to a yes before I will release it to the public!

Public relations doesn’t have to be a complicated topic for your brand or business, but it is essential that you implement some simple PR tips to help your business succeed! If you have any other tips you have learned over the years or want to share a PR experience you had as a blogger or business owner, please feel free to comment below!

xoxo,

Business

My #BossBabe Biz Travel Essentials

This weekend I’ll be traveling to Atlanta for the Southeastern Planner Convention as one of the speakers for the event! I’m very excited and thankful for the opportunity and I can’t wait to meet some of my long-time planner friends in person. Since this is the first time I’ll be traveling exclusively for business, I thought I would share some of my travel essentials with you that I plan to pack in my carry on. Since this is going to be an overnight trip, I’ll be packing one large tote bag as my carry on and I’ll also bring my small rolling luggage with my clothing and toiletries. For a quick trip like this, I’ll end up packing very light, but my carry on must include my airline essentials because whenever I fly, I like to be comfortable.

#BossBabe Biz Travel Essentials

Comfortable, easy-off, shoes: Since I’ll be flying to the event, the first essential for me is a comfortable pair of shoes that is easy to take on and off! I’ll most likely wear a pair of slip ons or mules so I’m easy on my feet while traveling but can deal with security quickly.

#BossBabe Travel Tip: Never wear heels or lace-ups when traveling, they are just too cumbersome!

Large executive style tote bag: For my carry on, I’m planning to use my Gigi New York Gates Satchel because it’s large enough for all my essentials, but also structured enough to carry with me as my purse for dinner and events. I don’t want to bring an extra bag with me so my carry on needs to do double duty.

#BossBabe Travel Tip: Choose a structured bag to act as carry-on, briefcase, and purse while traveling for business!

iPhone + Headphones: I always keep my smartphone and a pair of earbuds with me whenever I leave home, but they are especially important when I travel because I usually pop in my earbuds and listen to a book on tape when I travel. It’s a great way to pass the time and as someone with a lot of books on their TBR (to be read) list, I find travel downtime to be the best time to jump into a good motivational or business book!

#BossBabe Travel Tip: I subscribe to Audible.com and I highly recommend them! If you have a trip coming up and you want to test out the service, click here for a special offer to get 2 FREE audio books when you sign up for a free trial of the service!

Universal Back Up Battery Pack: Whenever you travel with gadgets in tow, I highly recommend bringing a universal back up battery source. That way you can plug in any USB charger for any device and you can manage multiple devices at one time!

#BossBabe Travel Tip: Don’t let yourself get stranded with a drained battery!

Macbook Air: Since I’ll be giving a speech with a slideshow presentation, I will be bringing my Macbook Air with me on the flight. That way I can review my information and make any last minute tweaks! Depending on the nature of a business trip, I will normally bring my Macbook Air, but for longer trips I may also pack my iPad, which I will not need on this trip.

#BossBabe Travel Tip: Don’t leave home without your important digital business materials!

Air travel essentials pouch: Whenever I fly, I keep a pouch with special essentials for airline travel. Inside the pouch I keep medication (allergy, pain, nausea, etc), an Evian spray mist, Caudalie hand cream, Dior creme de rose lip balm, Caudal facial moisturizer, wet-wipes, and an eye mask. Air travel really dehydrates the skin and I already have very dry skin, so I need to make sure I add some extra moisture during the trip. Before I board I will apply moisturizer and if I take a bathroom break after the drink service, I will also reapply and freshen up. For longer flights I also suggest doing a quick re-fresh with 30 minutes of landing. If I can’t get to the bathroom to do my routine in private, I will do so at my seat. Either way, I love to do my pamper routine on the plane because it’s a great way to treat yourself and relax during a period of down time that we normally don’t have during the day.

#BossBabe Travel Tip: Use travel time to relax, pamper yourself, and take care of yourself so when you look and feel great on arrival!

Those were my #BossBabe essentials for when I travel for my business! I hope you enjoyed this post and I’d love to hear what your essentials are when you are traveling for work, so please tweet me or leave me a comment below!

xoxo,

Blogging

Write Better Blog Posts with these 3 Tools!

Write Better Blog Posts with these 3 Tools!

For those of us on the internet who manage a blog, either as a marketing tool or a creative outlet, we know that creating great content week after week is hard! Even for the most talented among us, writing blog posts can be tricky, and let’s be honest, most of us could use some help improving our writing process as well as writing skills. So today I want to share with you three tools that have helped me to become a better blogger and a better writer of blog posts.

