Indestructible Success: Creative Entrepreneurship and The Art of Small Business

However, the way you format them, the quantity you use, and the tags you choose will affect the way your brand is accessed and accepted by browsers. My favorite format for hashtagging is to use them separately below my post caption rather than inline. I feel inline hashtags disrupt the flow of valuable conversational real estate. But, this is purely subjective. Some freelance artists and entrepreneurs find it difficult to think of good tags to use at the end of their caption and, much like highlighting a textbook, enjoy the ease of tagging important words inline.

The more hashtags used for an Instagram post, the more searchable that post is. By that philosophy, it would make sense that adding an enormous block of tags below each post would be an advantage to increasing your reach. In fact, using too many hashtags can backfire- leading to a greater number of spam or bot followers or priming your account for getting flagged as spam itself. Save yourself the headache of hashtagging every Instagram post with every search term imaginable. Instead, tag smarter on Instagram by choosing hashtags tailored to the individual post and your brand. When a user searches for a hashtag, most recent posts with that tag are shown first with older posts following.

Instagram makes this easy by showing how many posts are currently associated with a hashtag as you type it. By choosing coffeeshop, I'm more likely to reach followers who enjoy coffee at coffeeshops rather than choosing the more general hashtag of coffee, which could include someone drinking instant stuff from a machine at home. Plus coffeeshop has been used around 3mil x while coffee has been used around 70mil x. This means a post with the hashtag coffeeshop is more likely to stay within the first few finger scrolls of a search for the next couple of days.

The second secret to growing your following on Instagram is knowing your brand focus- and consistently tailoring your tags towards that market.

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For that reason, I often use region specific hashtags such as altonillinois, stl, or even midwest. Instagram is an incredible platform for accessing international and immigrant communities, with over million users residing outside of the United States. Using relevant Spanish hashtags and Spanish captions has allowed us to reach out and welcome representatives of those cultures in our local community Interested in more social media tips?

Watch for the upcoming post in this Social Smart series on combining multiple platforms to create an amazing social media strategy! The metrics change so often that, even writing this, I know the tutorial aspects of this post may not be relevant next year. Long term users of Facebook's business pages are quick to grumble about the old days when every fan saw every post you made without pay-for-exposure The platform has a bright side: Each social media platform has its unique strengths when to comes to connecting you with your market.

I recommend businesses choose social media platforms that best reach their market, concentrate their focus on those platforms, and ignore the rest. I have never created or consulted on a social media strategy that did not use Facebook as a cornerstone platform. Solid marketing and sales are crib mates but they are not the same. Marketing is about communicating your business and brand to your audience, building relationships, and creating revenue through these relationships.

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The stronger your brand is , the more focus you have on your best market, and the more success you'll have on any social media platform. These tools deliver the message, but whether they work or not largely depend on the quality and focus of your content. Here are some great ideas on how to start creating responsive content for your fans. The tab is packed with information. But, if you're looking to create a SMM social media marketing strategy for your business, there are only three things you need to look at right now.

This screenshot from Maeva's Coffee's Facebook insights shows that our 4. As far as days, our traffic is steady through the week with a slight uptick in activity Sunday-Wednesday. Facebook will begin to show your post to people that only occasionally interact with your page So, posting great, responsive content when people are online is the first step in not having to pay for exposure on this platform. I'm the laziest business Facebook-er in the world. A quick glance at this recently published post list also under the "Posts" tab of Facebook Insights will show these weaknesses: But, back to Facebook.

Don't hit that "Boost Post" button! Before we move on to paying for anything- take a look at these two posts. One final piece of Facebook insights you should be using: The Pages to Watch. If you can't think of any direct competitors Maeva's Coffee doesn't have direct local competition , this is still an incredibly useful section. Neither of these businesses are coffee shops, but we share a lot of the same customers.

Plus, both of these awesome local businesses have very responsive Facebook SMM going on in our local market. Use this section to motivate yourself. Add businesses you want to model your SMM after- don't just creep. If you're looking for a secondary analytical tool for Facebook, my favorite free service is Komfu. Check out this is a screenshot from the Maeva's Coffee Facebook analysis:.

Our reach down 9. However, our overall penetration is You're off to a good start if your numbers are higher. Of the people who saw your post while scrolling through your feed, this is the percentage that interacted in some way this includes "likes", comments, click through to page, etc. Again, nothing will work if you aren't creating the right content. Social Media Marketing is not the same as traditional advertising.

