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Conversations Over Coffee – May 2023
We’re back for another quarterly conversations over coffee episode, and I am so excited you’re here. I’m pulling the curtain way back this week to share what’s been happening behind the scenes in both of my business, as well as personally. AND I’m sharing about a brand new big goal that I’ve been working on that you are NOT going to miss hearing about.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Need help with your content strategy? Book a 1:1 Content Marketing Strategy call
- Are you looking to improve your content without spending a ton of time and mental energy doing so? Whether you’re looking for help knowing what to talk about, setting up content systems, or improving your launch strategy, the Chasing Simple Shop has something for you. From A Year of Content Prompts broken up by type of content, to my Launch Strategy Mini-Course – the Chasing Simple Shop is the quick and simple way to take your content to the next level. And you can get 10% off any item by using the code LISTENER at checkout! Just head to amandawarfield.com/shop/ and again, that code for 10% off is LISTENER!
- This week’s episode is brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.com/planner/
- This week’s action step: Plan a celebration for one of your wins this week.
- This week’s book recommendation: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!
Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
We’re back for another quarterly conversations over coffee episode, and I am so excited that you’re here. I’m pulling the curtain way back this week to share what’s been happening behind the scenes in both of my businesses, and I’m sharing about a brand new big goal that I’ve been working on that you are not going to want to miss hearing about.
You’re listening to episode 1 58 of The Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner, and you can grab your own at Amanda Warfield dot. Slash planer,
How do I run a successful business from my home? How can I possibly wear all of the hats? Am I the only one that struggles with staying organized? What am I supposed to do about work-life balance? How can I create a solid schedule and routine? How do I even stay productive? And the biggest question of all, how do I manage it all?
And can I really create a business that I love without being chained to my laptop? Welcome to the Chasing Simple Podcast where hard conversations and actionable education meet. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, time management coach, online educator, and crazy Cat mama. My mission is to help overwhelmed biz owners get more done and less time so that they have more time and energy for what matters most.
If you feel overwhelmed or occasionally lost in the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship, I want you to know that you aren’t. Those things you’re feeling, you aren’t the first or the last to feel that way. The hard things you’re going through, someone else has already been there too. Each week I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and a judgment free community to encourage and equip you.
So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whenever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love. Practical tips and advice on simplifying your biz. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?
Are you looking to improve your content without spending a ton of time and mental energy doing so? Whether you’re looking for help, knowing what to talk about, setting up content systems. Or improving your launch strategy. The Chasing Simple Shop has something for you from a year of content prompts broken up by type of content to my launch strategy mini course, which will teach you my entire strategy for launching your upcoming online course.
The Chasing Simple Shop is the quick and simple way to take your content to the next level, and you can get 10% off any item just for being a listener of the Chasing Civil Podcast by using the Code Listener at checkout, just head to amanda warfield.com/shop and again, that code for 10% off. Is listener, welcome back to another Conversations Over Coffee episode.
If you haven’t listened to one of these before, it’s really just a casual, conversational episode where I’m just pulling back the curtain and kind of sharing what’s going on behind the scenes in my business that you maybe aren’t seeing on, you know, the marketing social media front. So many things have happened in q1.
Where do I even begin?. It’s kind of crazy to look back on this actually and see all the things because I feel like often on a day-to-day basis that I’m not making progress on things. But then I look at this and I go, oh, I have made a lot of big progress on big goals. So I have become a rising Tide Society leader for the local chapter that is in my area, which is really exciting.
That was something that I’ve been wanting to get more involved in for years now. All of the pandemic and post pandemic and whatnot, it just, Been a priority yet, and now it has, and I’m officially onboarded as a leader. And that’s just, I don’t know, it’s really cool. So that’s it. That’s big change over here.
I also have planned my first work patient for this month actually, as this airs. So be on lookout for more about that over on Instagram. But technically, I did a Workcation last August to write the book to, well, to write the first draft of the book. But this is the first. I’m going away, going away, location, and I’m so excited about it.
I’m going to Disney, obviously. Um, my idea, it’s basically like I’ll work in the hotel room or somewhere within the hotel, you know, or anywhere on site, really. I, I don’t know. I’ll work most of the day though. And then I’ll be able to hop on the skyliner and go eat lunch, grab a bite to eat, you know? Get some exercise, get that walk-in right, and then go back to the room or whatever, get some work done.
Maybe I’ll work in the room in the morning and then work in the park in the afternoon. I don’t know. I’m really excited about it. And then same thing, go back in the evening and have dinner. Maybe go to a park and ride some rides in the evening. I don’t know. But I’m really, really excited about it. I haven’t firmly decided what I’m going to be working on at that point, but I have a strong idea of what I’m gonna be working on. So we’ll see other things. Let’s see what else has happened. Um, oh, I fully revamped a year in preview, which you might have seen me talk about back in February, early March. I’m so excited about this because it is just a million times more helpful. More, more, better. It’s so much better. Um, as of this moment right now, I am awaiting my rebrand materials, which we talk about in a second, and then I’m going to finalize the. The branding essentially of a year in preview, but the material’s done, I’ve taught it live now. I’ve got great feedback.
If you’re in a year, in a year in preview student, well by the time you listen to this, it’s already all revamped and updated, but everyone has access to the recording of that. And then I’ll actually, once I get all of the the pretty things set up, then I’ll rerecord for real and get it all set up with the new branding, and I’m just so excited.
That was definitely a big goal of this year. Making sure that I’m updating my current offers. So I’ve got that one A year in preview was all updated so much better. The 2.0 version is so much better and I, when I created a year in preview, I was like, this is great. Originally it was more of, okay. Here’s how you plan out your marketing calendar for the year, but now it’s, here’s how you plan your marketing calendar and here’s how you connect that marketing calendar to your actual revenue goals.
So there’s just this whole extra chunk inside of it. It’s so good. Anyways, so I’ve got that set up and you know, ready to go, all the materials there. And then I also have updated my command center. I used to call it my weekly workflow Trello template, but now it’s a command center Trello template because it’s not just what I’m doing on a week to week.
But it’s what I use in both of my businesses for keeping track of everything what I’m doing on a week to week basis. But all the projects I’m working on, all of the summits, I’m a part of everything. And so that’s also in the shop and has been fully revamped, and I’m really excited about that one too. My podcast Sprint is moving along.
I have a goal for pitching myself to a hundred podcasts this year. I’m making progress. It’s. As quick as I had maybe hoped, but progress is progress and, and we’re moving forward with it for the book. I just got it back from the content editor, so I’m moving into final revisions before sending it off to my copy editor and I’ve just hired the book cover designer and I’ve just, there, I’m so excited about it.
The, this part of the editing process is probably my least favorite. About writing the book. Um, a lot of imposter syndrome for sure, like seeing all the edits I need to make. The content editor has blessedly, reminded me multiple times that this is normal, that the book is good. So try not to let imposter syndrome get my way, but by the time this airs, You might be able to pre-order the book, so go to amandawarfield.com/book to get the latest updates on where that’s at, because again, as you listen to this, it’s two months later and so hopefully there’s been some forward progress made, but we’ll see.
Um, let’s see what else is happening this week as I’m recording this. This is actually my, my big guest interview, batch week. Padme says, hello. This is actually my big guest interview batch week. I have 15 interviews scheduled for this week that I’m going to be recording, and I’m really, really excited about this guest lineup.
So, so as you’re listening to future, honestly, at this point, I think every guest episode that you hear for the next little bit will be be from this interview week. So I’m really excited about that and we’ll see if I do another one this year. It’ll really depend on how quickly I end up using these various interviews.
When I do my guest interview week, I try to get. Interview scheduled for the full year, and if I’m only putting out one guest interview a month, which I typically have done in the past, then I have more than enough. But what I have found really helpful over some of these months where my batch week is just slam packed and I’m not having enough time to record as many solo episodes as I would like.
I’ve been putting in more guest interviews and so sometimes I’m doing two a month, and so in that case I may have to do another guest interview week this year. We’ll see. I don’t know, but I’m hoping to, to hold out until February of next year. But we’ll see. We’ll see what happens. And then the rebrand, that’s the other big thing that’s happening.
Uh, I got the reveal last week. It is incredible. It is so good. I cried when I saw it. McKenna Delaney did it. A genius like I, I’m so obsessed. By the time, again, by the time you listen to this, you’ve probably seen it, you’ve seen the reveal, but I’m so excited it gives like big sister vibes to my current brand.
It’s, just older and more professional and, but with a very similar feel and I’m so excited. And it also kind of gives off like Taylor Swift to love our vibes, which is my favorite album. And anyways, so all that being said, I’m really excited about the rebrand. I. I have no idea when I’m gonna get all of it actually set up on the website and all of the places that the new branding needs to go.
That is such a process that, wow, I wish I had just paid for this at the beginning of my business. I think I’ve mentioned this in a couple episodes about. The travel agency where that was one of the things that right off the bat I was like, I know I need professional branding. I don’t love my branding with my current business.
And that’s just something I know that will be so helpful. And it was. It was incredible. And now everything that I’ve created for this business has been with the new branding. And I look at that and how easy it was to implement, because alls I had to do was upload it to my website basically. And then anything I created moving forward just got used with it.
Well, now I have what feels like 1,000,001 things that I need to update with the branding. All of my opt-ins, all of my products, all of my, like, there’s so much. So if you haven’t already gotten professional branding done, I cannot recommend enough doing it as early in your business journey as possible.
And you, you know, five plus years down the road you may wanna rebrand anyways. But oh, not only does it really help set you apart from the beginning, just having that professional look, but it’s gonna make your life a whole lot easier than if you wait five, six years to rebrand into a professional one like I did.
Cuz I was like, oh, I can DIY my branding and it’s fine, but it’s not great. And now there’s, it’s a lot of work. So anyways, plug for McKenna. She’s incredible. Highly recommend getting professional branding. I just can’t tell you how much if you’re not a visual person like me and you can’t do your own branding, so good.
Okay. So that’s a lot of, a lot of good things have been happening just in the two and a half months of Q1 so far. But I have also cut some goals too. I had this realization that I cannot sustain. All of these goals that I had planned for the year, and I tried so hard to be intentional when I planned out the year and the goals that I had for the year.
And had I been continuing working a typical quote unquote schedule, they probably would’ve been fine. But that’s not been the case and it’s, it just isn’t realistic for all the goals that I had. So I’ve cut some goals as. I wanted to do a major funnels overhaul this year. There’s just no way that happens that’s gonna, that’s gotten moved to a 2024 goal for now.
I’m gonna stick with updating the paid offers, and then once I have all of those updated and the book launch and all of that, then I will be able to do more. Funnel updates and things like that. And that’s just, it is what it is with being a one woman show. I just don’t have the capacity. So that one got cut.
It was the least priority of the year. And then another one that got cut, which was a high priority and was really hard for me to cut was my v i P days. I had a big goal this year of really pushing my launch strategy, v i p days, and getting people signed up for ’em and. You know, that was gonna be a large chunk of my revenue goal actually.
And so that’s had to, to change and become a little, a little different as well. But what it came down to was not having as much capacity to market the v I P days and also the setup. There’s a lot of setup that needed to happen for the v I P days, and so I’m still offering. I’m just not, they’re not a, a large push for me any longer.
So if you do wanna launch strategy v i p day for your upcoming course or offer a service, let’s chat. But it’s not something that is a major marketing push for me this year. And it’s more so I’m creating the necessary things as I go. Like I had a couple people request a proposal and so I created the proposal the day I sent it, and that’s not ideal.
That’s not what I wanted. I wanted it to have its own time and space on my calendar. With everything else going on, it just wasn’t there. And so that decision came down to timing and my marketing availability and you know, just how much time I actually have for projects right now. But it also came down to the economy and talking to other people that offer v i p experiences, v i p days, and hearing that, you know, their inquiries were down and they weren’t getting as many people interested in learning more.
When people did request, they typically booked. And so it sounds like what’s happening right now with the economy, VIP days are obviously a luxury, right? You are paying not only for the service, but you’re paying to get it done quickly. And right now, that is a luxury offer that some people, you know, they’re, if they want to do it and it’s a huge priority, they’re saving for it and paying.
But that means that when people tend to ask for a proposal, they’re usually ready to go and they’re usually pretty confident that that’s something they wanna move forward with. And so with that being said, you know, having these other people who have established v I P days, them seeing their numbers down and just kinda looking at the economy and also looking at what I’m purchasing.
And I’m the same way. If it’s something that I have planned for for this year and I’ve said, yes, I need this thing done for this year, this is the investment I’ve made, or I’m making. I have no problem paying the money, but I’m also not going out of my way to purchase larger services that I haven’t planned for.
And I’m starting to look more back towards digital offers instead of services just because of the economy right now. And I saw someone post something that I thought was genius, was something along the lines of whether or not we’re in a recession right now. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that people think we are and they’re buying like we are.
So that’s just something I. Took to myself and talked to Russell about and ended up being like, you know what? I’m gonna offer VIP days, but I’m not gonna push ’em as hard. I need to focus more on the book and the shop, and some of these other things. So it was kind of a twofold decision, but.
They’re still available. I’m still doing them. I still have dates for them, but I’m not, it’s not my big focus for this year. So I’ve kind of cut that goal. And then the third goal that I cut was with the shop offers. So originally my goal was I want to fully update a shop offer every month. And I got into doing it and it’s just so much more work than I expected it to be.
There’s just so many more tasks that need to get done cuz not only am I updating the offer, but I’m updating, the marketing materials and the shop page and the funnel and the client experience and I, it’s a full overhaul and so there’s more of that, but there’s also less time than I expected. I don’t have as much time for projects.
As I used to, because again, I’m working in sprints and not sprints. I’m not able to have a project day every single week, and so I’ve had to cut back on how much time I have to actually move forward with my goals. So I cut down to one Chop offer a quarter instead. So the hope is three, not three, not or four quarters and a year, Amanda, four Shop Overhaul offers this year, and so a year in preview in the command center are two of those. The. Is another one of those. And I haven’t quite decided what the final one will be, but that’s where I’m landing with that. As much as I would love to overhaul everything, I just don’t have the time and capacity.
And so we’re gonna work on total overhauling everything. And as I’m going, I’m making notes of what needs to get updated on a yearly basis for some of these. Like a year in preview obviously has yearly things that are gonna need to happen because it’s very year heavy. And so that’s gonna be something where I can go.
And say, okay, this is all the stuff that needs to get done. What can I hand off to a VA and what can I do myself once I have it kind of set? And so that’s gonna be really nice just to have that checklist as well. So that’s something I’m doing as I’m going through, like is there something that I need to update every single year to keep this current?
And then by the time I update all of my offers in however many years that takes, if I’m doing four year essentially, You know, maybe I’ll be able to bring on more people and at some point I’ll be able to do more as well. But regardless, it’ll be time to probably overall ’em all again. So we’ll just continuously be doing that and it’ll just be a slow moving goal each year.
So I’ve cut back on a lot of goals, but I’ve also added in one more big goal, and I’m gonna tell you about that in just a minute, but I’m really excited about it. So the travel industry mags, closed scape, vacations, vis update, really short and sweet. This business. Like I’ve mentioned before is essentially a side hustle at this point.
It’s not something I’m spending a ton, a ton of time on, and I’m, I’m moving very slowly with those projects. I’m essentially working on one project at a time. So my big project that I have finally completed is I’ve finally got my shop launched with my vacation planner, and I’m so excited about that because I’ve been working on trying to get some.
Additional offer stream up and running for six months now. And I’ve gone back and forth on a lot of things and finally I was like, you know what, we’re just gonna pick one thing and go forward with it. Because I was trying to do a full shop launch back when I was in my mind still, you know, working more hours on this business than I really had the capacity for.
And I ended up deciding to scratch all of that. Let’s do one. Let’s create a vacation planner. And I’m really excited about it because, It’s got a timeline and it’s got a planning checklist, and it’s got all this space for the research. This is for anyone who wants to diy. They’re on the Disney vacation.
By the way, I probably should have started with that, but it’s for the people who wanna do it themselves and they like the research project process, but they wanna put, they want one singular place for all of their stuff. And so that’s what this does. And it gives just all the things they’ll need, all the information, they’ll need, all the checklists and so on and so forth.
So really excited about that. I finally got that launched and I’ve started getting content on again as well, which is so embarrassing because I preach this all the time, right? Like that’s what my business is based on, is consistent marketing and. I stopped putting content out for that business in October and I just haven’t, I’ve showed ’em on TikTok and that’s been it.
Um, and so I started with a nine grid Instagram feed. I’m just not gonna post the feed over there. I don’t have the capacity. I did the three grid on my own, personal, personal, my, the main business Instagram, so that I could. Additional content if I felt like it. I’m not gonna do that for the travel agency at this point, so I’ve got a ninth grade over there.
I’m not gonna update that ninth grade each quarter or anything. It’s just, it is what it is. Actually, it’s the sixth grade. I’m a liar. A sixth grade. But that has, you know, all of my information from my freebie to my shop offer to my wonder one services, to a blog post to a little bit about me. Um, and it’s all the different places that I can plan their vacations for.
It’s got everything anyone needs to know, so when they find it, it’s there. And that really cut back on what I was trying to do for Instagram. And then I’m starting on just sending out emails. I’m not even worried about blog posts right now. I just need to get emails out each month. So two emails, a. Is the only content that I’m putting out for that business right now, but I’m starting to put it out again, and I’m really excited about that.
Maybe by the time this is aired, I’ll start putting blogs out again, but honestly, I really don’t know until this book gets launched, I’m going to be head down doing all the things I feel like, so we’ll see what happens. Now, something that I’ve started doing is when someone puts a fun question on one of my annual survey.
I’ve decided to start putting that into these episodes. So this quarter’s fun question is when are you going to have a simply chasing Disney Business Retreat? And one, I just chuckled so hard at this. Um, you know who you are if you put this in there. And I obviously am all about Disney and so I’m not doing, it’s not a Disney business retreat, but I am planning.
A business retreat in Orlando. At this time in the very beginning stages of planning, so I don’t have a ton of details, but as this airs, if you go to amanda warfield.com/retreat, you can get all the details that I do have set out. I’m really hoping to do it in Orlando. I think that makes the most sense.
I’m hoping to get as close. To Disney as possible, because obviously if I’m in Orlando, I’m going to Disney, and that way anyone who attends and wants to go to Disney can as well. I know some people are interested in, you know, bringing their whole families and while they’re doing their retreat, the families are going to the parks, so it’s gonna be a lot of fun.
The premise behind it is that, We’re gonna get together and we’re going to workshop style, create our marketing plan for the new year based on our revenue goals. So very similar to the material in a year in preview, but we’re doing it in person, and you’ve got that connection and that ability to brainstorm ideas with other people.
There’s going to be so many opportunities for collaborating and networking and bouncing ideas off of each. And that’s gonna be a big focus of, of the retreat, is that networking and that relationship building aspect of running a business. And I’m just, I’m super excited about it. I have so many ideas. I don’t wanna start just sharing random ideas that I have because again, nothing has been fully planned or cohesively decided yet.
But go to me orfield.com/retreat to. Okay, and your action step for this week is to plan a celebration for one of your wins this week. This is something that I am historically bad at. I even mentioned at the beginning of this episode, like, oh, actually writing out all the stuff that I’ve gotten done.
Shows me how much I’ve gotten done when I’ve been feeling like I’ve gotten nothing done this quarter, and I’m really bad at stopping and doing that. So your action step for this week is to take a moment and sit down and think about what your wins are, even just for this week, and then I want you to plan some kind of celebration, whether it’s going out to dinner, whether it’s.
Going to, uh, get your nails on, whether it’s just going and laying in your hammock one afternoon and reading for a little bit, instead of working, whatever that looks like for you, plan yourself a celebration and then send me DM on Instagram and let me know what that is. And this week’s book recommendation is The Happiness Project by Gretchen Ruben.
I read this last summer on the beach and it was, Very interesting to see her try to find different ways to improve her happiness levels and then what her conclusions were. So The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Willing to that in the show notes and my friend, I hope that you will go out and uncomplicate your life and business.
Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. If you loved this episode, it would mean the world to me if you’d leave a rating and review. This is a great way to help spread the word about this podcast and help other wonderful women like yourself find it. You can find this episode show notes as well as tons of other great resources over@amandawarfield.com.
And if you aren’t following me on Instagram yet, I’d love to connect with you over. I’m at Mrs. Amanda Warfield. Shoot me a DM and tell me what you love most about this episode. Thanks for being here, friend. I’ll see you next time.
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