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Lesson Info

Simplify and Celebrate Your Progress

- [Instructor] We are almost done. I think we're pretty close to our goal, right? You guys feel like you can wake up and know what you're supposed to do? Awesome. So I just want to remind you, what do you do when you start to feel overwhelmed and frustrated? Because you're going to come out of here, and you're going to have this energy, and you're going to be like, "Okay. Now you told me to focus, and I know what I'm supposed to do." And then you're going to get served that ad for something else on Facebook that's like, "Come learn the strategy of how I made $6 million in 12 minutes," right? Or you're going to jump on Facebook for two seconds, and your going to see all these things that everyone else is doing for their business, and think like, "Shoot! Am I supposed to be doing those too?" Or you're just going to wake up one day and forget, and put 30 things on your to-do list, and then suddenly enter that perpetually stressed out mode. I think now it's really hard to get out of that s...

tressed out mode, right? You are here and there and you have to do everything. So what do you do? Go back to basics. This class is all about getting back to the essence of your business. Something to sell, and somebody to sell it to. Your craft, and your audience. Remember that, right? It's not about spending five hours on Facebook. What supports honing your craft and growing your audience? And so when you wake up every day, don't ask yourself, "What million things do I have to do today?" What can I do today to grow my audience? Go back to your notes. And again, most of these things are systems. So here's the beauty. Once you kind of get the groundwork in, it's repeat the process, right? Every week, you send the press pitch. Every day or once a week, you send those store emails. Success in business is not doing a million different things. It's actually having the focus and commitment to do the same things over and over again. That's what drives your business forward. I'm as guilty of it as anybody, right? You want to look for the quick fix. You want to chase the magic. "Oh, well this guy over here is talking about how he made like $8 million on Shopify in 12 seconds. I'm just going inch over here." No. Come back to the basics. Do the things that you know work, right? Email the store, email the list, send the pitch. Do the things that work, and just do them over and over and over again. And that's what builds the momentum, and then it actually gets easier, right? So once you have stores, that instead of having to always prospect for new ones, you get to just reach out to the ones you already have. When you hit a certain follower point on Instagram, it starts to get a little easier, right? When you have more followers on Pinterest, stuff gets seen more. Or when you understand search, once you kind of understand the process and you can hit on one thing, you can replicate it. The process gets easier every time. And then things start to go on autopilot. Tiffany talked about how she had her best holiday season ever because of search, even though she didn't know actual marketing during the holiday season. That's the power of having this focus. So asking yourself, "What can I do today to grow my audience? What can I do today to hone my craft?" Is it working on the photography? Is it giving yourself a little time to play? Is it diving deeper? What do you need to do? And really, if you guys are on make a living selling what you make, you know that this is really my favorite question, right? What can I do today to make money? Who can I email? What can I post? What can I do today to make money? What is one thing you can do today to either grow your audience or hone your craft? Rachelle. - [Rachelle] Figure out who my audience is is the number one job. So, and I want to make that really concrete because I like concrete actions. So, you're going to go on Instagram, and you're going to stalk that advanced style profile, and you're going to start to play around a little, and get a feel for that audience, right? - Yes. - I like really concrete things. Matt. - [Matt] Become a Pinterest master. - Your one thing is you're going to sign up for a Pinterest account. - Yeah. - Right? One thing. One thing. - Yeah. - Jordan. - [Jordan] I think finding some stores through Instagram or online just like getting a list of five stores. - You're going to raise your prices. - Yes. Okay, raise my prices. - [inaudible] first day. - And then oh... - because if you find... - ...and then start an email list. - Yes. You're going to raise your prices, and create a messaging account. Thank you. Caitlin. - [Caitlin] I have to actually raise my prices, and start building a store list. - Ida. - [Ida] I think I'm going to do search. I'm going to really go after the search. - Yeah. I'm actually really jazzed about. [crosstalk] I've worked too on that. Denise. - [Denise] I'm going to take these 11 pages of to-do lists that I have, and put them all into my planner, so that they actually happen, instead of staying in my notebook, and being a big list that stresses me out of a bunch of things that I need to do eventually. - Yes. Because that is the last thing I want. Is for you to leave this feeling stressed out, I want you to leave this feeling like empowered, and I got