Traditional advertising seeks to covert on short term occurrences and one-off placement. Good SMM seeks connection that builds life-time customers. Under the "Published Posts" in Facebook Insights, you will see that Maeva's Coffee has boosted posts and ran adverts three times in the last six weeks. I don't boost posts often because they are marked as "sponsored" in the feed Presumably, boosting a post will allow you to reach a larger audience more quickly, with the end goal of launching it into that "viral" level of engagement on Facebook's platform.

This post is GREAT content- according to the data we have accrued over the last couple of years on our fan base. Also note- this isn't professional photography! This photo was taken with an iPhone 6s near nice, natural light and uploaded direct to Instagram. This post has all of the right characteristics to make it responsive content without paying to boost.

Facebook shows us via the orange bar how much of that reach was organic not a result of our paid boost and inorganic a direct result of our paid boost. This post would have worked about half as well had we not boosted it. What Facebook doesn't show you was that Thursday afternoon's after work rush vs.

Over a dozen frozen Bananas Foster lattes walk out the door in the hours following this boosted post- with many more people coming in for their regular order because they had seen the post and started thinking about the reward of an afternoon coffee stop. In short, if you have something really awesome that you're proud of or excited for- your fans are going to love it, too.

Most of reach was organic- meaning that we would've reached those fans is we hadn't have spent the money. This is because a smaller portion of our market is interested in local politics than those who are interested in treats. As a entrepreneur, if you begin to collect data on your SMM and respond to what it says, you'll find that data doesn't lie. You might spend some money on Boosts or Adverts that, in spite of your keenest hunch, don't produce the results you expected.

Poor performing posts and bad returns tell us just as much about what to post as our best posts do. Fortunately, Facebook boost is a great platform for a budget-minded business to micro test before launching large scale advertising. If you're tried to create a Facebook advert and it hasn't done anything for your business, you're probably missing a couple of key pieces of information.

Facebook's presets are automatically set to make sure they max out whatever budget you've set. They want your money. Under "Create Ad", you'll find a range of presets you can change that will focus the goal of your advertisement so you are paying only for what response you choose. First, make sure you choose the right objective. I don't want to spam people who already follow us but I don't mind spending money to introduce ourselves to new people. Changing your objective will change the options available to you from the onset of Ad creation. Be clear about what you want to achieve with this ad.

Look for the title "When You Get Charged" and make sure it's set for your action not per impression. Changing these presets when creating an Advert will make the most of the dollars you budget for each ad. I want them to know it's legacy. If your advertising story starts with "I want No one wants to hear it. We are being asked to do things for companies, people, customers, clients, etc. Your Advert is going to be nestled in between their college friend's status asking for help moving furniture this Saturday and their ex's dog's GoFundMe.

How many times have your heard "Like our page? How many of those pages have you actually liked? To find a good strategy, begin by asking: What are you advertising that is going to fix a problem, give your fans a little happiness, or let them escape for just a moment? Take a moment to look through your own business' Facebook data and make a few changes- let me know what you find!

Now that you have a few basics on using Facebook to connect your business to your market, we'll be adding Instagram to the mix. The next piece in this series will focus on my favorite platform for visually-rich businesses Your favorite restaurant just posted an amazing picture and, in minutes, it has a dozen likes and comments. As a small business owner, you know your social media game could be better. However, you hate it when companies clog up your news feed with useless chatter.

You value your customers too much to do the same. Facebook, Instagram, and Pintrest are essential tools for business. However, their seemingly magical metrics and unpredictable results are a huge source of frustration to small business owners. Whether you are a local bakery or an online information seller, this series will show you how to create real revenue by generating relationships with the people who love your business.

You follow people with tens or hundreds of thousands of fans- but does it really generate a return? Online marketing gurus would have you believe social media success is all about acquiring likes. Corporations spend millions trying to increase their social media following. In a world focused on quantity of followers, Kelley makes a good argument for artists and small business focusing instead on a small, dedicated following for success. Furthermore, the coffee shop hosts between 1,, visitors a week.

Use your chosen platform to communicate your image in the best way possible. By creating and communicating a strong brand image, social media becomes less about selling and more about building relationships. Weak brands shout and undersell themselves to attract attention. Strong brands who communicate well have a minimal advertising budget and generate an organic connection with others. Creating long term relationships with your best customers will ultimately drive the revenue you seek.

