If These Heels Could Talk

You may have heard about #StopHateForProfit - a social media ad boycott that intends to urge Facebook to evenly apply hate speech standards and improve marking misinformation and false news on the platform.

Several large national companies have joined in. The question is - should your small business? And the bigger question - what happens when your company’s values can start to impact the bottom line? JoyGenea and Michelle discuss this and so much more in this episode of “If These Heels Could Talk.”

After experiencing a few challenging interactions as a customer, JoyGenea was wondering, “Should a business owner negatively review another business online?”

Listen in as JoyGenea and Michelle discuss online reviews and how to interact with other business owners after challenging service experiences in a small town. How do you discover or craft a win-win scenario to manage your own business brand after experiencing a negative interaction with someone else’s? In other words, how can one business owner effectively complain to another without inviting reprisal or revenge in a small-town business community?

The answer? Never is as simple as it sounds. Michelle and JoyGenea discuss how to be a better consumer, business owner, and empathetic reviewer in this episode of, “If These Heels Could Talk.”

Michelle mentions a really good PSA video about organ donation in our podcast today.  Here is a link to the video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH04JOjzYu4

You might still be scarred. Or scared. Or anxious. Or frustrated. Or all the above.

No, we’re not talking about murder hornets. We’re talking about surviving business right now. For those of us who were in business through the recession in 2008, we’re seeing a bubble right now that is eerily familiar but also really different. For those of us who didn’t, but who’s businesses survived quarantine (mostly due to the industries we’re in and an influx of government assistance), we’re treading unfamiliar waters. And the way people are interacting with businesses right now is different. 

We’re different. Our clients are different. Our employees are different. Business feels like a whole new ball game. JoyGenea and Michelle talk about how that feels in this episode of If These Heels Could Talk.

Your reputation is arguably the most important asset of your business. Brand reputation is gained over years of dedicated service, hard work, and careful craftsmanship. It’s also the most ephemeral and a fairly easy asset to lose, especially over social media. The consequences of an errant comment or reply or lack of strong employee communication are very, very high. 

Michelle and JoyGenea discuss brand reputation in this episode of If These Heels Could Talk - how you get one, how to be thoughtful about your reputation, and how to protect your reputation through thoughtful policies and actions. 

There is so much to do when starting a new business that new entrepreneurs typically have trouble prioritizing. So much demand on time and money resources that decisions get made for expediency and costs. But some of those decisions have long arms and can impact a business negatively in opportunity cost - that is, if they don’t get done correctly and well the first time, it costs more to fix them in the long run. And fix them you will, or they will hold your business back. 

A banker would say it’s a business plan. An accountant would say it’s accounting software. A lawyer would say it’s business filing documents. All these things are true. Michelle and JoyGenea are marketers. And with so many people contemplating starting a business right now, they’re sharing the Top 5 Money Saving Marketing Tips. These are 5 simple things that an entrepreneur can do (or pay for) to get their business set up for success online. In other words, the 5 things JoyGenea and Michelle have to fix most often in year 2 or 3 for a business. Take notes! It really does save money to do it right the first time!

Life should be like peanut butter on bread. Thick and abundant. But what happens when the peanut butter is spread too thin?

How do you set and define your own limits? Do cisgendered women fundamentally have different types of expectations for themselves? Where does that come from? Shouldn’t we want to have it all?

In reality, it’s about how we define having it all and recognizing the difference between internal and external pressure. 

JoyGenea and Michelle talk about their own limits and responding to internal and external pressures to ‘Have It All’ while learning to fail personally and professionally. What are your red flags and warning signs when you’re spread too thin? And how do you extend your limits?

So many hats. So many competing needs. So many challenges with answers that don’t make everyone happy.  As small business owners, many of us are stuck in lose-lose situations. Our employees need, deserve, and want to stay safe, our customer and clients don’t want any changes to services, hours, or their experience, and our resources to achieve it all are very, very limited. 

It is so amazing to see our business communities come together to support each other with kindness and patience right now. Hear about JoyGenea and Michelle’s many, many hats and how they are juggling those competing needs in this episode of If These Heels Could Talk.

Time is on your side. Except it doesn’t feel like it. We experience time in a variety of ways and one sign of being stressed and anxious is time feeling disjointed. Sound familiar? Yeah, us too.

Join Michelle and JoyGenea as they discuss time management when the time feels all wrong - days that drag on with tasks that feel unproductive, but whole weeks and months flying by. So the past feels simultaneously close and distant. So much has changed, but nothing has happened. And if this is all starting to feel like an existential essay from Jean-Paul Sartre, we’re with you. How can we relax into this enough to experience the ever-elusive Flow that comes from sinking into a task and losing ourselves in time?

Tempers and fuses are awfully short these days, leading us all to do and say things we regret. But how can we truly make amends and move on from that regret? 

Listen in as Michelle and JoyGenea talk forgiveness - personally and in business. How we seek it, how we ask for it, and what happens when we don’t find it. Along the way, we reference TRE techniques and Psychology Today’s Forgiveness Protocol. It’s a seriously introspective episode of If These Heels Could Talk.

“WE ARE NOT IN THE SAME BOAT ...

I heard that we are all in the same boat, but it's not like that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat.” - Unknown

A friend of the show posted a poem called Perspective not too long ago. It’s the same metaphor that JoyGenea and Michelle use in this episode of If These Heels Could Talk: a boat, adrift without any sense of just where the shore actually could be. 

We’re feeling a bit adrift this week, untethered to those things that usually help guide us in our decisions. But is it all bad? What if the tethers were holding us back from possibilities? What if, like a 14 year old article on Preparing for a Pandemic, we advise ourselves to make a plan and stick to it. To set a course and trust that, eventually, we will see land on the horizon.