5 experts give their best tips for creative business owners
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There’s tons of advice out there for creative business owners, but unfortunately, most of it sucks. I wanted to cut through all of the bad business advice that we see out there on the internet and get straight to the good stuff. So I asked our guest experts what their best advice is for someone running a business, right now. So if you are running a business, thinking about running a business or have been running a business for a while, you definitely want to be tuning in to today’s episode. Let’s go ahead, dive straight in and hear what they have to say.
This season’s experts:
Katelyn began her career in marketing and public relations in Nashville, Tennessee. After working in the agency world for six years, she decided to pursue the entrepreneurship route to create more freedom and flexibility in her life. Now, Katelyn works as an Online Business Manager where she helps entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize the backend of their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front. A Georgia grad, she bleeds red and black and is a diehard Georgia football fan, dog mom and outdoor enthusiast.
Visit Katelyn: Website | Instagram
Megan is a Life and Business Coach that specializes in helping online course creators, coaches, and service providers build a scalable, sustainable, and enjoyable business… without sacrificing their personal life!
She does this through her coaching program, Empowered CEO™, and her weekly live show, The Productive Life.
Megan has a Master’s Degree in Organizational and Human Resource Development, corporate Human Resources and Recruiting experience, and has been helping online business owners streamline and systemize their businesses since 2015.
Visit Megan: Website | Empowered CEO |Facebook Group
Quinn Tempest is a business strategist and coach who helps females founders create more purpose + profit in their business *without* burning out. She’s the founder of Create Your Purpose®, a community of global entrepreneurs dedicated to building impactful businesses with intention. Her professional expertise is in branding and holistic digital marketing strategy and she is a frequent speaker at events and organizations around the country.
Visit Quinn: Website | Instagram
Alisha Robertson is an author, business coach and the founder of Living Over Existing; a podcast, newsletter and community for women entrepreneurs who want to run a successful business without sacrificing the life she desires.
After experiencing severe burnout, Alisha tore down everything she thought she knew about becoming a successful entrepreneur and decided to build a brand that helped women to focus on building their business and life with intention. Through her work, Alisha strives to not only help women entrepreneurs to launch, grow and scale their brands but also help them to prioritize themselves in the process.
Visit Alisha: Website | LOE Collective | LOE Instagram
Jordan Gill, operations consultant and founder of Systems Saved Me, helps overworked one-woman shows become streamlined solopreneurs. Her jam is creating a cohesive operating system for managing your tasks, files and inbox. She’s been on podcasts like What Works and CEO Vibes sharing her love of replacing monthly retainers with one day virtual intensives. She currently lives in Dallas TX with her cavapoo Vivienne and collection of 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles.
Visit Jordan: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Erin Flynn:
Hey there, Erin here, and today I wanted to cut through all of the bad business advice that we see out there on the internet and get straight to the good stuff. So I asked our guest experts what their best advice is for someone running a business, right now. So if you are running a business, thinking about running a business or have been running a business for a while, you definitely want to be tuning in to today’s episode. Let’s go ahead, dive straight in and hear what they have to say.
Katelyn Hamilton:
Hi, this is Katelyn Hamilton and I’m an OBM and marketing strategist. The best piece of advice that I can give you in terms of running an online business, would be to hire support in your business. So whether that is a mentor or coach, which I highly recommend, really you have that experience from somebody that’s been there before that is successful, that’s walked through some of the challenges you’re currently walking through or is experiencing or has experienced something similar. Or in terms of support, you can hire a team. I have a wonderful team under me. Every successful entrepreneur, I know has a team. You have to get out of that mindset of doing it all alone, and sometimes you have to invest before you’re ready. That goes all across the board between coaching support and hiring support in your business. That’s really because that allows you to feel supported, allows you to stay in your zone of genius, allows you to be just creative and create space to better serve your clients, whoever they are.
I think that without support in your business, it oftentimes leads to lack of prioritization and disorganization and you can kind of let your mindset go and let your mindset get the best of you. Whereas if you have like a coach or a mentor that can kind of bring you back, keep you focused and you have a team that can support you in staying organized and on top of those things that you need to get done, those are critical to me in terms of having and seeing success in my business and it really is what propelled me forward in terms of growth with my own business, from both a clientele standpoint, as well as an income standpoint. So I highly recommend hiring that support in your business and you can do so again, in any way that makes sense to you.
I really recommend kind of looking at, as you’re hiring out support, what you don’t like doing in your business the most, what takes the most time, what is not in your zone of genius and finding somebody that specializes in that in a niche way, that you can pass off that work to somebody else. The other thing that you can do is also hire a generalist virtual assistant. They can help you with a number of tasks of different kinds, maybe it’s graphic, social scheduling, content organization, scheduling for other clients, whatever it may be, in your business that you need support around and take off some of that workload from you to again, give you more time and space in your business. So if you are interested in staying connected with me, you can follow me on Instagram at Katelyn, K-A-T-E-L-Y-N E Hamilton, or you can go to my website at www.katelynehamilton.com.
