Brandmerry Blog Archives
How Habits Play a Vital Role in Running a Successful Online Business: Part Two of Two
BY MICHELLE KNIGHT
In Part One, of our interview with Ash Wylder, Habits Mentor inside of Brandmerry Academy, we dove into a juicy conversation on designing your life for you!
Rather than reaching for things in life and business that feel expected of you, or what you "should" be doing, we can create sustainable businesses by acting out of alignment.
In Episode 46, we talked about the importance of having hobbies as a business owner, how to feel into what you truly want, and how small, actionable steps will play a vital role in your overall success.
Today, in Part Two of our interview we'll get super actionable with the steps!
Tune in now, to Episode 47, to hear:
How to color-code your calendar for energy expenditure, so you can make sure you're creating more harmony in life and business and don't burnout.
The truth about your time management, and how you're robbing yourself of progress by not taking time for breaks and vacation (hint: it's actually good for business).
The reality that your success as a business owner, the revenue and impact you desire to make, depends greatly on the choices you make outside of your work.
Tune in now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.
P.S. Ready to get your brand seen and paid without the pressure of social media? I'm teaching my top strategies inside of my new free class, "How to Build a Brand That Gets Seen and Paid!" You're invited to tune in and learn my signature 3-part framework for a sustainable 6-figure brand. Sign up to watch for free at Brandmerry.com/class
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
How to Plan Your Week as an Entrepreneur
As an entrepreneur, it's incredibly important how you plan your time. I often say that planning your time, planning your activities, isn't restricting what you do, but it gives you a roadmap that actually reduces the overwhelm. It creates less guessing in your day to day, in your week to week and in your month to month activities.
Today, I am going to share with you how I plan out a week in my business.
I often say that all the branding tips and all the marketing tips and the overall success of those different areas, come back to how you structure your schedule.
How are you planning your life?
How are you planning those activities?
So today I want to break down for you exactly how I plan an entire week in my business. I've got four points that I want to share with you and a bonus tip that's just going to help you with preparing for the week ahead.
PLANNING YOUR WEEK TIP #1: HAVE ONE AREA OF FOCUS
The very first tip that I have for you is to have one area of focus. Now in multiple videos that I have shared, I've got a six month video, I also have a brand new, quarterly planning video, I talk about reverse engineering.
The idea is that you take your end of the year goal, you then break that down into quarters, you then break that down into a month to month focus. And yes, you even break it down into a weekly focus. This has helped my business tremendously because I've got a lot going on.
We're worried about marketing, we're focusing on branding, we have our day to day activity, we've got our admin work. We've got to look at our money. We've got to look at our budget. We got to look at all the things. And those things are going to be happening week after week after week.
But we also need to be creating new things in our business. Maybe you want to launch a new funnel, maybe you want to create a new program, maybe you want to take on more clients. Whatever it is that you are doing, you need to make space for that. That's where the weekly focus comes into play.
This is something new that you are focusing on that steps away from the recurring task; admin work, client work, checking your email, all those fun activities that you've got to do. And it focuses more specifically on something new that you are creating.
So again, it's really important that you understand the bigger picture of the year goal, the quarterly goal and the monthly goal in order to figure out how you should be spending your energy and your focus this week.
For instance, maybe my focus this week is to update some trainings on the back end of my program, Brandmerry Academy, something that I need to do.
It's incredibly important for the success of my business, as well as client retention and my clients having success in their marketing and their branding. So that's something that I'm going to be focused on this week.
PLANNING YOUR WEEK TIP #2: BIG 3 GOALS
The second thing that you want to do when creating your weekly plan is write down your big three goals. This could carry on your main area of focus. For example, my area of focus this week is going to be updating the backend of Brandmerry Academy, my program for entrepreneurs, looking to market themselves without the pressure of social media.
But the reality is I still have other things that I need to do in my business. It's unrealistic to think that that's the only thing that I'm going to need to do all week. So I look at those different projects that I'm working on, I look at my prior commitments, maybe I'm hosting a workshop this week, maybe I've got a bonus call, maybe I'm doing an interview, whatever it is, And I write down my big three areas that are pretty much non-negotiable.
So number one is going to be my area of focus. This is something I want to get done, it's a priority and I have a specific deadline for myself. The other one might be a workshop that I'm hosting. So if I'm hosting that workshop, that's a big focus. I need to make sure that I'm mentally prepared, I have my materials and I'm ready to go for that. And then my third thing is going to be creating a piece of content.
