Wake up Beauty. It’s time to Beast.

Wake up Beauty. It’s time to Beast.
I am a night owl. I have always been more productive and creative after dark. So, late nights became a natural thing for me.

These nights also came with late mornings and what felt like short days with zero time to do much of anything. Then I made the decision to start a second company, not long after that, I was burning the candle at both ends. This is when I came to the conclusion that being a night owl was no longer going to work for me.

Let me tell you that was not an easy conclusion to come too. In my mind, this meant I had to start adulting and adulting is hard. Waking up early was as appealing to me as biting into eggshells while enjoying a soft fluffy egg salad sandwich… Not cool, not cool at all.

But I did it and since I have gotten into the routine, I am happier than ever. My days are more productive, I have more energy and am eager to start my day, every day. I went from not getting out of bed before 9 am, then not even starting my day until almost noon to waking up at the crack of dawn and completing most of my to-do list before lunch.

Nothing worth doing ever comes fast or easy, so I have put together a small list of what it took to get me to this point to help all you other night owls become early birds.

Get up 15 minutes earlier. (each week)

Instead of forcing yourself to get out of bed 2 hours early right away – start in 15-minute intervals. Week one, set the alarm for 6:45 am. Week two set it for 6:30 am. Week 3, 6:15 am finally on week 4 you are finding it no problem to be up at 6:00 am. These small wins of getting up just that much earlier are motivating and within 2 months you will be up at 5 am, without even realizing it was hard in the first place!

Just get up!

The hardest part of starting your day is getting out of bed. Believe me – I get it! My favourite part of the weekends is waking up and staying in bed, chatting with hubs, planning our weekend, and on a GOOD day, I bring my coffee back to bed and just stay there for the entire morning! However; this is not something that we can do every single day. So, when your alarm goes off in the morning, just get out of bed. Do not snooze, it doesn’t help. Getting out of bed and starting your day is the only thing that will make it easier.

Wind down every night.

Whatever you do before bedtime is your body’s trigger for sleeping. This includes brushing your teeth, reading, etc. Try to keep these activities relaxing and stick to them like a routine.

For example, you could take a relaxing lavender bath then read a book for 15 minutes before bedtime. If you stick to this routine long enough, your body will soon recognize that these activities mean the day has ended and it’s time to relax. It’s important as well to do these activities in order and roughly the same time every day.

Bedtime is sleep time.

When my boys were young the rule was no toys in or on the bed – EVER. Even storytime was done on the couch, not in bed. Their bed was for sleeping – this made sure that after all the other bedtime routines we did every night, putting their head down on that pillow meant sleep time. When I implemented the same rule in my bedtime routine it made all the difference in the world.

No matter what, don’t give up and don’t give in to your brain begging for “just five more minutes.” It won’t be easy but it will be worth it. I promise. I have found it has boosted my creativity and productivity – getting projects done while the rest of the house sleeps –with no interruptions or distractions. Magic…

And once you get adjusted to your new schedule, you will be the early bird you used to snarl at in the am and never go back to being “not a morning person.”

TVS has launched the Inspired Action Mastermind!

A premium mastermind for mission-driven, service-based women entrepreneurs who are ready and willing to put in the work it takes to reach the next level!

Inside the Inspired Action Mastermind, we are an intimate group of entrepreneurs, all of which are committed to the success of one another’s businesses. It is a mastermind that provides the support and guidance you need to help you move your business forward. Because, when you’re in the right mastermind group, you can start to see your business and yourself through someone else’s eyes as you support one another and leverage each other’s experiences.

If you are ready and willing to shift your mindset and tackle all the hard questions to accomplish your dreams, then join us.

Learn about the Inspired Action Mastermind

Wake up Beauty. It’s time to Beast.

5 ways to conquer a never-ending day and stay inspired.

We all have those days where they just seem to drag on and on and are never-ending. It is an attack of the Drag-On Dragon – that beast sucks the inspiration right out of us!

Well – NO MORE!

Inspiring Greatness: How will you be remembered?

Have you ever put any thought into how you want to be remembered? I never did, not until I read about the amazing Sally Ride and her thoughts on the topic. This inspiring quote is really something that will stick with you.

I would like to be remembered as someone who was not afraid to do what she wanted to do, and as someone who took risks along the way in order to achieve her goals.