To read more on why strong branding works, click here! These are good areas to create within no matter what platform you are using. This is not an exhaustive list. But, by creating a variety in your content you will find what your fan base values more quickly. Position yourself apart from the sea of faceless corporate businesses by adding a human element to your social media.

People love seeing into the lives of others. This could include environmental shots of your workspace, profiles and candid shots of staff, or insight into your morning rituals. Always keep your content related to your business, however loosely. If a local cause related to your business or industry arises, promote it to connect to your audience.

If you feel passionately about a cause, chances are your most important customers have similar interests. Does your work support fair trade? Create content that highlights what makes your business or services one of a kind. Environmental shots of your business or hometown, details around your workspace, or artistically created close-ups of your process all subtlely romanticise your business when offered without a pitch.

Connect your following to the most interesting content being created by suppliers, competitors, or other followers. Is your competition doing something you appreciate? Give them a shout out! Be the first to connect your followers with something they would love to share. Create content with informational value. A holistic center might showcase a mineral a week and expound on its unique properties. Keep information short, easy to remember, and interesting. Always pair educational posts with quality copyright-free photography to encourage sharing.

When establishing a social media strategy, test a variety of posting formats, tags, and times. Collect data on your postings through an analytics app appropriate to your platform Facebook analytics, Iconosquare, etc. Ready to learn more about specific ways to use each platform as part as your social media strategy? This is the final installment of a three part series on our sq ft retail experiment- Bourgmont- inside The Milton Schoolhouse business incubator. Within hours of opening our experimental gift shop I realized that everything I knew about sales was completely wrong.

It seems obvious- coffee shop is nothing like a sq ft pop-up retail. I went home that first day at Bourgmont sheepish. As long as the environment and service facilitate a good experience, a sale is guaranteed. In Bourgmont, the customer had to be won. It was the holiday season and I had shopping to do as well. I began to pay attention to other successful retail locations and adapt my observations to our brand.

However, the tiny size of our shop presented the challenge of balancing an intimate environment with needed personal space. These are the simple discoveries that turned Bourgmont into a tiny selling success: Create action through invitation. However, the doors to Bourgmont were set back just a few feet from the main hall. To attract attention, I created a large sign and set it on a stool just outside in the hall.

I burned copal near it, knowing that the faint rising of smoke and unusual addition to our incubator's main hallway would at least cause people to pause. People would stop, look at the shop, and look at me. But then they would walk away. This place just opened! Make the most of each word. You have only a sentence of two to capture their interest and gain their trust. Every customer deserves a unique experience in your space. Keep your conversation from becoming stale by adapting to each individual who visits. Get rid of questions with one-word answers.

This ties into making the most of each word. Give the customer a story. Is the customer lingering on a product? Have they picked it up? If it has an unusual story- share it! A few simple pieces of information can create a connection between the product and the customer and set your shop apart from big-box stores. These are some stories that helped Bourgmont wares on their way out the door: Unique product created by a local artist.

Maybe the packaging reminds him of his days in the Navy. I love it because the company supports wounded veterans. Product geared towards a hard-to-shop-for market with an altruistic business model. The edges are hand marbled and the leather is meant to become more interesting as it becomes worn.

Concentration on the long-term relationship the user will have with the product. Tell people about other people. Using sincere phrases that point to the popularity of a certain product or style can help an anxious customer make confident decisions.

If possible, leave a element of choice in your suggestions, especially if the customer is shopping for someone else. People loved the low cost of these pieces and the unique choices available, often buying them as posters for others. Wall art is a tricky buy for someone, it has a personal element of style- but is also intended for public display. If a customer was having difficulty deciding what to purchase as a gift, I would mention that the maps and the butterfly types were the most popular. Each type had two or more styles associated within.

This information allowed customers to feel their draw to these pieces was valid, but also gave them room to make a choice that was personal to them. Choose staff that are not loud or intimidating, who smile frequently, and who use open posture when talking to customers. There is no room for error with a small space.

It was fine to sit behind the desk with a single customer shopping, but as other customers entered into the tiny room I found myself stepping over some customers to get to others. Your shop is an experiment! Pay attention to what sales language works for your customer base. If you would like to be featured in upcoming articles on retail-based small businesses, send me an email to meredith. Merchandising is an art. Understanding how humans experience traditional forms of visual art can provide solid principles for merchandising.