So what you want to do is you want to think, okay, if at the end of the week, all hell breaks loose, what are the three things that if you got done, you would be well on your way. You would feel like, yes, it was a productive week, I got my big three done.
Oftentimes you're going to get your big three done and additional things as well. But again, this gives you a solid start to the week, a clear focus for the entire week, as well as the confidence that you are going to get things done and that you are doing well in your business.
I find that when we start the week with a massive to-do list of all of the different things that we could possibly get done, we get down on ourselves when we don't achieve all of those things. So choose your big three and start the week off with major confidence.
One thing to know is that your big three do not always have to do with business. In fact, maybe one of your big three is that you have a birthday party for your kiddo this weekend and you want to prepare for that.
You want to also look at the things that are happening in your life and your business. I like to plan those cohesively inside of my planner because I think it's important to have this harmony between life and business.
Okay, back to our main things to focus on every single week.
PLANNING YOUR WEEK TIP #3: COMMITMENTS AND DEADLINES
Number three are going to be your commitments and your deadlines. We talk a lot about boundaries, we talk a lot about scheduling. Sometimes there are things that happen in your business that are on specific days and specific times that you need to work around; doctor's appointments, dentists, kid activities at school, all of the different things.
I love to write these down so I can visually see them. I've got them in my Google Calendar, but I also have them in a planner. So I can know that these are the things that I need to honor.
So when I'm going in and I'm figuring out what I am going to do on a day to day basis, I have a big picture of the things that I absolutely need to do that week. You’ve got an oil change appointment, you’ve got a doctor appointment, write those down. You're hosting a workshop, you've got a call with your clients, write those down so that you can see them.
Those are commitments, those are deadlines that you need to honor.
PLANNING YOUR WEEK TIP #4: BUSINESS DEADLINES
Number four is all about specific deadlines in your business. So one of the things that I have noticed as an entrepreneur and I'm sure you have as well, is that there are a lot of ongoing projects. You might be working on something for 30 days at a time, you might be working on something for 90 days at a time, you might be preparing to launch something which takes a long time to prepare and then launch.
There are a lot of recurring things that are going to be happening in your business. So I love to have a section in my weekly planner that tracks the progress of those different things.
Are there any deadlines that I absolutely need to honor this week in my business? Is there a deadline that's coming up the next week that I might need to do something this week in order to meet that deadline the following week?
When I'm planning my week, it's really looking at these four areas so that I can better strategically map out my day to day. So we're looking at the main area of focus. What is the one thing that you want to be working on this week that is part of your project, your bigger project tracker for your business? What are your big three things that if nothing else happens this week, but you get those three things done, you feel like it was a success. Writing down your commitments. Your priorities, things you've already said yes to so that you can start to build your business around that. And then finally, really having a finger on the pulse for any projects that you're working on, any fast approaching deadlines.
Those are the four areas that I am focusing on every single week when I am mapping out what I'm going to be doing in my business.
PLANNING YOUR WEEK BONUS TIP: WEEKLY DIGEST
Okay, time for that bonus tip. One of the things that I do to help me better prepare for the following week is to actually do a weekly digest. This weekly digest is basically a check in with myself on how I felt the week went.
This check in, this audit process is something I talk about a lot at Brandmerry. In fact, we had a recent podcast episode, episode 40 on the Brandmerry Podcast, where I share exactly how I audit my business every single quarter.
But this is something that I'm doing on a weekly basis as well. This is how I believe we build sustainable businesses because we're constantly checking in with how we're feeling, what we accomplish, what we love and maybe what we don't love.
So one of the things I love to do at the end of every week is answer the following questions.
Number one, I would describe this week as... How would you describe the week? Give yourself a few minutes to freely write about your feelings over the past seven days.
This week, I am most proud of... What are you most proud of this week? We never take time to really honor the things that we have accomplished. We're always thinking about the next thing that we need to do. This can be incredibly helpful, especially as an entrepreneur, to take note of all of the things that you have achieved and really tap into the things that are continuing to motivate you to build your business.