Scrivener

Scrivener is a software application that I use on my computer to write, edit and organize my blog posts. I’ve been using the program for years to keep my content in order and to organize my ideas. Although you may not be thinking of a word processing program as a tool that can help with writing better blog posts, it can really streamline the process of creating content. Ask yourself, where do you write your blog posts? Do you use a dedicated word processing program or do you write your posts inside the text editor of your blogging platform? Unfortunately, if you aren’t using a word processing program to organize your writing, you are missing out on a lot of great word processing features like word count, spelling and grammar check, and a built in dictionary/thesaurus! But Scrivener is also more powerful than your standard word processor because it also has great tools for outlining and organizing content ideas within the application. I also love that I have all my blog posts organized in one place, so I can refer back to old posts and I have a record of my content in case something happens to my blog or my website crashes while I’m adding a new post. So, if you aren’t using a dedicated system for writing, editing and organizing your blog posts, I would highly recommend checking out Scrivener. You can read more about how I use Scrivener here or visit their website for more details!

On Writing Well

I’m often asked by other bloggers if there are any courses or books I recommend that can teach you how to write better blog posts. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with any on the specific topic of writing blog posts, however, I do highly recommend a book called On Writing Well to those who wish to improve their writing style! On Writing Well is a classic book that teaches how to improve nonfiction writing, which is what blogging is most of the time. What I love about this book is that it’s an easy read but filled with practical tips for improving your writing, and it even dispels the notion of some long-held “rules” of writing that just aren’t applicable anymore (i.e. ending a sentence with a preposition- you can if you want to!) It’s a very practical guide to writing that has been revised and expanded to include more modern examples of writing, and I think it’s a great place to start if you are someone who’s interested in become a better writer.

Flesch-Kincaid Readability Score

As I was researching ways to improve your writing, I came across the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test that actually scores a piece of writing for how easy it is to understand. This sort of test is frequently used in teaching settings to understand the reading level of a specific written work (think grade school reading levels and such) but I noticed that the SEO Plugin that I use for WordPress, called Yoast SEO, included this score as part of the SEO grading of my post. Now, the idea behind using this test to determine the readability of your post is that your blog posts should be fairly easy for people to read. Blog posts with long sentences and complicated grammar may be harder for most people to understand, so you want to use this score to help you simplify your writing so that more people are able to understand and enjoy your content. As I already mentioned, my blog has a plugin that generates this score for me when I’m formatting my posts for publication, however, if you don’t use WordPress and have access to this Plugin, don’t worry because I found a free web-tool that you can use to check the readability of your blog posts. All you need to do is click here to visit the website and paste your blog post into the text editor on the page and it will generate your readability score! Definitely check it out and see what level your content scores at in terms of readability and perhaps use what you learn while reading On Writing Well to help you simplify and clarify your writing style!

So those are three tools that you can use right now to help you improve your blog posts! I’d love to know if you have any other suggestions if you have experience with any other interesting books or tools that you would like to recommend to the community. If you give any of these tools a try, I’d love to know about it, so please feel free to message me or leave me a comment below to tell me about your progress!

xoxo,

My Productivity Playlist

Who Run the World? {April 2016 Productivity Playlist!}

Hey Strange & Charmed Friends!

As you may remember reading from my latest installment of Entrepreneurial, last month I learned a valuable lesson that progress comes from taking action! In my situation, last month, I waited around for a while hoping creativity and inspiration would strike me, but it never came. So, this month, I am taking things into my own hands and taking action to stay inspired in whatever ways I can. Of course, since I am an audiophile, one of the first things I did was create a fresh Productivity Playlist for April filled with some action-packed and inspiring music that I’ve been loving lately. If you want to check out my new playlist, you can click here to visit Spotify or you can click the audio player below to enjoy the music as you catch up on my blog posts!

Well, let me know what music you have been listening to, or feel free to tweet me a link to your latest Spotify playlist @MissTrenchcoat!

xoxo,

Productivity

The Essential Business Planning Inserts that Keep Me Productive, Organized & Stress Free!

The Essential Business Planning Inserts that Keep Me Productive, Organized & Stress Free!

I get a lot of questions from people in my community about the best planners and inserts to use, especially from current or aspiring business owners who are looking to streamline their planning system, so today I want to share with you the inserts I use in my planner, why I like them and why they may be a good option for you if the standard planner insert options aren’t cutting it for you!