I loved discussions on how elements of a painting could be ordered or emphasized in ways to create narrative. In business, brand is the narrative. I recall studying focal points in galleries, shutting and reopening our eyes as we listed aloud where our eye fell first, second, etc. This practice lead me to understanding how important the visual path of a consumer is. The more time a customer spends looking in your space, the more likely they are to become invested and, ultimately, make a purchase. Above all else , avoid stopping the eye when a customer first enters the space. We want to create a big picture experience with customers before they notice details.

Step Two: Write down a few key words to describe each theme and its audience

Successful shops, both large and small, tell great stories. Volume and diversity of product is essential in convincing the customer that your shop is worth exploring. The problem is a visual one: An unplanned stop in the visual story and the eye will stop on that gap. If this happens within the first few seconds of walking in the door, it will be difficult to draw your customer back into your narrative. In addition to creating a continual visual path, the pattern of of that path is also important. When creating a painting, typically an artist focuses on a particular subject.

Create a visual path that with a pattern that bounces off regular intervals from a series of graded focal points before finding an area at attracts specific engagement. The painting does have a major focal point upper left hand corner but a series of smaller focal points are also present. The eye connects these many points in order of priority with even smaller objects that create movement and fill the space.

Here are ways to translate this principle into your merchandising: The single biggest mistake in independent retail, especially new retail, is not investing in enough items to visually fill the space. We underestimate just how many things- and the variety of things- needed to create merchandising that convinces the customer your shop is worth their time. This funnels attention deeper into a display or towards another area.

Color, texture, size, and emotional response all exploit contrast. Accent a single, unusual large item with an asymmetrical grouping of standard items to one side. Heighten the experience of common stock items by placing them near or in context of more exciting items. Your most frequently purchased products will be at eye level, but leaving inappropriate amounts negative space near the floor or of ceiling creates the risk of stopping the eye.

Plants, large focal items we had to taxidermy mounts , fabric, rugs, visuals of how smaller products can be assembled or displayed, etc. Keep these things in mind while selecting product to increase your success: Determine the average amount your customer spends per item in your shop. Seek out small, unique impulse purchase items to fill time at check out.

Large, expensive, or unusual items may not sell fast but they are important for creating interesting context for more saleable SKUs. After defining your target market, reach out into secondary markets with crossover items. In Bourgmont, we planned the shop to be a masculine giftwares store for the holidays. We focused around men who enjoy natural history. However, the Alt Market all gender identities who enjoy oddities, identify as pagan, or generally think of themselves on the fringe also enjoy natural history products. Squid tentacles in small antique glass vials appealed to both and became a natural bestseller in the shop.

Every plant has been precisely trimmed. Each rock has been placed in the most pleasing way. Everything is in perfect symmetry and in perfect balance. The master gardener comes to oversee the final result. Reaching up to a low hanging branch of a cherry blossom tree, he gently shakes a few of the delicate blooms onto the carefully raked sand path. This parable demonstrates a critical element of solid merchandising for non-convenience retail: Merchandising should invite interaction.

Just as not allowing the eye to settle draws the customer into the space, a display that invites the customer to interact with the product further invests them in your narrative. While sight might be the first sense used to observe your shop, touch is the most powerful. The element of touch is the reason customers purchase something in a physical location over shopping online, and customers who handle a product are more likely to purchase.

Here are some tips for creating touch-oriented merchandising: My favorite example in Bourgmont was a product line by the name of Duke Cannon. As a retailer, their most brilliant decision was to print the their primary text horizontally on one side and vertically on the other. This gave me flexibility in my merchandising. Once a customer had their hands on the product, it made it to the register.

Create the illusion that someone else has already touched the product. In Bourgmont, we sold beard oil in three different scents. For display I stacked the multiple types of each scent in orderly rows- much like one would expect to see at a box store. The secret to getting people to pick the product up? Casually skewing just one of the the front bottles. The illusion that another customer had already handled the product gave current visitors permission to do the same.