Number three, one area that I could pick up momentum in... This is so important. We need to be honest with ourselves as business owners, as entrepreneurs, nobody's going to do it for us. And we need to check in with ourselves. Were you slacking a little bit this week? Was there something that came up that maybe you should have said no to but you said yes to, and you had to pull yourself away from your business? Was there something that you knew that you needed to do in your business, but you just kept avoiding it over and over and over again. Why is that happening?
Doing this every single week can help you get closer and ultimately achieve your goals rather than waiting and waiting and waiting and being like, "I didn't do this thing. It just kept getting postponed. I just kept not feeling like doing it." Address the issue as it comes up so you can fix it, change course, do whatever you need to do in a timely manner.
And finally, what is your focus for next week? What are you going to be doing next week? Start to think about that now. At the end of the week, you ask yourself, what are you going to be focused on next week? And then you can head into the week with a clear focus and alignment with who you are, how you want to run your business and what you need to achieve.
CONCLUSION
So there you have it. This is how I plan out my entire week from a big picture strategy. This then allows me to be more strategic with my day to day. If I see that I've got a lot going on, on let's say a Wednesday, maybe I've got an appointment, I'm going to the chiropractor, I know I need to go grocery shopping, I'm not going to make a heavy workload on that day. I'm going to give myself a little bit more freedom because I've got a lot of prior commitments.
This allows us to create a more fluid business, a more sustainable business, and one that doesn't constantly deplete our energy.
P.S. Ready to get your brand seen and paid without the pressure of social media? I'm teaching my top strategies inside of my new free class, "How to Build a Brand That Gets Seen and Paid!" You're invited to tune in and learn my signature 3-part framework for a sustainable 6-figure brand. Sign up to watch for free at Brandmerry.com/class
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
How to Create Sustainable Habits as an Entrepreneur and Business Owner: Part One
The idea of daily habits is not a new concept. Yet, for me, it wasn't until I read James Clear, Atomic Habits, that it finally clicked on just how important it was.
When I stumbled across this book, I was already three years into running my online business. I immediately started to look at the habits I had as an entrepreneur that was impacting how I ran my business. I made a lot of changes out of the gate with my systems, workflows, and day-to-day activities.
However, during this process, I also started to see a need for habit building outside my business efforts. As I began to implement daily habits in my morning routine, my mindset routine, my relationships and more something amazing happened...my business felt better!
I had always known what happens outside of my business impacts how I show up, but I never realized just how much I could control it. As my habits became more consistent with my morning routine, I noticed more focus and creativity throughout the day. As I began to create better habits in logging off and stepping away from work (boundaries, anyone?) I noticed how my relationship with my clients and how I showed up when I was working improved.
Needless to say, habits changed my life and business. So when we were continuing to expand Brandmerry Academy in 2021, after first launching in 2020, I knew I wanted to support our clients with a critical element of building a sustainable business.
That's when I brought in Ash Wylder, a certified High-Performance Habits Specialist, to support our members and in Episode 46 I'm lucky to have Ash join me for an amazing conversation on habits.
Ash is the founder of storybreath.org where she helps trailblazers communicate clearly, get paid their worth, and claim their seat at the table.
Ash is not only a former client but also a phenomenal asset to Brandmerry Academy, where she supports members in transforming how they show up in their personal lives and their business. Ash leads monthly High-Performance Habt calls for our members and supports them inside of our community.
Tune in to Part One of this conversation to hear:
How having hobbies will actually make you a better business owner and not take away from it.
The importance of feeling in to alignment with the type of person you want to be in order to shift your identity into who you want to be and design a business to match.
Why taking small, actionable steps will transform the way you show up in your business and the success you achieve (without burnout)!
Tune in now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.
P.S. Ready to get your brand seen and paid without the pressure of social media? I'm teaching my top strategies inside of my new free class, "How to Build a Brand That Gets Seen and Paid!" You're invited to tune in and learn my signature 3-part framework for a sustainable 6-figure brand. Sign up to watch for free at Brandmerry.com/class
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
Top Mistakes to Avoid on Pinterest
If you have been thinking about using Pinterest to increase your leads, your sales, and your business, you need to watch today’s video.
I'm going to share with you the three mistakes that I see entrepreneurs make when using Pinterest to market their brand.
In last week's video I broke down my seven top growth strategies for you to use on the Pinterest platform. I also gave you a lot of nitty gritty details about why Pinterest is so powerful, how entrepreneurs can use it, and of course my top seven tips. We are going to link that video here because it is so important that you watch that video so that everything makes beautiful sense.
