Fireside

Today is a coaching episode with Elin Loow, a writer and blogger who supports creatives going through the process of turning idea into reality. Elin is right at the start of figuring out what her services and offerings might look like, so today we’re talking business models - 121 vs one-to-many, how to choose the right business model for you and your customer, expectations and also getting away from the rules to create the best product you can.

Over the last few months I think we have all felt a bit of shift in the online landscape and the conversations I have been having with clients have reflected this too.  It all started with questions about saturated markets, struggling to stand out, authenticity and vulnerability, Instagram growth and email signs up are grinding to a holt, in spite of people doing all the right things.  Today I wanted to unpick on what is going on with this, look at emerging trends and look at ultimately getting some ideas on where the marketing space has headed and how we can keep ahead of the curve now that all the tried and tested things are not working anymore.

My guest today is Greta Solomon, a writing coach and author, whose latest book, Heart, Sass & Soul: Journal Your Way to Inspiration and Happiness, is, as the title suggests, all about finding joy in creativity and self-expression through writing. While she now focuses on creativity, Greta also has a background in teaching business-writing, so in this episode we cover the whole spectrum - from balancing the personal and professional through to finding joy in writing. We discuss the rise in sharing vulnerable stories and treading carefully through that, as well as overcoming the mental blocks you may have around writing to find your true voice.

You know how people say that when you're thinking of buying a certain type of car you start to see that car everywhere?  Well I'm getting that at the moment with purpose. In the week that my new product, The Purpose Kit is going live, and because of this i'm seeing it everywhere.  Personally, I’m glad to see more people talking about purpose - it’s something the world could use a little more of all round. I think people are cottoning on to the fact that in an increasingly saturated market, you need more than pretty visuals to sustain a business. But I’m finding, and maybe you are too, that a lot of the conversation and resources around purpose are very conceptual - there’s a lot of theory, but not a lot of hard examples of what this could actually look like for you and your business. Purpose is a concept and very different for each individual.  In this episode I wanted to bring purpose to life a little bit, to look at the concepts around purpose but to talk through how they've shown up for me in my business from the beginning and how I continue to use it, so that you can see how it works practically as well as conceptually

Today is a coaching episode with Emmeline Bramble, a visual and verbal apothecary who helps women in business unearth their intuitive Purpose and create their visual and verbal branding. Emmeline and I are very aligned when it comes to the importance of Purpose and intuition in business, so I enjoyed having this conversation with her. We talk about how she came to find her own Purpose, and then dive in to communicating that purpose through the offerings you design, and the copy you write. We also dig in to how to include your personal story in a resonant way, how to launch new service offerings and the mentality of starting something new. Let’s dive in.

Today I am talking to Therese Ørtenblad from Small Business Collaborative. Therese is a wholesale expert having a decade of experience working for large and small wholesale businesses selling products into brands as big as John Lewis or small as your local gift shop. She now mentors small product businesses helping them to make the most of their wholesale opportunities. In this episode we start basic, talking about how wholesale fundamentally works and go onto share selling and confidence tips, we talk pricing and we look at what opportunities might be right for you. Therese’s local airport was particularly busy as we recorded so you may hear some planes coming and going throughout this episode.

Today is a coaching episode with Jane Badu, the founder of online homewares store We Are Nomads. After a holiday to Morocco 6 months ago Jane was inspired to bring the artisanal products she discovered to the UK, and now sources textiles, pottery and accessories from all over Africa. With the logistics all set up, Jane is turning her attention to social media, which is where this episode comes in! We’re talking about getting going on Instagram especially when you have less than 1000 followers - we discuss content creation, the Instagram rumour mill, inviting engagement and being found.

Today is a coaching episode and I’m talking with Carissa Tanton, an illustrator who lives near me here in North Wales. Carissa has a problem that I think we can all relate to: indecision. Particularly as she works on her business part time, she finds herself spending way too much time researching and agonising over decisions as widespread as which print to list in her shop, how to spend her time and where she should invest in the business. In this episode we talk through these situations and talk about tactics to overcome indecision.

Today I’m talking with Jessica Uys, a personal growth coach who uses enneagram to help people release old habits and live an uncompromised life. If, like me, may have seen people mention their enneagram type online, but not really know exactly what they’re talking about. I think that, especially when you’re starting and running your own business that any self-awareness you can gain will have a huge impact on you and your work, so I wanted to get Jessica on to talk about this form of self-awareness and how we can all use it.

Today is a Q&A episode where I'm going to be answering the questions you asked me on Instagram, all about starting and running a business.  Thank you for sending in such a big variety of questions, this means that we're gong to be covering topics as widespread as money and Instagram, competition and motivation