Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth

Alrighty babes, today we are getting super nerdy. We are bringing you some stats and some numbers, all in the hopes of giving you a little peek into why we do what we do. Because of what is going on in the world of small businesses, we hope to give you some motivation, a little bit of fire under your booty to keep doing the work, to keep being boss, to keep running your business, strategizing, and continually doing better at whatever it is that you are taking on.Uncovering what our mission is and why it is what it is, we know that you will come out with a little bit of clarity on getting to the heart of your business and being able to voice it to other people. We have dug deep and done our research, and the bottom line is that there are not enough women business owners out there who are successful enough to be profitable enough to contribute to society, contribute to their families, and contribute to changing the stats across the United States! We hope that hearing these numbers inspires you to find your own mission, and living out your why.Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you been aiming to become the face of your business, but just not sure how exactly to do it? Well, you are in luck! In this episode we have our friend Mallika from MikiFoto with us and that is precisely what she is coming on to share with you guys today. We got to meet Mallika last year at The Savvy Experience and have loved watching as she shifted her business to do more lifestyle branded headshots and photography for small businesses and creative entrepreneurs.In our chat with Mallika, we jump into the importance of being the face of your business, exactly what you should be doing to find the right photographer for you, how to prepare for your shoot, what to wear, and how to make these photos last longer than three months. We also get into the most important shots you need for your business so that you can take away from this photo session exactly what you need to prosper online. We are super excited for you to listen more, because she’s legit, guys. So get excited!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For today’s episode, maybe have a glass of wine when while you’re listening to it. Kick back in your PJ’s, just chill, and be with us for a second. We are getting super real today. Not that we are any less real any other day, but we are taking it way back today.We hear so often that lives on Instagram look fancier than they are, and that Facebook portrays a certain façade. However, we are also really are in tune with being authentic for you guys and portraying our real selves as much as we can. We show our real selves as we are now and I think sometimes we forget where people have come from and what they have gone through in order to get to be where they are today. So that is exactly what we are doing today.We are going to share all the way back to when we were little wee babies and perhaps you can relate to some of the things that we bring up. Hopefully, you can begin to understand that it’s not just sparkles, unicorns, and Starbucks over here all the time. So grab some tissues, maybe some wine, and just hang out with us. Let’s get to know each other a bit.Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to: thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we have our little country soul sister, Jessica Stansberry, from Oh Hey Jessica on the show. We are super excited for you to dive into this episode. Pre-warning, grab your sweet tea, grab some lemonade, grab a biscuit, and kick your feet up on a porch because her accent is going to want to make you go all Sweet Home Alabama style.In today’s episode, we are talking about niching down and what it can do for your business, how exactly Jessica went about doing this, and how it helped her business to grow. We also dive into some of the things she was able to accomplish because of it, what you might be able to do as a newbie, and what you can do if you’ve already started your business. Finally, we find out how you might build and see success and whether or not it is possible to niche down too far. We definitely get a little crazy inside this episode, so get ready to dive right in!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the podcast we are getting into a little inception. We are talking about podcasting whilst podcast, which is going deep, you guys. In today’s episode we are revealing the truth behind podcasting, why we even started, how much all this should cost, and our entire process of how we go from idea to getting it uploaded to iTunes, on the blog, and all of that good stuff.Whether you are looking for fast growth, or whether you are looking to build a foundation by starting a podcasting, keep in mind, it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg to make it happen. So if this is something that you’ve been mulling around in your head, maybe we can be the voice of reason to tell you everything that is in store and whether or not this is the right move for you and your business.Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com.To download the transcript of this episode head to: thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I hope you have some pink on because we have Melissa Johnson of Best Friends for Frosting on the podcast today. This woman is bubbly and sparkly, and she loves all things sugar coated and confetti covered. Melissa started her blog after realizing the earning potential of the industry and found herself best-suited in the role of creative director of this lifestyle business. With Melissa, you will get a peek inside a successful lifestyle brand. We’re talking four straight years of making six figures! She doesn’t mess around. She is working on sponsor content, surveying her audience, expanding her team, and we’re talking about all those things inside this episode today.For those of you who think that a money generating lifestyle blog or brand is out of your reach, we would love for you to sit down and give this one a listen and maybe learn that with some strategy and the right tools, you can actually make that happen.Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the podcast, we are getting a little “woo-woo”. We’re connecting to the universe, checking in with ourselves, and getting right into talking about affirmations today and specifically how affirmations can be integrated as part of your everyday routines. We show you just how simple and easy it is, as well as the impacts that they have had on us personally as business owners in regards to growth, stats, and all the good feelings.We break down how we use them and how we integrate them into our routines so you can start to do it too. Specifically, we identify how affirmations can start to kind of tap in and shift and change that icky imposter syndrome that a lot of us, especially as creatives, deal with. There are some days you just wake up and you don’t feel like you deserve what you have been given in this world or you feel like you are not as good as the way other people treat you. That’s icky and you don’t deserve to feel that way, ever. So we are going to help do the mindset work that is going to help you to create a daily routine, to help you have a better mindset and a better outlook on your business.Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the podcast we get to chat with Lauren Taylor of Trend Magazine and Lauren is such a sweetheart! We have known her for almost a year now and have been following her and all she does with her magazine. We are absolutely thrilled to see her growth and all of the amazing accomplishments she has had in such a short time. We dive into the super sexy topic of becoming an Instagram influencer. We get a ton of questions about this and many people wanting to incorporate being an influencer into their brands.Lauren shares exactly how she has been able to nail down big brands like Aerie and Campbell’s Soup. She breaks down all the steps that she takes in initiating that conversation, how to build that foundation, how she plans out her content calendar and takes the images, plus all of the tips and tricks that she has been using to grow the influencer side of her brand. She even reveals why she does not actually call herself a “social media influencer” and how that can actually have a better impact on your brand. So get your notebook out because there are a lot of action steps in this episode, seriously!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder how to go about growing your business and which strategy to pursue? Maybe you feel stuck and you are at the breaking point where something’s got to give. Well, today on the podcast we jump into exactly how to scale and grow your team and the questions you need to be asking yourself before you even realize whether a team is the right move for you. Because some of you, the team might not be the answer; it just might be what you think is the answer.We dive right into the nitty-gritty details of how much you should be spending on new team members, how much you should be paying them, and of course, what the differences are between employees and contractors. We also tackle some of the fears and mentality shifts of what it means to run a team inside your own business. Specifically, we narrow it down so you can find out for yourself whether you are ready for a team, how to make that actually happen, and the critical questions you should be asking. So hang on tight, and join us as we dive into some killer growth strategy!Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We first discovered Jeff on Instagram. Jeff is a photographer who loves to take a lot of architectural images, and so naturally we fell in love with his work. Not long after, we discovered his wife, Kelly, and we just absolutely had to follow them both! We followed their work for a year and a half before reaching out to them, and it’s been such a fun journey getting know them on a more personal level, getting the inside scoop on how their business actually runs.If you know of Studio DIY, you know very much that they have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, and that their DIY blog is pretty outstanding. In our talk with them, we discover more about their journey of what the early days of Studio DIY looked like, how they were beginning to build sponsorship and affiliate relationships, and how they decided what to charge. They also share what it was like branching out and creating their own physical product line.Since then they’ve done a lot of growth and implemented tons of incredible strategies in their business to make it what it is today. So if you are a DIY’er yourself, you absolutely have to give this one and listen! Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, rate and review The Strategy Hour Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. For show notes go to thestrategyhour.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices