She's Off Script

Today we’re doing another Ask Serwaa Anything episode where we answering 7 of your questions about overcoming the fear of what people will think when you first take the leap into entrepreneurship, Personal brands vs. business brands, overcoming shiny object syndrome, picking a social media platform and more.

We haven’t done one of these since episode 11 so hopefully, you learn something or at the very least are entertained! If you have a question for the next Q&A episode, go ahead and send me a DM on Instagram, email the show at [email protected] or leave it in our She’s Off Script Facebook group.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in this episode: 

* @sheoffscript

* @ryanleak - Square Squad

* @marieforleo

* @ayeshacurry

* Quote: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ― Jim Rohn

Questions Answered:

* What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your entrepreneurial journey

* How do you find your unique voice online?

* What’s a must-have part of your morning routine that helps you have a successful day?

* Could you talk about the difference between a personal brand and a business brand and which one I should be focusing on first?

* How do you decide on which ideas to execute or which projects to take on? What’s a good rule of thumb to have in place so you’re not distracted by shiny object syndrome?

* How did you decide on which social media platforms to focus on?

* How did you overcome the fear of what people would think when you decided to make the leap into entrepreneurship? I know I shouldn’t care what people think about my business…but I kind of do

Announcements:

If you’re looking for a community of supportive women who are looking to Go Off Script with their careers, lifestyles and businesses join us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ShesOffScriptCommunity

Thank you so much for listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, join our Facebook community, and follow us on Instagram!

If you have any general questions or comments for the show, click here.

Today I'm back to share how things have been going on my entrepreneurial journey. I know some of you are living vicariously through me so I 'm trying to be as transparent as possible! In this episode, I talk about my daily routine and finding balance, putting a finer point on my value proposition as well as what I’m working on next.

I'm so excited about our announcement and the growth our podcast has had. I can't wait to go off script with you for this episode!

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in this episode: 

* DM us on Instagram: @sheoffscript

* send me an email at [email protected]

* sign up for our email list here

Takeaways:

* As an entrepreneur, I now work more than I did at my 9-5 but I'm so passionate about what I'm doing that I don't seem to notice!

* As you network, it's important to have a clear sense of your personal brand value proposition.

Announcements:

1.) Sign up for our Off Script updates email newsletter to receive a monthly a monthly action plan

2.) Announcement #2: I'm launching a YouTube channel to share more visual content on entrepreneurship, productivity and living your next level life from the perspective of a female black entrepreneur who is married and a mother of two toddlers

3.) Announcement #3: I am revamping the branding and feel of the podcast and adding new segments to the starting with the 1-minute gem segment which will be shared as videos on social media so you can drop a gem on someone who needs to hear it.

4.) If you’re looking for a community of supportive women who are looking to Go Off Script with their careers, lifestyles and businesses join us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ShesOffScriptCommunity

Thank you so much for listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, join our Facebook community, and follow us on Instagram!

If you have any general questions or comments for the show, click here.

Oneika Raymond, a multi-hyphenate entrepreneur who at the age of 34 left her decade long teaching career to launch her own the travel media empire.

For Oneika, content is king! She gave herself a year to successfully break into the travel industry and got noticed by putting out great content. 2 years later, she appears on TV regularly, hosts 2 travel channel web series and so much more.

In this episode, she gives us 5 tips for solo travel as well as gives advice to emerging content creators on how to get their start.

Join us as we go off script with Oneika Raymond, the face of the travel media brand, Oneika the Traveller.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in this episode: 

* Instagram: @oneikatraveller

* http://www.oneikathetraveller.com/

Takeaways:

* Ask for what you believe you are owed

* Your effort is worth money

* Be confident in your abilities and get comfortable with saying no.

* Once you hone your content so it’s useful to your core audience, opportunities will come your way.

Announcements:

If you’re looking for a community of supportive women who are looking to Go Off Script with their careers, lifestyles and businesses join us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ShesOffScriptCommunity

Thank you so much for listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, join our Facebook community, and follow us on Instagram!

If you have any general questions or comments for the show, click here.

Jessica Nabongo, also known as 'The Catch Me If You Can' is on a mission to be the first black woman to travel to every country in the world. In 2018, she took 250 flights and flew almost 230,000 miles and is currently on country 151 of 195.

She left a six-figure job in pharmaceutical sales to launch a boutique travel firm, Jet Black. Her quest has received press coverage from the likes of Forbes, Conde Nast and CNN. She hopes to be interviewed by Oprah when she lands in her final country, Seychelles.

On this episode, we had a candid conversation about what she’s had to sacrifice to get where she is today, mental health, surrounding herself with other successful women such as Melissa Butler, the founder of The Lip Bar and so much more.

Go off script with us with us as we speak with travel influencer and CEO of Jet Black, Jessica Nabongo.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in this episode: 

* Instagram: @ thecatchmeifyoucan

* http://thecatchmeifyoucan.com/support

Takeaways:

* Figure out what you want for your life and be fiercely protective of it.

* Set your convictions and don’t veer from them.

* People who are confident and successful should have no problem helping other people

* Surround yourself with positive people 

Announcements:

If you’re looking for a community of supportive women who are looking to Go Off Script with their careers, lifestyles and businesses join us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ShesOffScriptCommunity

Thank you so much for listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, join our Facebook community, and follow us on Instagram!

If you have any general questions or comments for the show, click here.

Victory Jones and Tori Elizabeth never understood why there was such a divide in the way people were portrayed in the media depending on the color of their skin. While shut in during a New York snowstorm, they spent hours putting together the pieces of what would become their first campaign. Their debut campaign showcased a beautiful woman with different skin tones, ages, body types, hair types an and skin color in a haute couture spread.

Since then, they have created a forum for discussions both online and behind closed doors with executives who have reached out for with help fine-tuning their approach when it comes to marketing to people of color.

Go off script with us as these co-founders share how they built a movement that launched their creative agency.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in this episode:

* Instagram: @the.coloredgirl

* https://www.facebook.com/theCgirlinc/

* https://www.thecoloredgirl.com

Takeaways:

* Your success is defined more by what you say no than what you say yes to.

* Focus on the intersection of your strengths and what people tend to ask of you

* Don’t be afraid to reach out to people you admire…even on social media to ask for help

* Having a co-founder requires constant hard work on the relationship

* The only way you can get ready is by doing. It’s better to take imperfect action than no action at all.

Announcements:

If you’re looking for a community of supportive women who are looking to Go Off Script with their careers, lifestyles and businesses join us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ShesOffScriptCommunity

Thank you so much for supporting our podcast. Don’t forget to rate, subscribe and continue sharing us with your friends and families.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, join our Facebook community, and follow us on Instagram!

If you have any general questions or comments for the show, click here.

#ShesOffScript

On this episode of She’s Off Script, we’re talking all about the 5 questions you need to have answered BEFORE YOU start a business.

If you've ever thought  “I would love to start a business but I just don’t have the right idea.” or “I think I have an idea but I’m not sure if it translates into a good business. This episode is for you!

When I say business, I don’t necessarily mean the next Facebook or the typical Silicon Valley startup. I mean your next side hustle or the business you’ve secretly been dreaming of starting but haven’t had the courage to take the first step. If you’re finally ready to take that first step, this episode is for you.

1.) AM I SOLVING A PROBLEM?

Looking for the right idea before you start your business is a bit like putting the cart before the horse. Before launching a venture or side hustle of any kind, you need to know that it’s solving a problem for someone…hopefully a significant group of people. It can’t just be something you and only you are interested in working on. If your plan is to launch a viable business, there needs to be someone on the other end willing to pay for whatever product or service you’re selling.

Once you have identified the problem, you need to find out how willing people would be to pay for what you’re offering. Is your idea a painkiller or a vitamin. Does it solve a major problem for someone or is it a nice-to-have. This is not to say that vitamins don’t make for viable businesses. They can if you hone in on the people that need the vitamins more than anyone else.

To take this question to the next level, you would also need to figure out who you would be selling your product or service to. This is often called creating an avatar or a customer persona.

2.) IS THIS A GOOD TIME TO FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

By this I mean, is this a good time for your idea to actually take root and thrive in today’s political, environmental, social, technological climate? This framework is known as a PEST analysis. Very few businesses can successfully swim upstream against these factors. And if they do, they tend to be disrupters. An example of this would be Uber or AirBnB who disrupted the status quo and forced the regulatory environment to catch up with them. Given how much funding they have, these companies have been able to withstand lawsuits and social pressure. If you are starting a venture that could be considered disruptive, I would go into it with eyes wide open on the PEST front and get the right backing and allies to set yourself up for success. If you’re not one for a fight, you may want to start out with a less controversial venture. Also, if the technology for what you’re trying to build doesn’t exist or is in its infancy, you need to either be willing to build it, which takes money or wait for it to mature before moving forward.

3.) HOW BIG IS YOUR MARKET?

Said another way, how big is your customer base? Is this group of individuals or companies growing, stagnant or has it been the same size year over year? This information is free from the sites like the Bureau of Labor Statistics or thinkwithgoogle.com. For this question, you’ll also want to consider whether this is an easy business to get into and how intense the competition is as a result of how easy or difficult of a market it is to get into. Not to say that you need to shy away from a market with competition. Competition is not a bad thing. While it can be amazing to be first to any market, as a first mover, you have to bear the cost of learning on the job since there is no blueprint. In fact, there’s a 47% failure rate for first movers or first entrants into any market. Think Friendster which no longer exists, Myspace which a shell of what it used to be vs. Facebook which launched 3 years after Friendster and is now the social media standard. I say that all to say, yes you need to be mindful of who the competition is when you’re ...

Hello and welcome to Episode 14 of the She’s Off Script Podcast. Today I’m talking all about how I approach taking time off and going on vacation now that I am not just an entrepreneur but a SOLOPRENEUR. 6 months into my entrepreneurial journey, I’m still very much in growth mode and as the only one working on my business, I’m learning the art of taking time off without having to shut everything down!

As someone so early into starting my business, I don’t feel as though taking time off in a way that I totally unplug is an option for me. I know of some more established business owners who take off the whole month of December or take off one month every quarter. At this stage, that is certainly not an option for me and I don’t know that I aspire to do that. I love what I’m doing and am not looking to “get away from it”. That being said, I know it’s important to take time off and recharge, however, as I have shared before, the way my life is structured now is less stressful and allows for me to take the intermittent pauses I need to recharge. I believe the biggest perk of having a flexible schedule is the ability to work from anywhere in the world. At the time this episode airs, we’re preparing for a longer vacation in Nairobi, Kenya so I thought I would come on and share how I am prepping for this trip from a business perspective.

Plan Ahead

First, it’s critical that you plan ahead for any extended absence from your business. While in my corporate role I always felt like I was paying a massive toll before AND after going on vacation, my sense is that running my own business should be a drastically different experience

During our vacation time, there are 4 business related activities I want to continue which are having coffee chats, responding to email inquiries, releasing podcast episodes and engaging on Social media. I have had to plan ahead to make sure I can deliver on those fronts.

Client engagements

Client engagements are the biggest responsibility to consider when planning a vacation. Thankfully I am not currently in the middle of any large engagements. I either have projects kicking off in January or am wrapping up projects before going on vacation. Just as you most likely are not working on projects while on vacation from your 9-5 corporate job, I would certainly not want to do that in my own business. However, given that I DO have flexibility if the need arises, I’m in a position to choose rather than feel obligated to work during my vacation.

Virtual coffee chats

When it comes to preparing for the first activity, virtual coffee chats, I use Calendly which allows me to specify my availability. So even though there will be a 9-hour time difference while I’m away, I have set aside 2 hours every day that is convenient for people in the US to set up time with me. I have really enjoyed those conversations so far and want to keep up the momentum on those. If you’re not familiar with my virtual coffee chats, this is a 15-minute Zoom meeting where we can get to know each other and you can pick my brain about whatever is at top of mind for you. You can find the link to set those in my Instagram bio or on my about me page at Serwaaadjeipelle.com. So carving out a specific schedule for those during times I anticipate will be down times on our trip will help keep me organized as well as help me separate out family time from work time.

Email management

Second is Email management which is probably the easiest to manage no matter where you are. While I probably won’t be actively reaching out to people, I will be on email once a day to ensure people get a timely response but again, I don’t want to spend my time off with my nose buried in my phone or computer.

Releasing Podcast Episode

The 3rd item I will be keeping up with during my vacation is this podcast.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you listening to this episode when it first airs. This year, among so many other things, I am thankful for all of you who tune into this show on a weekly basis and for all the guests who have been so willing to come on the show. I hope today’s show gives you a little break from all the buzz of family, food comas and Thanksgiving dinner table clapbacks!

If you’ve tuned into the last couple episodes you know I’m currently doing a series of solo episodes during our hiatus. I’ll be back with more great guest interviews in January.

Now let’s dive into today’s episode where I’ll be sharing what a “day-in-the-life” looks like for me as a new entrepreneur.

As I planned to leave my 9-5 job, I literally googled “day in a life of an entrepreneur” because I was looking for ways to get organized around all the ideas I needed to put into action. I came across a few YouTube videos and blog posts but very quickly discovered that I would need to create a schedule and process more tailored to my lifestyle. Most of the videos and posts I found were from people who were more established and further into their entrepreneurial journey.

At the time I wished I could have heard from someone who was still early on in their journey and was still trying to figure things out. Of course, it takes a certain level of vulnerability to share a work in progress and in a world of curated content, being raw and unpolished may not always play so well on a highlight reel.