My Business Planning Inserts

The calendar inserts that I use in my (self-made) planner are the A5 Charmed Life Planner Inserts from TheCharmedShop.com. They are printable planner inserts that combine month on two pages, week on two pages, monthly task and expense sheets in a continuous monthly format. These inserts work well for me for a number of reasons:

1. The inserts are a complete, all-in-one system that work together beautifully with a dedicated place for everything that’s important to me. I can track my business goals/marketing/editorial calendar on the monthly calendar, keep track of my project tasks on the monthly task list, track income and expenses on the financial log, and plan my day to day in the weekly spreads.

2. The weekly spreads are vertical list style, which works best with my list loving brain! The weekly pages include a dedicated top 3 space, a good sized ruled center column for lists/schedules/notes/etc and a open lower flex section to be used as I see fit! The clear planning hierarchy built into the weekly spreads almost forces you to prioritize your day and “work smarter, not harder” as I like to say!

3. Because the inserts are so well designed and utilize space seamlessly, I find that I don’t feel the need to dress them up with decorations, but there is room to do so if I choose! Obviously, adding stickers and washi tape don’t make your planner more useful, however, there is something to be said for the fact that it does help you feel more motivated when you are looking at a well designed “pretty” planner spread. Well, these inserts are beautiful with or without added decor which is a major plus for me!

Now, other than my calendar pages, I also have a section in my planner that contains my business projects. In this section, I use inserts from the project planning bundle also found at TheCharmedShop.com. Specifically, I use the Yearly Goal Planning Tracker and the Project Planning Pages. On the Yearly Goal Planner, I map out my business and marketing goals and outline promotions, projects, and areas of focus for different periods of the year. So, it’s essentially a year at a glance business plan! Then, on the Project Planning Pages, I break out each promotion, project and initiative into the manageable tasks that I will need to perform in order to see the project through to completion. Using these project planning pages is excellent because it gives me enough space to outline a full project which I would not have the space to do in my calendar pages, and then I can transfer individual items from my project planning pages to my monthly task lists in the calendar section so I know what items I need to focus on for the month!

Will these inserts work for you?

When it comes to finding the best inserts that work for each of us, the struggle is certainly real! There are so many options out there when it comes to planner inserts, and options can be good or they can be paralyzing to some. For obvious reasons, its impossible for me to determine whether the inserts I use will work for you, however, if you identify with any of the situations below, I think these inserts may work for your life as they do for mine!

1. If you find that your current inserts don’t keep you organized because they lack structure, the Charmed Life Planner inserts may be a welcome change for you!

2. If you find that your current inserts don’t seem to work together, perhaps you have created your own system by curating inserts for a variety of places but they don’t feel like they interact with each other properly, the Charmed Life Planner inserts may be a solution that will work for you!

3. If you have a hard time prioritizing within your planner and find that although you make a list of tasks each day, that few of the important tasks get completed, the Charmed Life Planner inserts should solve that problem for you!

Do you need a Business Planning Bundle?

One of the reasons I feel so confident and successful with my business is that I have confidence in my business planning system! Not only does my calendar system, the Charmed Life Planner, work seamlessly to ensure I am able to prioritize and focus on my business activities, but having a dedicated project planning section gives me the space I need to break down key business activities into a clear plan of action! So, I thought to myself, why don’t I put together a Business Planning Bundle that includes the Charmed Life Planner AND my essential Project Planning Inserts?

So, I did!

I’m pleased to introduce you to my two NEW Business Planning Bundles, one in A5 equivalent size and the other in Filofax Personal equivalent! These bundles are a $48 value and include, not just my Charmed Life Planner Inserts and projecting planning inserts, but also an EXCLUSIVE Printable Business Planning Sticker Set design that I personally use to help me organize key business activities in my planner as well!

If you are looking for a complete business planning solution, pick up your Business Planning Bundle for just $35 today and you can get started immediately printing out your inserts and getting them organized into your planner!

xoxo,

Business

Entrepreneurial: March, a Month in Repose

Welcome back for another installment of Entrepreneurial, my monthly journal entry chronicling my experience as an entrepreneur, my victories and failures each month, and the lessons learned along the way.