this. - I'm leaving today. I'm going to go sit somewhere, and put this all in my planner. - Awesome. - So it's going to happen. - Fantastic. All right. And I just want to remind you guys to always be releasing, right? Don't hold onto it until it's perfect. Rachelle, put that stuff out there, right? Get it out there. Share, let your audience see. And also, sometimes don't be afraid to remind people that things are for sale. Not, right? Remind your audience you have stuff to buy. So, I get when you come back to like, "What should I do today?" ask yourself if you released anything. The reason that I do my marketing in the morning is because then I know that when I went to the studio, something went out into the world. Every day, something goes out in the world for me. It might be a blog post, it might be an email. Sometimes, I'm really tired, and I go on Pinterest and I schedule a bunch of pins for one of my products, right? That so "I'm tired of marketing strategy." But something goes out every day for me. And then, once I did that, I can go to my studio, right? I can go do my work. So always be releasing. And remember, that incremental progress is progress. Right? It might feel like this wheel is turning really slowly. And you know what? Sometimes it does, but it's still progress. And I also want you to remember that every email sign up and every sale is a reason to celebrate, guys. Don't be like, "I can't share yet, my list is so small." If you have 12 people on your list, that is awesome. Twelve people like your stuff so much that they invited you into their inbox, and they want to hear from you again. Celebrate that, right? "Oh, I made a sale." Celebrate that. And don't discount sales from people that you know. I know people who are like, "Oh well, like it was just someone who knew me." I have a woman that I have literally known since the day she was born. Her mom and my mom were really close friends, they worked together before I was born. I have known this girl literally her entire life. She's like three years younger than me. She is my best customer by far. That is amazing, right? I don't care that she knows me, that's awesome. She loves my stuff, she buys it, celebrate that. Take the time to celebrate your successes. So really quickly, and actually I picked on the front most row, so I'm going to pick on the back row really fast. What is one success, what is one big aha, or one big success that you had in the last few days that you can celebrate? Honey. - [Honey] That I should be working on search more. - Good. So you have a direction, and it's not social media, right? That's exciting for you. - It is. - Nina. - [Nina] I actually found some awesome low competition keywords last night, which I'm very excited. Gave me ideas for some products. - That's amazing. So exciting. I hope Tiffany's watching right now. So psyched. Kat. - [Kat] I'm starting to get an idea of where my focus is going to go. - Yes. Fantastic. - [Female] Yes, the same because I'm at the beginning stages, you know. So now I know where to hone down on and begin. - Nice. Sarah. - [Sarah] Mine kind of came at the beginning. Just seeing the circle, and being like, yeah, I just need to grow my audience. Like the majority in my craft, like, my craft is kind of like it's always developing, but it doesn't have to be that 50/50. So, I feel like I can stop staring at the wall a little bit, wasting time and, like, actively grow my audience. - That is awesome. All right. And so, one more thing. Again, you can ignore the advice that doesn't work for you. You don't have to follow every guru on the Internet. You can even ignore my advice if it has nothing to do with the growth strategy that matters to you, right? I am super excited about Pinterest. I love Pinterest. But if that is not your growth strategy, you can ignore everything that I've ever said about Pinterest. Of course, that said, if you want to know more, there's a whole class on that you can buy, right? But if it's not your growth strategy, don't worry about it, right? So, ignore the advice that doesn't work for you. Focus here. Everything that we're doing here, there's a system. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. I spent a lot of time messing around and figuring things out so that you guys don't have to, right? I play around with a lot of things in my business so that I can come to you and say, "This is the most direct path forward." I'm still waiting for me to do that for me. I need a me and someone else over there. But I don't have that, but I do that for you. That is what I want to do. I want to save you all of the headache that I have. So, don't guess, just follow the systems, and do the work. And remember, every time, come back to this wheel. Your wheel may look a little different. Your piece maybe like Sarah's, most of it's on growing your audience. That's where you need to be, that's where you need to be. Maybe, you don't have a lot of financial pressure right now. Most of your wheel can be honing your craft, but come back to the basics, right? What you sell, who you sell it to. Your craft and your audience. And if you focus on those things, and you keep moving forward, you will be successful. And I cannot wait to see what all of you guys do with this information. Thank you so much. Hopefully, I'll see you guys soon in another CreativeLive class, but for now, that's a wrap.