Megan Minns:
This is Megan from MeganMinns.com and I am a life and business coach for online business owners who are looking to grow and run their scalable and sustainable business in a way that’s actually enjoyable. When it comes to running an online business today, I think the single best advice I could give to anyone, regardless of what stage you are at, is to take imperfect, fast action. I am a recovering perfectionist, and I absolutely did the opposite for many years in my business. I took slow, slow, slow, slow, perfect action and that really, really delayed me. It also made me get really caught up in over-analyzation, spending way too much time getting stuff done, slow progress, hypercritical of my own self, feeling like I was never good enough and I could go on and on, but ultimately it wasn’t a good way to approach my business.
I run into a lot of clients who are actually still running their business with that perfectionist attitude, even if they don’t view themselves as perfectionists. They often say things like I can’t launch that new course until X, Y, and Z, until all the curriculum is done, until I have more experience, until I… And that is how you know you are not taking fast imperfect action. I love getting to encourage my clients to go faster than they initially thought they could and let’s see what we can learn because the truth is that, even if you try to be perfect, whenever you do launch that thing, whenever you do finally start that YouTube channel, the act of doing is where you learn so, so much. The act of taking a client through a process is where you refine the process, not by thinking about it.
I really want you to start taking fast, imperfect action so that you can start to learn the lessons you need to learn sooner and not to get trapped in slowing yourself down and waiting to learn those lessons, months or potentially years down the line. So fast, imperfect action can mean starting to sell your new offer before the curriculum is done. It can mean launching something without having a perfect sales page. It can mean doing a recording like this, the way that I am, where I know I’m not speaking completely perfectly, or I may need to take a breath and I don’t go back and re-record, and I do the same thing for my weekly live show, The Productive Life Podcast. I do it live because it helps me show up imperfectly and not overanalyze, compared to when I do prerecorded content.
So it can look a lot of different ways and a lot of different times, but regardless, I would love for you to experiment, if you’re not ready for it yet to do it fully, but at least experiment with fast, imperfect action in one area of your business. So is there one project you’ve been wanting to do, like launching a podcast or starting a YouTube channel or creating a new service or offer, you’ve been waiting to do it for some reason. I would love for you to pick that one project and do it fast. I launched my podcast in less than 30 days with this same experimental approach and it was a life changer for me. By being able to go through that and let go of all of the best strategies and not worry about doing everything perfectly and just do what I could in the time I allotted and get launched, it changed my life and business forever.
So I would love for you to pick one project or one area of your business, commit to fast, imperfect action and see what’s possible for you. I would love to see you in our free Facebook community, The Empowered Entrepreneurs Community. So you can go to MeganMinns.com/Community and join our free Facebook group. I do weekly live shows in there, and we are there to support you in your mission to not only grow a business, but also to take imperfect action. Hopefully I see you there.
Quinn Tempest:
Hey everybody, this is Quinn Tempest. I help female founders create more purpose and profit through their businesses and their entire lives. Today I want to share with you my best advice for someone running an online business today, which is probably you. And here it is, I am gesticulating, you can’t see me, but my hands are up and this is what I’m saying. Do not do it alone. Ask for help, get support, join a community. Don’t be afraid to get help. I wish I knew this sooner. For the longest time, I almost wore doing it alone like a badge of honor. I thought, “Oh, I don’t need anyone. I can figure this out on my own. Why go and pay someone to give me their expert advice and make things easier for myself?” But you know what? I crashed and burned so many times doing that.
I burned out numerous times. I learned my lesson and then I’d unlearn it and then I’d have to relearn it again, that I can’t do everything alone. The best way that I learned this was I was at a pivot point, a couple of years ago in my business. I knew that I wanted to start shifting away from my business model at the time, which was a hundred percent services, web design, branding, and strategy and I wanted to do more speaking. I was already speaking out on stages. I loved it. I wanted to teach more online and I also wanted to create some kind of community. I didn’t know what that was at the time, but I knew that if I tried to muscle it out and figure it out all on my own, it could take me years. So what I did was I started looking for what I needed and to be honest, I didn’t know what I needed.
This is really all I knew, I needed someone that could take my ideas and make sense of it. That’s really it. I didn’t know if that was a business coach. I didn’t know what the term was. I needed to type into Google to figure out. So really what I did was I started looking on Facebook groups. I started asking people, I was like, “What is the person I need to help me do this?” And randomly I was on a website of a woman whose course I took, and I just really loved her approach, I felt safe and comfortable in it. I liked it. So I found that she had designed a website for someone who was, she called herself a community strategist. I was like, “Ooh, that’s interesting.” She happened to be the person that helped the course teacher that I was taking the course from, create that whole experience, which I obviously loved.
So I went to this woman’s website, her name’s Sophie. I don’t know if she’s listening to this, but hi Sophie. I went to her website and I immediately knew, this is the woman I need. She touched on everything that I needed and this idea that I have, community, education, thought leadership, and she would help me pull together that strategy. So I contacted her. We went back and forth for a little bit, and I ended up signing a contract, the most I ever spent on my business since and before, and it was the best decision I ever made because I felt seen, I felt heard, I had someone to listen to my ideas, make sense of them, and then kind of put them through a little machine in her brain, to come out on the other side with something even better. That was something that was so hard for me for so long, to trust that this even was possible.