But as promised, I'm going to share the three mistakes that I see entrepreneurs make when they start to incorporate Pinterest into their marketing.
Now, Pinterest is one of the top reasons that my clients join me inside of Brandmerry Academy, my group program to help entrepreneurs brand themselves online, market their mission, and create a sustainable brand that allows them to live their lives. Pinterest is one of the tools that we use because of the longevity of the platform.
Creating content on your blog and sharing it on Pinterest can continue to drive traffic for years and years to come. It's a great way to get consistent views on your website, leads onto your email list, and sales in your business without you having to show up every single day with something new, like on Instagram. Am I right? I'm right.
However, Pinterest is a beast. It's got a very intense strategy that you need to harness to make it work for you and your brand. Many entrepreneurs make these three mistakes. So let's get right to it so you can avoid them at all costs.
PINTEREST MISTAKE #1: PINNING ONLY ONCE
Mistake number one is that you pin once, cross your fingers, and hope that it works to drive thousands and thousands of views to your blog every single week.
It's just not going to work like that, my friend. Not only does Pinterest want you to consistently show up on the platform creating new content for its users, but it's also important to test out multiple variations. You might create a pin that you think looks absolutely amazing, has the best title, is totally optimized and it might fall flat when you post it.
If you stop there, you're not testing out different pieces and really utilizing Pinterest to its greatest capabilities.
Another thing to keep in mind is content typically takes a little bit longer to go viral on Pinterest. It could take anywhere from six months to a year. So if you're only posting one pin every single week, you're missing out on quick growth. You're putting all of your eggs into one basket and hoping that it works for you and it just doesn't work out that way.
Now, I don't want that to scare you. I don't want you to think, "Oh, if I post now, it's not going to take off for six months." We have had multiple pins take off quickly, but that has been through testing, through creating in bulk, through trying different variations, and using different keywords that have really harnessed the power and optimized it for the platform.
But the bonus thing about content taking a little longer on the platform is that it also lasts longer too. Unlike other platforms like Facebook or Instagram, for instance, your content doesn't live past 24 hours typically.
On Pinterest it can last for years. So if you are making this mistake and you're just posting a pin or two a week, I highly recommend that you embrace a consistent pinning strategy on the platform. It's something I talked about in last week's video. So definitely check that out.
PINTEREST MISTAKE #2: BOARDS THAT DON’T MATCH YOUR BRAND
The second mistake that I see happen all of the time on this platform are boards that have nothing to do with your brand.
Now let's take it back to 2017 when I first got on the platform. So much of our pinning strategy was bulk, bulk, bulk. You wanted to pin as many pins as you possibly could in a day, anywhere between 30 to 50 pins a day. You were creating multiple variations of your pins from your blog and repinning a lot of other people's content.
The reason for this, and the reason that repinning was such a prominent thing for businesses and brands to do was because we needed more content to pin. We just couldn't possibly create 30 to 50 fresh pins a day. And so we would often repin other users' content.
And to make sure that we weren't competing with our own brand and our own messaging, we would pin that content to travel boards, home cooking, dinner options, home decor, just to give a few examples.
Yes, it did work in getting impressions and getting views on our boards, but let's be honest, it didn't necessarily attract an ideal customer. Luckily, today, like I shared in last week's video, we don't need to pin that much, which is amazing.
Now it's more important than ever to make sure that the type of content that you are pinning is directly related to your brand and your ideal customer.
So as with all platforms, things shift, things change. And I see a lot of entrepreneurs coming to me with this outdated strategy. They're converting their personal account to a business account and they have one board that is relevant to their business and the rest of their boards are just old, personal boards about decorating their living room and cute clothes.
That is not helping your brand. Your boards are incredibly important. Not only can you optimize your boards for search, which is amazing, but there's also a pin to board relationship that Pinterest takes into consideration. We teach this in depth inside of Brandmerry Academy, which is where we have an entire course dedicated to Pinterest.
But you really want to keep this in mind when you're creating your boards and you're creating the titles and the descriptions, that they are relevant to the type of content that you create for your brand. That is going to draw in your ideal customer.
Quick little note on that. If you do convert from a personal account to a business account, you can very, very easily make all of your personal boards secret because that'll allow you to still use Pinterest for your personal reasons, but then you're not pinning that kind of content on your main boards. It's all hidden behind the scenes so you can see it, but your audience doesn't.
