Start-Up Speakeasy #033

http://kristyoustalet.com/33

Whether you’re a full time entrepreneur or you have a side hustle business, we all have one thing in common: being creative takes TIME.

...you can’t always crank something out in an hour.

As your business begins to grow- you get busier and unless you work with your right brain train it how to be more productive, you’ll be lost in a sea of overwhelm.

Whether you’re a writer, designer photographer, service provider or product creator this quick productivity lesson is for you.

To sign up for the 90 Day Challenge visit: http://kristyoustalet.com/33

#podcast

Our guest this week is Miranda Writer- she is a certified financial planner and founder of She & Money.com where she works with entrepreneurs and professionals on Financial Planning.

In this episode Miranda and I dive into the top three money woes that entrepreneurs face or the most common questions around money and money management:

• when should we spend and invest in our biz… so when are we thinking too small or when are we going over board splurging on our businesses?
• How to plan for varying income… whether your business is seasonal or depends on a few launch cycles each year- we talk about a great approach to plan for this situation.
• And whether your just starting out in business or if you're launching a new line or program, what is the best way to set budgets and goals without pulling numbers out of thin air.

The Start-Up Speakeasy | Episode #031

Show Notes: http://kristyoustalet.com/31

Guest: Liz Lockard

Host: Kristy Oustalet

Liz works with small business owners drive the right kind of traffic to their wesbites and get more out of that traffic through online marketing Analytics and SEO Strategies.

Oh, and I did I mention she makes it super approachable? Hallelujah!

SEO Food for Thought:

There are over a billion searches each month on google

Think about your own buying process. How much do you rely on google when making a purchase?

Here's where to start:

Make sure that you know what you offer and who your customer is on an instinctive level

What words do YOU use vs. What phrases do THEY use?

Keyword- the phrases that you type into google

Super Simple Format for SEO- to cover your bases

On-site Methods

Doing stuff on your site to better optimize for ideal phrases that customers are searching

- use google keyword planner and find your ideal clients keyword phrases

- how to optimize a page on the site

- use those words in the URL on the page

- Use those words in the title of the page

- Use it naturally within the post

- above all, you're writing for your idea client

2. Offsite Methods:

finding websites that are seen as strong by google as well as where your ideal clients are hanging out

- guest posting is an easy way

- opensite explorer.org put in your domain name and the domain of another site and take a look at their domain authority number to figure out which ones to pursue

Most common SEO mistakes:- choosing 3 phrases to rank for- ideally each page has its own key phrase

- operating without a plan- she helps clients walk through with a gameplan and content map to keyword optimize

- once you have the plan, it's a matter of taking a min with each post and making sure it fits the efforts of the plan

Top 3 Takeaways:

1. Make sure you know the phrases that your customers are using... if you don't know start eavesdropping in community forums, hosting free calls or send out a survey.

2. Plus those words into the Keyword Planner and see where they match up in volume of google. You're looking for a good balance between relevance of phrases

3. Start to think about what off-site opportunities your have and how they fit

Links mentioned in the show can be found at http://kristyoustalet.com/31

Episode #030 the Start-Up Speakeasy

Guest: Shana LaFore

Shana LaFore started her career in the world of art and furniture design. After managing a high-end design showroom, then later transitioned her sales and business expertise into mentoring other creative types.

In this episode, we talk about how Shana challenges herself to take on big projects and continues to push the limits of her business and the unconventional methods she uses to get the word out and get people on board with her craziest ideas.

6 Steps to Make Your Crazy Ideas Contagious:

1. Step away to get a better perspective on things during the process

2. Tell your story + tell it often

3. Show your passion in your business and others will 'buy in'

4. Be open and honest about it and ask for help

5. Remember, doing what's right on paper doesn't always work

6. Make it easy for your audience + collaborators to share

Walk in their shoes... Make them feel welcome, important and like an honored guest.

- Make it fun and easy for them

- see it as having a guest in your home

- do good work + pay attention to the details

- Make people feel good when they work with you

Show notes are linked up at http://kristyoustalet.com/30

http://youtu.be/G9I3nQwLiqg

#podcast #videopodcast #smallbusiness

Episode #029 The Start-Up Speakeasy (formerly ACE)

Guest: Darlene Hildebrandt

Host: Kristy Oustalet

Show Notes linked up at: http://kristyoustalet.com/29

Darlene has been a professional photographer for over 26 years, her career has evolved through gallery exhibitions, wedding photography and now she teaches others her photo skills.

Before we dive into her photography to use in our businesses, I love the fact that Darlene has continuously grown and reinvented her creative career. She puts it best by saying, "If you don't try new things all the time no matter what business you're in... you stagnate."

By challenging herself and experimenting with her business ideas, Darlene has evolved her business to focus primarily on online photography courses and photography excursion courses to places like Cuba and Nicaragua.

Think about it... if you want your business to take you to unexpected places, how can you challenge the direction of your next business move?

As an entrepreneur, photography and creating images have become major factors and we're all feeling the pressure to be 'photographers' for our websites, blogs and various social media platforms.