March, a Month in Repose

I started off this month on vacation, and I’m ending the month in what can only be described as a state of repose. This month I challenged myself to work a little differently, to hustle less and focus on just the essential business activities that I thought would move the needle so I could make more room for my life and the things I want to do more of. It was an interesting experiment. I ended up working far less than I normally do, to the extent that I actually got a little scared I wasn’t doing enough of the basics to get by. However, I think I discovered some great insights that will help me to be more strategic with where I put my time and energy in the future. Let’s run down what I did and didn’t do this month and what I’ve learned from this little test!

What I Didn’t Do

1. I didn’t create heaps of new content! I only really wrote a few new blog posts for this month and then reposted or updated old content. I also didn’t stress about YouTube videos, only posting three videos that are public on my channel, although I did also host a live webinar which was by reservation only. I’m beginning to think that perhaps I’ve been putting out much to much content and that it’s really not moving the needle for me anymore than some basic updates might.

2. I didn’t create any new products. This marks month number two without new products. Now, part of this is because I’ve not been feeling the creativity juices flowing, and part of this is because I know I have been creating new products month over month for over a year and it’s time for a rest! This month I focused more on promoting my existing products, which is an essential activity I tend to forget about.

3. I didn’t allow distractions. Okay, so this doesn’t mean I was able to avoid all distraction, but I did a good job distancing myself from the things that distract me regularly. This month I turned off certain notifications that always seem to sideline me, I ignored emails until I was ready to deal with them, and I stopped letting certain things steal my time. When I worked, it was in short bursts with just a few things to do, and when I rested, I turned my brain off from work. There was actually a few instances where I went a period of days without my mind turning to business while I was “out of office”. I think that’s a win!

What I Did Do

1. I thought about where I want to focus my effort and for me, that’s marketing. Like I said earlier, I have been creating products for a while and haven’t been spending enough time promoting them. So this month I created a valuable new marketing asset for myself, which is my new 5 Pillars Webinar that outlines my personal business strategy of Empire Building.

2. I took time off. Again, this month started on vacation, and is ending on a period of rest. I think I realistically only worked two weeks this month, and then spent the rest of the time “in repose” as I like to call it. I also got sick this month, but luckily it only ended up eating into my plans for rest and personal time, so it wasn’t a major inconvenience. I also spent a good amount of time this month cooking delicious dinners for my husband and myself. Cooking is one of the things I enjoy doing but I haven’t seem to have the time to do recently. So, in cutting back on my work, I am opening my time to do more things I love, like cooking!

3. I interacted and shared with my community. This month, I have been on SnapChat A LOT! Although I haven’t been creating new content to share on my site or channel, I have been doing a lot of impromptu content creation and sharing with my community which I think has really supplemented my normal content creation. I’ve always been of the mind that time spent talking to my audience and helping them is better than time spent on a blog post because I really value that human connection, and SnapChat has really opened me up to my followers in a way that allows them to see more of me and my life, and have easy access to me.

What I learned

1. Content is great, but once you have built up a massive library of posts, videos, etc, you don’t need to continue to produce lots of new content every week. Reworking old content or taking one content idea and breaking it into smaller pieces to share can keep you from overloading your audience with new ideas.

2. Progress comes from taking action. Of course this seems logical, but for myself, and perhaps for some of you, I know that I keep thinking things will change on their own. I tell myself “Once I get to this point, I’ll be able to take time off,” or “If I finish this project, I’ll have time for that.” The problem is, unless you take action to change your routine, once you get to whatever point you expected would be the tipping point, things just don’t change on their own. That includes things like wishing for a creative streak to hit. I spent a good amount of time this month waiting for a creative streak to hit me and it never did. That wasn’t because I’m out of creativity, but it’s because I needed to take action and stimulate my creativity in order to see the result. Sitting around watching TV isn’t going to inspire you to do your best creative work, but taking action and making progress will!

3. It’s really important to trust in the process. The idea of trusting the process is almost like a canned business concept that I have memorized and on repeat but goes in one ear and out the other. Obviously, with taking a good amount of time off this month, I was worried that I wasn’t doing enough to ensure my business would survive the month, but it did, and that’s because I did the right things instead of doing all the things. Once you know what the right things are, you can execute and then just trust in the process that they will work. Spoiler, if they don’t work, you either having given them enough time to work or they weren’t the right things. This can be hard to distinguish so I advise patience! Everything in business is trial and error, and I’ve spent enough years ‘doing and failing’, and ‘doing and progressing’ to know when I’m doing the right things for my business.

I hope you have enjoyed this months edition of Entrepreneurial. I changed the format around a bit with this post, so let me know if you like this better or if you prefer the old journal entry style better! I’d also love to hear from you and what you learned this month in your business, so please feel free to share in the comments below!

xoxo,

lifestyle

Recharge this Weekend with these Tips

Since we have a holiday weekend coming up this week, many of us are likely enjoying some extra time off. So, I wanted to share with you some tips for recharging over the weekend because as an adult, it’s so easy to run yourself ragged during the week and then repeat the process over the weekend, when you should really be focusing on rest. Hope these tips help you as much as they help me!

1. Go to Bed Early: I know it’s the weekend and you are probably thinking you can stay up later and then sleep in, but often this plan makes you less productive and gives you a less rested feeling, especially if you sleep in a room with a window where your body can tell when it is day time! Try getting to sleep a few hours early and see how it makes you feel in the morning. You will most likely find that you will wake up earlier and feel the need to be more productive the next day!

2. Avoid Salty or Fatty Foods: Again, the weekend is notorious for being the time of the week when we like to “cheat” by eating take out or fried foods, but that extra salt and fat can make you feel dehydrated and worn out. It’s almost like giving your body a hangover once Monday comes! I’m not saying that you have to eat super healthy, but just eat normal foods that have been prepared in a healthful way!

3. Drink Lots of Water: During the week we are often too busy to drink all the water our bodies need to remain properly balanced and hydrated, so make a conscious effort over the weekend to drink more than enough water. Start your day with a big glass of water or two and replace soda’s or other drinks with water during meals and throughout the day! Your body will thank you!

4. Get in some Meditation: Meditation is a great way to relax and recharge your mind and body! It doesn’t have to be too intense, but just take some time in the morning when you wake up or before you go to bed at night and just sit or lay down on your bed and breathe consciously. Listen to your breath and even throw in some positive thoughts while you are at it and in about 10-20 minutes you will feel a real difference!

5. Turn Off things that Beep: Sometimes I think that our notifications are slowly driving us insane and making us all way to tense. Think about it, your body knows there is going to be some notification or call that comes in from your phone at least once or twice an hour so it’s secretly bracing itself! Let your body and mind fully relax for a while by spending the weekend with your notifications off. I think you will reach a new level of peace you never even knew existed!

xoxo,

This post first appeared on Strange & Charmed on January 23rd, 2014 and is being reposted for your enjoyment!

lifestyle

Winter Skin Hydration

I don’t know about you, but I suffer from terrible dry skin in the winter! I have naturally dry skin, so it gets worse when the weather is cold and dry and the wind is brutally whipping around on my face! Ugh! So, naturally, I have an arsenal of products that I use to help combat that extra dry winter skin and so I thought I would share those products with you! Oh and lucky for you, all these items can be found at Sephora!

1. Caudalie Grape Water: This is basically an aerosol can that sends a mist of hydrating grape water onto your skin. In the summer, I use a variation of this available from Evian, but for the winter, nothing is better than this extra hydrating grape water. It refreshes your skin and coats it with nutrient rich grape water that locks in hydration. Apparently, it makes your skin 127% more hydrated, but stats aside, it’s a great product for daily use!

2. Korres Greek Yoghurt Sleeping Facial: This Greek Yoghurt line from Korres is relatively new and immensely hydrating. If you are not familiar with the idea of a sleeping facial, this is basically a very rich night cream that you put on before bed and it super hydrates your skin while you sleep! An excellent overnight remedy for dry winter skin!

3. Dior Creme de Rose Lipbalm: I am a major fan of the Creme de Rose and I wear it day and night! It’s a thick and luxurious balm that has a nice rose scent, but it’s not overly sticky and it lasts all night long! And I mean all night long! You go to bed in this, and you still wake up with a nice layer of it on your lips! Very hydrating and nourishing!

4. L’Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream: L’Occitane probably makes some of the worlds best hand creams, and their Shea Butter formula is probably the best all around. The shea butter is a nice scent without being overpowering and the quality of the hand cream is lasting and healing to dry skin! An overall great product!

What are some of your winter must haves or dry skin cures? Have you tried any of these products and perhaps had a different reaction? Let us know in the comments!

xoxo,

This post originally appeared on Strange & Charmed on January 27th, 2014 and is being reposted for your enjoyment!