Sally Ride

I think this should be a life goal for everyone. It is definitely one of mine. So, I beg you to make it yours as well.

Move forward without fear, do what is right for you, take risks and achieve your goals.

Hostess Coaching Tips For A Successful Direct Sales Party!

If you have a direct sales or network marketing business, chances are parties are the lifeblood of your business. One of the most important aspects of to having a successful party is to work with your Hostess. Setting your Hostess up for success is just as important to your business as your sales. Effective hostess coaching is how you are able to do this.

It all starts with a plan, who knew “party planner’ was part of the job description of Entrepreneur Goddess?

Basically, when it comes to having a successful party, it will come down to a strong strategic plan, communication and truly partnering with your host or Hostess. You will be able to increase your party sales, and bookings, by working with them on several different levels. Here are a few things to remember when working with your host or Hostess.

Remember, if they have a successful party – you will have a successful party!

1. Appreciate your Hostess!

• Send your Hostess a handwritten thank you and let her know she’s appreciated. Build a solid foundation of trust and confidence by sharing that you’ll be there to guide her along the way. Include a link or email her a “save the date” graphic (easy to create in Canva) that she can easily send to her guests.

• Mail a Hostess packet with a cover letter, catalogue and order forms. Be sure to place post-it tabs in the catalogue on the Hostess program page and special products. Also, put a few extra post-it tabs in the package, so the Hostess can tab her favourite pages and products.

2. Be A Good Listener:

• Call your Hostess and set up a “Wish List, time it so you call soon after her packet arrives. Write down everything on her list and create an action plan to help her get it all. The plan should include pre-party orders and a pre-arranged booking.

• Discuss any concerns that your Hostess might have. Brainstorm ideas on how to get outside orders, create e-vite reminders for friends and family, not on Facebook, and possibly teaming up with a friend to double-host.

3. Set High Expectations:

• We’ve all heard, “Aim for the moon and you’ll fall among the stars.” So, aim high. Add a Hostess tip and tricks checklist in your hostess packet.

• Don’t settle. Challenge your Hostess to beat your highest or last party. Be sure to recognize her efforts on the event page, using fun graphics, emojis and stickers to build her confidence.

4. Create a strategy:

• If it is an online Facebook event, advise your Hostess to only invite FB friends that she knows well enough that she’d invite them to a home party. That will help keep both you and her in a spam-free zone.

• Encourage rules of engagement: Personal phone calls or send hand-written invitations to the party. Encourage social media engagement by having your Hostess comment on all posts on the event page put up by you and to post some herself. She could tag friends who shop and share her own pics of her fave products.

• Make sure your Hostess builds excitement for her own party: review your “day of party” game plan prior to the event, which should include personal reminders to everyone who is attending, a “party crashers welcome” post on her personal page and an “I’m so excited” post on the event page a few hours before party time.

5. Use your phone:

• Remember that your phone was created to be used as a… phone. Personal phone calls with your Hostess could be the most innovative risk you take and encourage her to do the same with her guests.

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Do you know your website bounce rate?

Do you know what a website bounce rate is? I have had a few questions regarding this topic, the first being “What is it?”.

The bounce rate is one of the most important things you should track on your website. It measures is the percentage of how often visitors “bounce” off of your web page.

Why it is important.

It is defined as a person landing on a page of your site then immediately leaving. They could be closing a browser window, hitting the back button to get a new URL or clicking on a link to go to another site. Meaning they only saw the one page, the page they came in on is the page they left on.

This percentage is something you want to pay attention to. In most cases, a high bounce rate is bad. It indicates that someone did not find what they were looking for and decided to leave your site. A visitor arrived for a reason then, maybe they couldn’t navigate or thought the information is irrelevant, there is no way to know why they left, only that they left. What you do know is they came to the site for one reason or another, possibly a google search, a paid ad or a referral click, they expected to see something when they arrived and it was not there. The higher your bounce rate the more you are not meeting that expectation, which means it is time to correct this.

When you see this happen, you need to take action on the pages with high bounce rates and lower the percentage. A lower bounce rate leads to a more effective website that will have visitors more engaged and will help them find what they are looking for.

When looking at your percentages, keep in mind some pages you would like a higher bounce rate than others. Pages that you would like a higher bounce rate on, are pages that will lead visitors to your Etsy store, to purchase products. Or a lead page that does not require your visitors to keep navigating your site but to collect contact information. Essentially, if the goal is to get visitors to this page for one specific reason only, then you may not have to worry about the bounce rate on that page.

So, when looking at your website analytics, look at bounce rates per page and not overall.

My suggestion is to play the video below, bounce to the music why you check out your website bounce rate!

Bounce Rate

Be sure to follow the Studio’s Facebook Page, leave a comment and let us know! We’d love to hear from you. The page is a free space where you will find business-focused training and support for female entrepreneurs, as well as inspiration and Studio updates!

Start that hustle and turn it into a career!

So, what exactly is a side hustle? I am sure you are seeing the term all over social media and I am willing to bet you know someone who is doing it. A side hustle is a way to make some extra cash that allows you the flexibility to pursue your true passion. I could also be how you are following that passion – a chance to jump into photography, fashion, or whatever it is you care about the most, without quitting your day job. Hense the term side hustle.

More and more women are turning that side hustle into their careers, and it is amazing to witness. Most just start out by doing a little bit to start – when the kids are in bed, in the morning before they go to work, or on weekends. Over a time the little side project starts earning enough money to become a full-time career and so – jumping in is naturally the next step!

If you are looking at getting started with a simple side hustle, here are a few tips to help get you going.

Determine your focus.

First, determine what it is you want to focus on. What skill sets do you have that you are passionate about and can get you started as soon as possible? Photography, writing, event planning, project manager, dog walker, tech support? In short, it is finally time to decide what you want to be when you “grow up”.

The idea is to choose something you have some experience with, this way you can get started right away. However; do not let lack of experience stop you. If you are truly passionate about something, I am willing to bet you are already knowledgeable enough to get started.

Test your market.

Second, test your market. Do some market research, is there a need for what you want to provide? Is there a problem out there that you and only you can solve? Talk to family and co-workers, another way is to get social. By using social media you can get feedback on the product or services you want to provide.

Go for it!

Now you know you have the skills, the audience and the motivation to get going, so GET GOING! It is time to set a goal and start with a plan. Jumping in feet first is always fun, but can be full of regret. Sit down and create a simple business plan, this is important because you do not want to start a business you do not love. So ask yourself these simple questions and create an easy “just for you” business plan – and started.

What is motivating you to start your own business?
What problems will you help others solve with your business?
What impact do you want to make?
What is different about you or your product that will make your business a success?
What is your business and personal mission?

Now you have the idea, the target audience, and the plan so what are you waiting for?

Your side hustle is now within reach and it is time to get started! There has never been a better time than NOW to start your own business. So join us inside the Idea to Income Group Coaching Program!

SPACE IS LIMITED

To ensure client success, the Idea to Income System is limited to 15 people per enrollment, so do not wait.

DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE TO ENROL!

Idea to Income System. You will be a business owner within 90 days. Start that side hustle

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Start That Side Hustle!

The bad news is time flies. The good news, you’re the pilot.

Time Management Tips for Your Work/Life Balance

I once heard that the city I live in has a reputation of everyone lives to work and that the city I love to vacation in has the reputation of everyone working to live. This really stuck with me because all of a sudden I realized it was true.

Here, in my hometown, everyone is always working. Work seems to be all anyone wants to talk about or do, then they do not understand why they are stressed, burning out, and want to call it quits. Work is a necessity, yes – I understand but we should all work to live and not live to work and in order to do that we will need to determine the balance between work and life.

What is balance, really?

Balance, seems to be the trend today, doesn’t it? That everything is all about balance. Well, there is truth to that – balance is the key to everything. However; this doesn’t mean that balance is about equal parts. Having a 50/50 balance between work and home life is not going to happen, and I truly hope it never does happen to you! To me, that means you are spending too much time on your work and not enough time living.

To be able to maintain the balance, you first need to decide on what you want – then schedule around that. You will need to know how to better maintain time than maintaining a balance. There are so many factors on finding that work-life/home-life balance but today, I am just going to talk about time.

Time Management

Time management is something that most entrepreneurs struggle with. Getting pulled into the world of distractions that are: social media, email inbox, and “multi-tasking”. (I put that in quotes because I think multi-tasking it is more of a mythical unicorn than a skill but that is a topic for another day…) When you have good time management skills you will find that there is a lot more freedom in your workday and a lot of pressure to get things done starts to subside. Why? Because you have more time, well, not really. It is the same amount of time, only with time management skills it is better spent.

Look at it this way, time is truth. The truth of time is that there are only 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in each hour. This we cannot change, yet we are caught saying “There are not enough hours in a day.” That isn’t true, there actually are enough hours in a day – there are 24 of them! Once you accept the things you cannot change, your world becomes a whole lot better and it is that much easier to better utilize the time you do have available.

To do this, start with using only one calendar. I am willing to bet there is a good chance you have more than one or none at all. Be it a traditional planner, a wall calendar or an online calendar – one is all you need. I am guilty of previously having 4! I had Google calendar, my paper planner, the pretty one on my wall and finally my Outlook calendar. What a mess. I would put my shooting schedule in one, family schedule in another – goals in yet another, and finally the fourth was supposed to tie it all together. Ha, I can laugh now… Anyway, now I have one that I use, and one on my wall that I don’t use but it is pretty to look at…. Okay, that is the ONE acceptance of the rule. Pretty to look at, but not written on, calendars are acceptable to have as a second calendar.
(They are more art, right?)

Under plan your time.

Now, when using your calendar, try to under plan your time. What I mean by this is try to leave 5 – 10 minutes for every hour where there is nothing to be done. As a photographer, I always plan sessions and events in 1 hour and 15-minute blocks. Yet, I would ensure that each would only take an hour. With the Virtual Studio, for example, a 45-minute coaching session is always scheduled for 1 hour in my calendar. For both my photography and coaching schedule, that extra 15 minutes gives me time to recollect my thoughts, travel, and for any unexpected surprises. Doing this also allows for tasks to be done at a more relaxed pace and has proven to be a lot less stressful.

A few other things you want to keep in mind to better manage your time are to set deadlines, delegate, stay motivated, and stop multitasking! (There is that magical unicorn again!)

The Virtual Studio’s will be launching a Work/Life Balance System that will go further-in-depth into time management! So stick around, that way you won’t’ miss the launch!

How are you going to better utilize the time you have each day?

What one calendar are you going to use moving forward? Let me know in the comments, I love hearing what systems they have in place!

Affirmations for business success!

Affirmations For Business Success

I am a huge fan of affirmations and use them as part of my daily morning routine – not only do they help make major shifts in your mindset they also serve as prompts and daily reminders on what you are truly capable of.

They help ensure you have an amazing and successful day, every day. Personally, every morning before I get out of bed, I read 3 affirmations. Each affirmation is said 5 times then followed by:

“This or something better now manifests for me in perfect timing!”

Ideally, your affirmations should be the first thing you think of when you wake up and the last before you go to sleep. Here are a few of my favourites!

Affirmations For Business Success
Affirmations For Business Success

Be sure to follow the Studio’s Facebook Page, leave a comment and let us know your favourite! I’d love to hear from you. The page is a free space where you will find business-focused training and support for female entrepreneurs, as well as inspiration and Studio updates!

Follow Your Passion

Inspiring Greatness: How bad do you want it?

Eric Thomas (aka ET The Hip Hop Preacher) shares The Secrets to Success in an energetic and passionate speech to students at Michigan State University.

Take ten minutes to watch this video, or just hit play, close your eyes and listen because it is so inspiring and motivational. And when says “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.” Take a deep breath and realize just how bad you want to be successful.

Find more inspiration on the blog go here and be sure to check out Eric Thomas at etinspires.com.

How bad do you want it?

Inspiring Greatness: Women who are changing the world.

Women who are changing the world
There is no better way to start my Inspiring Greatness: Women who are changing the world series, then with the new trailer for Firsts, TIME’s new video series on 46 groundbreaking women.

For the past year I have been planning and preparing for the launch of The Virtual Studio, and the Path to Success programs, and to be honest, a good number of the women in this series have been true inspirations for me on my this journey.

I don’t think women need to do anything other than what they are doing right now, and that’s moving forward.

Aretha Franklin

The launching of this project could not have come at a more perfect time in my life. I do hope that these women, and many many more, can inspire and motivate you on your journey.

Take a moment and be inspired, by something as simple as the trailer for the project! I hope to post more on this project as I continue to watch the videos.

Head to the Time Magainze website to learn more about the project!
TIME Firsts: Women Who Are Changing The World