Lucky for us, Darlene is here to give us a few bootstrapping tips and image alternatives.

First things first: repeat after me:

It's NOT okay to grab images off of the internet and use them on your blog, most of the time this includes if you give credit under the photo. This is a copyright infringement.

Darlene's Guide to Images (the legit way)

A great alternative to Photoshop is picmonkey.com. This website has a lot of photo editing and text overlay capabilities that are user-friendly and free!

Use your own cell phone images when you can and pair them with simple apps like instagram to add filters or text to images. This way, you never have to worry about overstepping copyright boundaries.

Get images for free properly and legally:

purchase stock images or monthly membership packages such as photo

Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to using full copyrighted images

Flickr has a Creative Commons account where it is clearly stated how to can use other photos and how to use them properly.

500px -- a photo sharing site provides an embed code to an image so that the it links back to the proper credit to the site.

Show Notes linked up at: http://kristyoustalet.com/29

Melissa Burkenheimer is a graphic designer who after working for a design firm, realized that there was little room for growth… it was time to be resourceful and tap into creative ways of finding her own clients.

She started as an ambitious freelance graphic designer with nothing more than a few grassroots marketing strategies up her sleeve. She rush printed a stack of business cards and headed out to networking events and Chamber of Commerce meetings.

She rolled up her sleeves and did the work. Melissa built relationships, connected with other small business owners and really put herself out there. Eventually, her old school tactics worked and she gained steady traction in her business.

Over time, she expanded her offerings, grew her business and gained a handful of noteworthy clients such as Sean Malarkey and James Wedmore.

What happens when you get a few spectacular clients referring you to their friends? It’s time to upgrade your systems, up your game and work through some growing pains.

This week’s episode dives behind the scenes of Melissa dealing with recent growing pains in her business. Most of the things we chat about are great things to consider when working with clients at any phase in your business.

Be comfortable with putting yourself out there + sharing your story

Know your worth + Accept that you are worth the prices you charge

Figure out how you want to work with people. For instance: one-on-one, in a group or downloadable products. Do you want to work with someone for an hour, a month or a year?

Know where you get your customers… is it where everyone says they are? For Melissa, building a list wasn’t a priority- her bread-n-butter came from building relationships. How can you use your strengths to find customers?

Ask them how do they like to work? How do they like to communicate? Each customer is different… “You have to adapt to what works for your clients to get the results that you want”

Ask your customers for feedback… how can I do better?

Take your time and figure out the best possible way to do things, then act on them and put them into action.

Set business and money goals for growth. This can be tricky in the beginning, but setting goals makes you hustle and add structure to get your business to the next level.

Guest: Allie LeFevereEpisode #27

When you’re a solopreneur, putting your business ‘out there’ is equivalent to having your craziest ideas on a platter for everyone to see (and judge). When you’re the only one working on your business, promoting your business… even talking about your business feels very vulnerable.

I mean, you bought a domain with yourname.com ((hyperventilate)). This shit is real.

Are people going to care?Are they going to listen?Do they care what I have to say?

My guest this week is Allie LeFevre an amazingly spunky life coach who’s an old pro at tackling vulnerability in business. In this episode we dive into areas where we’ve each felt exposed with our businesses and what came out of it… the good, the bad, and the ugly.

On the flip-side of feeling like you want to bury yourself alive, some amazing aspects that only being vulnerable can bring out are:

• Connecting with your audience
• Showcase your voice
• Open a dialog to get to know your audience more fully
• Understand your peeps and truly connect rather than aimlessly create content

*Spoiler Alert*Ultimately you're going to find the people that respond to YOU + suddenly you’ll kick your business up to the next level.

Convinced?

Allie’s 3 Ways to find your voice:

1. Go beyond the avatar/ ideal client exercises + talk to someone like you know them.Write to them like they’re your best friend.

2. When you're writing, do a brain dump then circle back and edit.

3. Don’t be afraid to be raw and real and honest… you’re a work in progress. (<-- love that!)

Its important to infuse yourself into everything you do- you want your work to have personality.

Episode #026Guest: Lindsay Goldner Brand Strategist + Graphic Designer

Lindsay is a talented, self-taught Graphic Designer and a Brand Strategist and one of her favorite platforms to drive fresh faces to her website is: Pinterest. With over 130 Boards and 11,000+ pins, she's an avid pinned to say the least. She's been an active user for the last three years, and today she shares why she loves Pinterest so much and how she uses it as a tool to drive traffic to her site, collaborate with clients, and spread the word about her visual brand.

First things first- Set up your Pinterest account as a business:

• Sign up for a business account (instead of as a personal user)
• Verify your website (gives you access to analytics and insights)Another way to see insights is through Tailwind, a free program that tracks where you’re getting the most action which pins are directing people to your site. This let’s you know what people are responding most so you can focus on that and eliminate what doesn't.
• Add a 'Pin It' button to your siteLindsay talks about the ins and outs of these steps, but if you need a step-by-step tutorial, click here.

Lindsay's Pinterest Tips:

Create one image per blog post that you can load to interest and link to the post. When you add that image to your post (on your blog) make the image pinnacle. It can be as simple as an image with a little text on top.

