Soulful MBA Podcast

In this episode, we discuss a major pivot that we’re currently experiencing in our software business. We’re branching out beyond the yoga and wellness industry, which runs counter to everything we were taught about niching down into a very specific market. Learn why we’ve decided to make this risky decision, what we’re doing to smooth out the transition, and what advice we have for you if you’re considering a major pivot in your own life or business.Other Mentions: Lightroom and Photoshop for Bloggers Joy: Adobe LightroomHustle: FREE COURSE: Become an Online Teacher

Instagram can a fantastic platform for connecting authentically with your audience. Although it seems natural to focus primarily on the images you’re posting, we want to encourage you to focus just as much on your captions.

Micro-blogging is the practice of creating information-packed, short-form blog posts that accompany social media images. Doing this allows you to convey important news, helpful tips, and other rich content quickly and effectively, without having to write and promote a traditional 500-800 word blog post.

We love to use Instagram for micro-blogging and here are six strategies you can use to build community and trust through your posts:

1. Be short and sweet.
2. Make sure that your content is unique and original.
3. Lead with the most important information early on in the post.
4. Encourage comments and interaction.
5. Share relevant tips and tricks for your followers.
6. Offer a peek behind the curtain.

“I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.” - Shonda Rhimes

This episode explores the juxtaposition between luck and hustle. Ultimately, we believe that luck, flow, determination, and hustle all come into play in the ability we have to achieve our goals.

Perhaps it’s a divine responsibility to go after your dreams when you’re born into this lucky of a situation (i.e. anyone listening to this podcast)? If you identify at all as an entrepreneur, you are likely driven to build something and grow every single day. That’s hustle.

If you’re called to build something new in the world, we encourage you pursue it with all reasonable effort. 

Other Mentions: Flow, Julie Arora 

Joy: Brave Women + Female Entrepreneurs Pinterest BoardHustle: Make Room for Magic

Today’s episode dives into the Japanese concept of ikigai, which roughly translates to “a reason to live” or “a reason to get out of bed in the morning.” To find your own ikigai, experts recommend that you answer the following four questions:

1. What do you love?
2. What are you good at?
3. What does the world need from you?
4. What can you get paid for?

In an ideal situation, you are able to build a career and a life around your answers to these questions.

We discovered the concept of ikigai after creating our own core values assessment exercise, and we were astonished to see that the exercises overlap quite a bit.

Other Mentions: Is this Japanese concept the secret to a long, happy, meaningful life?, How To Find Your Ikigai And Transform Your Outlook On Life And Business

Joy: Spring Dragon Longevity Tea (U.S.), Gynostemma Tea (Canada)Hustle: Masterclass

As you learned in last week’s Office Hours episode, incorporating targeted keyword phrases into your blog content is essential. Those SEO-driving phrases need to be sprinkled throughout all of your content, but you can also benefit from placing them strategically in a few more places.

This episode shares our specific recommendations on where else to load up your keywords within a blog/podcast/vlog post:

1. The post URL: WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace, and many other blogging platforms allow you to alter the URLs of your posts, so take advantage of that flexibility!
2. The post title: It’s essential that your post title include your target keyword phrase since titles are among the top elements examined by search engine algorithms.
3. The name of the featured or primary image for the page/post: When editing and saving your images, name them using your keyword phrase. Also add your keyword phrase to the “alt text” and “title” fields when you upload the image via WordPress/Squarespace/Blogger.
4. Any relevant internal links: Linking to other posts on your blog helps keep readers circulating through your content. When you do this, be sure to link related keyword phrases instead of simple directives like “click here.”
5. The first paragraph of text in the post and/or the first subheading: You don’t want to hammer on this phrase too much, but working it into the first few lines of body copy is vital to your SEO efforts.
6. The names of any additional images
7. The final paragraph of text

For more information on how to incorporate SEO into your online business, check out this blog post (with screenshots)!

“The words you speak become the house you live in.” - Hafiz

We’re discussing all things related to #girlboss culture in today’s episode. We would never consider using the term #girllawyer or #girldoctor, so it’s fascinating that this child archetype been so widely adopted by women in business. How does this self-imposed characterization impact us, both individually and culturally? According to a recent New York Times article, “female entrepreneurship is on the rise because gender equality efforts in the workplace to address issues like the salary gap and advancement to positions on corporate boards have stalled.” Entrepreneurship is increasingly becoming the answer for women who are fed up with glass ceilings or a biased workplace.

But once women venture into entrepreneurship, the gendered stereotypes are overwhelming and we can’t help but worry that some self-sabotage is at play...

Joy: OmmwriterHustle: We Should All Be Feminists, Ted Talk

The advice most brick-and-mortar businesses owners are given when they first start out is “location, location, location.” For online business owners, the equivalent advice is “SEO, SEO, SEO.” SEO, or search engine optimization, is a series of practices that makes your web content easy for search engines to find, understand, and recommend to their users. A search engine’s job is deliver relevant and authoritative content to the people using their platforms. Your job as an online entrepreneur is to load your content with appropriate keywords to help those search engines find you and your work. Many of the businesses we work with, ourselves included, receive more than half of their traffic from organic Google search. Listen in to learn how you can start optimizing your content to get seen by more people.

We had the honor of interviewing the co-founders of Bravery Magazine, Elyse Beard and Ashley Aikele.

Ashley and Elyse met seven years ago and have dreamed of doing something big ever since their friendship started. At first they dreamed of opening up a shaved ice shack, but years later they finally had an idea that stuck...Bravery! The idea for Bravery Mag was born from their shared frustration at the lack of kid-friendly resources to help teach their children about bravery and strong female role models.

In 2017, the ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund their idea and they were fully funded in three days. Ashley and Elyse hail from small towns in neighboring states (Ashley-Idaho, Elyse-Utah) and, between the two of them, they have five children. They have a few key things in common (like their love for rice-crispy treats and The Office), but mostly they are an opposites-attract-kind-of-duo.

Elyse has a background in education and handles all the writing for the magazine while Ashley has a background in Advertising and handles the design. They both swear they couldn't have picked a better business partner and have loved seeing their friendship reach a new level.

Other Mentions: Bravery Magazine, Bravery’s Kickstarter

Joy: family time, Acai BowlsHustle: Big Magic, How I Made This

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for any length of time, then you know that we’re not fans of discounting.

Here are some of the reasons why discounting is bad news for your business:

1. Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) are increasing across the board.
2. Discounting creates a race to the bottom in your industry.
3. Pricing too low attracts the wrong customers.
4. Selling cheap products tarnishes your brand.

What should you do instead? Differentiate yourself with these strategies:

1. Tell your story. Share your essence.
2. Create unique offerings in your niche.
3. Bundle! Keep the price the same, but add something extra to it.

“Just is a word that minimizes whatever follows. And somehow I got it in my head that adding that little ‘just’ in there made whatever request I had smaller, easier to handle, and less of an inconvenience to whoever I was emailing. Basically, it’s another word for sorry.” - Chelsea Stone

The podcast gets personal this week. After releasing more than 60 episodes, we want to check in about the observation that we use a lot of qualifiers like “just” and “actually” in our speech and dialog with one another. We know we do it, we know that it’s an expression of internalized sexism, and we believe that it undermines our authority.

“It’s not a huge deal, is it? But language shapes consciousness...” - Tracy Moore

This episode is our commitment to doing better, owning our power, and standing in our leadership. Want to join us?

Joy: Just Not Sorry (Chrome Extension)Hustle: 'Just' Say No, Google Exec: Women, Stop Saying 'Just' So Much, You Sound Like Children