You know what? I went into her thinking, “Oh, I want to create like an Instagram course. Can you help me with that? I think there’s going to be a community portion in it.” After 90 days, I still remember after our last working session, we got to do, went up to Seattle, we kind of did this session, I left there and it was very poetic. I was in an Uber driving to the airport and snow started falling, and I thought to myself, I just sketched out the next 5 to 10 years of my business, all from investing in support and investing in someone that would hear me and listen to me. What started as an Instagram course, did not end up that way. It ended up being so much more and something that I’m truly, truly excited about. So really, that’s my biggest advice is, reach out, whatever stage you’re in, reach out.
It doesn’t have to be a paid investment at first, if you can’t handle that, but get support, talk to people who understand you because the online business world can be lonely. I’m guessing you don’t know many people like you in your local vicinity. I don’t. So reach out online. Be heard, connect with people like you. I promise, you won’t regret it. I’ve got quite a few resources on my website with advice and resources about running an online business. So head over there, I am at QuinnTempest.com. There’s even a quiz you can take to uncover your purpose. So head there, QuinnTempest.com and explore what I’ve got for you.
Alisha Robertson:
Hey guys, I’m Alisha Robertson, founder of LivingOverExisting.com, and my biggest piece of advice that I could give online business owners is to put your blinders on. When I say put your blinders on, I mean, focus on your work, stop peeking over into what your favorite entrepreneur is doing or what your favorite entrepreneur is offering and how they’re offering it, or the type of content that they’re creating. Yes, it’s okay to look to these people for inspiration. Yes, it’s great for motivating yourself, but at some point you have to stop consuming so much information or consuming so much of what everyone else is doing, because it’s going to eventually have you looking at your own work as if it’s not good enough or as if it’s not big enough or impactful enough, or making a big enough difference, and you don’t want that to happen.
If you don’t have a large audience, or if you don’t have all these resources that you can use in your business, that doesn’t make it any less impactful, or it doesn’t even say that you can’t be any less successful as those other people, but the only way that you can really concentrate on your own work and make sure that you’re pouring all of your time into what you are doing and what you are creating is to put your blinders on. I did not put my blinders on for a very long time in my business and because of that, I fell really hard for the hustle culture. I ended up burning out and also I was essentially building a business around someone else’s idea of success because I saw a particular business model working for everyone else. I saw a particular marketing strategy working for everyone else, and I really struggled to ignore that because they were so successful and I want it to be so successful.
It was hard for me to ignore that. So I kept trying doing what they were doing and I ended up just being really burnt out and completely over the business that I was building because it wasn’t what I really wanted. So once I was able to put my blinders on and fully focused on the work that I was doing and why I wanted to do it, I felt so much more free, marketing became easier, the day-to-day tasks became easier. Money began to flow easier.
So my biggest takeaway for you, my biggest piece of advice for you, is to put your blinders on. Yes, I know, these other people, these other resources are amazing for motivation and to really get you up and going, but at some point you do have to put your blinders on and focus on your own work so that you can be fully present in the work that you’re doing, and you can be fully present in your own growth. I hope that was helpful. If you guys would like to chat more about this, you can find me on Instagram at TheAlishaNicole, or you can head over to LivingOverExisting.com to learn more about me and what I do.
Jordan Gill:
Hi, Jordan Gil from Systems Saved Me. The best, best, best, best, best advice that I can give someone running an online business is to connect with individuals who again, can either be colleagues, collaborators, because there’s something about other people sharing about you or promoting your stuff that gives you more trust leverage than you talking about yourself, or doing the things that are a little bit more automated. Not that you can’t get away with automations right away, like Facebook ads or Pinterest ads, however, I have really put a ton of focus on connections and collaborations and for me, to be able to build the types of marketing strategies that I’ve been able to, really thoroughly rooted in organic opportunities is because of the relationships that I have. People trust me and I trust them and I found it to be the most valuable part of my business, and if I didn’t have those relationships, if I didn’t nurture them and cultivate them, then business would be pretty lonely and it’d be a lot harder to do things that I want to do in business.
So I would say, I’ve honestly found a lot of my closest friends in free Facebook groups. I have found them at live or virtual events. I have connected with them, I was on their podcast once, and instead of just being like, “All right, I was on their podcast, bye,” why not actually find more commonalities and find ways to connect and collaborate. I say that all the time, but I think that people really miss out on a lot of opportunities because they basically one and done everybody on the internet. I’m always looking to re-engage, nurture and support other business owners, and I think that that shows in the amount of collaborations that we do in our business and that I’m promoting et cetera, so that would be my best advice for somebody. If you want to connect or talk or find more resources, you can go to SystemsSavedMe.com or find me on Instagram to DM at SystemSavedMe.
Erin Flynn:
Hey, it’s Erin again, and I have a loved hearing all of this advice from our experts, but now we want to hear from you. So head over to SuccessfullySimple on Instagram and let us know what your best business advice is. We’d love to hear from you and learn from you. I’ll see you over on Instagram.