Custom Cover Designs- by creating new cover images, you can link those images back to your site (just change the source of your image). It also brands your profile and coordinates with your website. This looks so professional, doesn't it?

Cover Image Dimensions: 217x147

Don’t be clever with your titles! People won’t find you in search results.

Get specific with boards- this helps to keep your boards organized for you to find things, but also good for people to be able to choose the right board of yours to follow.

Pay attention to descriptions.

• Write clear descriptions of your boards, in simple terms to be searchable.
• Pay attention to descriptions on your individual pins and even re-pins.

If youre just starting out and need followers:Find a couple of board that have a significant number of pins in the area that you like and start repining. That will help you get started with content and get you into relevant searches and find you organically.

Guest: Luz Donahue - Social MediaHost: Kristy Oustalet

A.C.E. Episode #025 Show Notes: http://kristyoustalet.com/25

So, you’re posting on social and trying to get a following… so you start poking around the web to find other small business owners who are ‘knocking it out the park’.

You take notes + adjust their posting formula to fit your topic + post your heart out.

You wait… Then, you hear nothing but sounds of their ‘Like’ notifications ringing in your head like a winning slot machine. For you, crickets. Nada.

What the?

How come what works for them doesn’t work for me? Well, you’re not ‘them’ + your peeps want you- not an imitation of them.

Now what?

My guest this week is Luz Donahue, a Self Promotion Liberator and she’s here to de-stress the process of marketing and have it reflect you + who you are. Because as we know, when you’re effort is geared towards copying other people- it just doesn’t work.

My favorite point in the show is when Luz says: “Social media is not about making all of your followers happy, it’s about you finding the people who are interested in + who you are and in what you do + have those needs [that you serve]”

Luz’s Guided Exercise: “What to post on social media by being you”

(and naturally attract the right people)

First: Divide your paper into 3 columns : Me | Them | Us

In the ME Column:write down 20 things (no censoring)- What do you talk to your girlfriends about? What do you talk to your buddies about? What are personal things about you?Goal- get all of the things that are important to you (whether you feel like they are related on not) jot them down.

In the THEM Column:Write down 20 things- what else is going on in their life other than what you do. Focus on what else is going on in their life other than what you do.

Not just the needs that you can meet- what else is going on in their life? What’s important to them?Anything that you feel like they may be going through or may be interested inRemember: Stream of Consciousness- No second guessing!

In the US Column: Jot down what problems you exclusively solve, what makes you different? What is it that you do in your space that would attract people in the ‘them’ column?What can you solve for them? What do you bring to the table?

The Final Step: Pick between 3-5 from each section.

1. What are you trying to sell right now? What is most important? Post about things from your list that are relative.
2. Look at what you’re not comfortable with and cross it out.
3. Cross off what doesn’t fit right now.

Guest: Amanda Lo - CPAHost: Kristy Oustalet

Episode #024Show Notes for this episode are linked up at http://kristyoustalet.com/24

My guest this week is Amando Lo, and she does what we creatives generally find cringe-worthy… she’s a CPA that manages the books and records for small businesses.

Lucky for you and me, that there are people like her in the world in that handle these sort of things for us right-brainers.

She realizes that small business owners simply don’t have the time to properly keep track of their books, and takes care of it so that you can focus on what you do best + grow your business.

Oh, man. I feel lighter already…

Amanda walks us through some accounting fundamentals and deductions that likely affect your business.

It’s essential to have a business checking account that is separate from your personal. Not only does it make things easier to keep track of, but co-mingling your accounts can cause the IRS to discredit write-offs.

If you work out of a Home Office, keep these factors in mind:

• to deduct home office expenses, it has to be a defined separate space that is used exclusively for your business (no bed, no tv…)
• it also has to be the primary place for your business
• Square footage gives you the percentage of bills you can deduct or:
• You can claim a flat rate of $5/sq ft (up to 300 ft) can be a flat deduction without having to show any records
• Taking pictures of the space is generally a good idea to have proof if you should ever need it.

Good-to-know: Hobby Loss DeductionIf you are in your first few years of business and your expenses are higher than profits, you may qualify for a Hobby Loss deduction. Which means that you can write off the loss as a deduction as long as you can prove that it’s a legitimate business (and not just a hobby).

One of the most common first steps to growth is hiring contract labor (as opposed to hiring an employee). Remember: If you pay a contract employee more that $600 in a calendar year, then you have to give them a 1099 which can be easily done online.

If you're about to launch your business and have no idea where to start, do this:

• Create a Business Checking account at your bank
• EIN – Employee identification number that you can get through an online form
• Create an LLC- you can diy through the Secretary of State website (typically $100)This protects your personal property from liability that your business may have.

Need a great accountant? Here are a few ways to sniff out one that’s a good fit:

• Having a CPA license generally qualifies someone as being very capable and reputable
• Ask for recommendations- from biz friends or post in start-up community Facebook groups
• Look for accountants that enjoy working with micro-businesses and startups
• Set up meetings with a few accountants to find someone that you jive with