PINTEREST MISTAKE #3: NOT OPTIMIZING YOUR PINS
And the third mistake, and maybe the biggest mistake that I see entrepreneurs make is they are not optimizing their pins. They are guessing. Pinterest is not a platform where you need to guess, thank goodness.
I don't know about you, but when I'm writing captions or different things for Instagram or Facebook, it's just like, "Oh, this sounds nice. This is what I would like to share." But for Pinterest, we actually have the information at our fingertips to be successful.
Because Pinterest is a search engine, we can very easily find important keywords for our boards, our pins, and our titles that we can integrate into our content. This allows us to clearly tell Pinterest what our pin is about so they can categorize it correctly. Yet many entrepreneurs miss this step.
You've seen it where you see a pin and the title is just super generic and there's no description, but a link to their blog. This is not helping you. You want to take the time to get super clear on the main keywords for your brand so you can integrate those into your boards like we talked about before, and you can use them in your pinning strategy.
Inside Brandmerry Academy we give our clients a full spreadsheet where they can do their SEO research in the beginning and have it to tap into and use it to reference any time they create a new piece of content. It saves so much time, but more than anything, it's incredibly important.
The reason that Pinterest is so powerful is because of its search engine optimization. Meaning if you take a little bit more time to use the right keywords to write an effective description, to create a great pin, you are going to be more successful on the platform.
So the next time you choose to pin on Pinterest, make sure that you've done a little bit of research on the types of keywords that you, your brand can use to attract your ideal customer.
CONCLUSION
So there you have it. There are the three main mistakes that I see entrepreneurs making when they decide to use Pinterest in their marketing strategy. If I'm being honest, there are a lot more mistakes, many of which I touch on in last week's video. So make sure you head over to my channel to watch my Pinterest growth strategy video. It's going to be incredibly helpful for you.
And again, this is something we teach in depth inside of my program, Brandmerry Academy. Learn more about that here.
If you want to learn more about our approach to marketing here at Brandmerry, how we teach entrepreneurs to use their marketing to create a more sustainable business, not one that requires them to create content all the time or live on their computer, but actually live their life and you want to find out if Brandmerry Academy is the right fit for you, head to my free class.
You can go to brandmerry.com/class, and I will teach you everything you need to know to get your brand seen and paid consistently online.
P.S. Ready to get your brand seen and paid without the pressure of social media? I'm teaching my top strategies inside of my new free class, "How to Build a Brand That Gets Seen and Paid!" You're invited to tune in and learn my signature 3-part framework for a sustainable 6-figure brand. Sign up to watch for free at Brandmerry.com/class
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
How to Create an Entrepreneur and Small Business Marketing Plan that is Sustainable
BY MICHELLE KNIGHT
When we think about sustainable marketing, we often think about how our business efforts can support a more sustainable culture primarily centered around environmental efforts.
And while I'm 100% for that way of marketing, I propose a different definition when it comes to sustainable marketing for small business owners and entrepreneurs.
This type of sustainable marketing is centered around a marketing plan that is sustainable to the business owner. Taking into consideration recurring revenue, time management and alignment, as mentioned in Episode 42 on The Brandmerry Podcast.
Rather than creating a marketing plan that requires you to post daily, or constantly come up with new ideas which often leave the entrepreneur exhausted and working overtime, sustainable marketing focuses on something, well more...sustainable.
Inside, Episode 45 of The Brandmerry Podcast I break down these practices so entrepreneurs can start shifting their marketing strategy (a key component of running a successful online business) to something that not only creates abundance in their business, but also in their life.
Tune in now to hear:
Why the old way of looking at marketing is outdated and causing most entrepreneurs to throw in the towel out of lack of time and energy.
How to better optimize your marketing strategy as an entrepreneur so that you're not only gaining consistent leads in business, but also doing it in an efficient way.
The little known fact about evergreen content and how it plays a role in a brand longevity and consistent ability to create brand awareness, attraction and connection.
Tune in now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.
P.S. Ready to get your brand seen and paid without the pressure of social media? I'm teaching my top strategies inside of my new free class, "How to Build a Brand That Gets Seen and Paid!" You're invited to tune in and learn my signature 3-part framework for a sustainable 6-figure brand. Sign up to watch for free at Brandmerry.com/class
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.