In any case, I hope this view into where I am this early on helps to fill in the blanks for you if you’re curious or gives someone the boost of courage they need to take the next step. The cliff notes version is that this process is 1-part prayer, 1 part messy and 1-part a superwoman feat as you leap into the unknown.

To set the tone for the “day in a life” I think it’s important to share a bit more about my transition from my 9 to 5.

The transition

I would consider my first two months or so of entrepreneurship to be more of a transition period. I am now 6 months in. During the first month, I continued to demo my new app to companies as well as created content and ran campaigns around the app. Once I caught up on those, we went on vacation. It was so liberating to just up and leave without having to coordinate a million schedules. It was also the best way for me to reset, get separation from my previous role. and also spend some much-needed time with my family. We spent time in New Mexico and visited the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks national monument and also spent 9 days at a Disney World resort. The girls loved scaling the tent rocks and are still talking about our time at Disney.  Part of this transition time was also me catching up on doctors’ appointments, errands, lunch with friends I had been neglecting, house reno projects we had been pushing back. It was a great time to clear up all the backlog and free up space in my mind. So that was between May and June of 2018.

Getting down to work

By June I launched my website, serwaaadjeipelle.com. I had been chipping away at it throughout what I call my transition period. I am very much bootstrapped as an entrepreneur and didn’t feel the need to hire a designer to build the site especially since I could use a platform like Wordpress. Of course, that could change in the future but for now, it serves its purpose. I also spent time setting up my Gmail and google analytics accounts and laying out a social media strategy. If you follow my personal Instagram account, @Serwaa_ap you probably noticed a difference in my social media presence between pre and post-May of 2018. By early August I was ready to start launching my podcast as well as the consulting side of my business.

Ok, now that we’ve set the stage,

I wake up daily at 5:30 am especially since my husband wakes up around that time...

Today I’m talking all about the top 10 tools and services I have found to be must-haves for me as a new entrepreneur. I know some of you have asked me about how I record this podcast, who takes my pictures, my website and so much more. Today, I’m answering some of those questions.  There has definitely been a learning curve with running my own business but here are some of the tools that have helped to flatten the curve for me.  Hopefully, you are able to pick up a few tools for your own arsenal. Let’s dive right in.

TOOL #1:  1WordPress

I built my website, serwaaadjeipelle.com, using the WordPress platform. It’s very user-friendly and with the power builder feature, you can simply drag and drop modules to build your site. If you’re trying to get fancy, there are so many online resources and free plugins that non-technical people like myself can use build a beautiful site.

Like with any new tool, it takes some getting used to. But I will say that it becomes pretty intuitive the more you use it. The other great thing about Word Press is they have a free version you can use while you’re setting up your site. As always, there’s a catch with free versions. With the free version, you won’t be able to use your own custom domain name or upload templates you purchase on other sites.

Right now, my website is a digital hub for my consulting business, any free resources I offer, the challenges I run, my blog and this podcast.

The second app and actually the next 4 are tools I use for my podcast.

TOOL #2: Calendly

This is an automated scheduling software I use to schedule meeting times. Instead of going back and forth on availability via email, I include a custom link on my initial email correspondence asking guests to select a time that works best for them. If you’ve ever set up time for a free virtual coffee chat with me, you would have done it via the Calendly link on my website’s About Me page or on my social media profiles.

A nice feature of the app is that it allows me to block off my calendar. So if you’re big on batching, you can narrow down your availability to a specific day or even time of the week. As you’ll see with many of these apps, there are free versions and paid versions for additional features. 

TOOL #3: Garage Band for podcast editing

This is the software I use to edit the podcast. And it comes free Apple phones and computers. You’ll hear this referred to as a digital audio workstation (DAW). So if you don’t have a MAC, feel free to search for a windows alternative like Audacity. For the actual recording part, I use a:

* Blue Yeti USB Microphone

* Headphones

* Knox Pop Filter to soften the thudding from B and P Sounds as you speak

TOOL #4: Zoom

I use Zoom to record all my interviews. The great thing about this tool is that it gives you a separate audio track for each speaker as well as a video file which I use for the clips you see on social media. This is also the tool I use for client meetings. Unlike Skype, they don’t have to remember the log in info for an account. Each meeting has a unique link that I share with whoever I’m meeting with. Some other features include screen sharing and having multiple people on the line.

TOOL #5: Blubrry

This is the tool I use to launch and push my podcast to iTunes and google podcasts. It has a really intuitive free plugin on WordPress that allows you to release your podcast episodes as media attached to a blog post. And the blog post is the show notes we use for the podcast.

TOOL #6: Fiverr

This is a service where you can get almost anything created for five dollars by creatives all over the world. I used this site to create the logo for my site and am currently looking for someone to create some specific graphics for me.