There was even an instance where a particularly tidy customer picked up the bottle to straighten it and ultimately purchased it after being caught by the copy on the label. Scent, sound, and taste may also play an important role in merchandising the specific products your retail business. These senses are usually engaged by providing samples. If you have a business in which you are providing samples, make sure your methods are simple. As Christmas neared and the end of this tiny retail experiment came to a close, Bourgmont faced a problem. It is the same problem I see many retail spaces face near the end of the holiday season: Good merchandising practices allowed us to keep our seasonal shop looking full while product continued to sell out.

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An ongoing retail store would have product in back stock- mitigating much of the problem. If you do find yourself in this situation, my best advice is to manage your negative space. When product sells, make sure you cluster remaining items. Do not spread them out. If needed, fill in negative space with visual non-sale items that make sense within the scope of your brand. In Bourgmont, we used open cigar boxes filled with beans to display small wares. Compressing remaining product into logical groupings can also be helpful.

We started with our Duke Cannon product and our Tradesmen Beard Oils on separate shelves, with scents and product types within those lines being further separated and arranged. As product sold, it became more of a general Beard Oil and Duke Cannon section- merchandising remaining product as a cluster.

The final piece in this series will cover sales scripts and how I was caught completely off guard by what customers wanted from me in their purchasing experience. Have you been thinking about setting up shop in ? Curating a retail location holds the promise of making a living by sharing your style and helping others find their own. Before branch out from pop-up shops and you sign a lease on your very own location- stop and consider the mightiness of small.

The schoolhouse gives us constant reminders on the power of space, the joy of experimenting, and that impact and success are not tied to size. Last year, we began to search for a perfect tenant for our tiniest space inside The Milton Schoolhouse- a sq ft studio that is part of a divided classroom. We felt the space would be great for a start up retail.

However, as we searched for a renter, eight potential tenants passed for one reason: It was too small. This post is part one of a series discussing the financials of the shop, merchandising discoveries, how the small space created powerful connections with customers. Our building, like other brick-and-mortar incubators, focuses on providing low cost rental studios for start ups that include utilities, taking the guesswork out of overhead. Plus, nestling our tiny retail start up among other small businesses gave us the advantage of their network as well.

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Using consignment to boost retail stock for no upfront cost is standard practice in the small retail world. Limited space meant focused, cohesive curation. My set up time was crunched! I was asking artists to take a risk by consigning their limited stock during their busiest season of shows and sales- weeks before the holiday season. I knew I needed to provide the artists I wanted with an incentive to take a risk with our untested business.

This would be my advantage: However, making that a blanket rule for every product line limits flexibility when creating business strategies. This was good for the artists and the first win for the experiment. Industry Standards are good, but your focus should ultimately be on your unique market position.

The percentages above look fantastic for the few weeks of data collected; yet the ultimate goal was to prove if a shop this small could be a sustainable and worthwhile part-time gig for a retail oriented entrepreneur. The labor costs calculated above were for outside labor. For someone considering retail, these numbers are artificially low. Fortunately, I used Bourgmont as a swanky well-merchandised office in which to conduct operations for our other two businesses- compensating my time through other work. Without this, revenue would have to be increased to make this tiny retail space work.

Pairing your brick-and-mortar with an online platform is a power duo for small retailers. Depending on your market, setting up shop on Etsy, eBay, CafePress, or ArtFire are great ways to reach out to customers. With the right set up, an entrepreneur can maximize their downtime during business hours by photographing, adding, marketing, and shipping goods to their virtual customer base.

For the projected earning potential of this business, I used an average of first-year sales numbers coupled with the average profit margin of the wares carried by Bourgmont. If we add in those numbers, our little shop has a conservative potential earning more like this: The graph above is a conservative estimate of what one could with this business model in a similar space during the first year of operation.

Using the numbers from my second year of online shopkeeping would result in figures like this: Committing to anything part-time is no get-rich-quick plan. However, not all of us are looking for a traditional I consult with potential entrepreneurs all of the time who are looking for a gradual transition from full time employment, who want a part-time source of income because of family commitments, medical limitations, or other lifestyle desires. If retail is your passion, committing to a small space is a low-stress, low-risk way to add a little extra cash to your pocket.

Does this post have you thinking? Up next, more discoveries on how to make small work: From Brand to Bustle: This course addresses the biggest area of neglect I have seen while helping dozens of small businesses clients succeed. During a recent meeting, my copy editor made the observation on how all Chinese take out businesses- small town, metropolitan, west coast to east coast- look the same. From the chop stick wrappers, the collection of decorations, signage For example, how many coffee shop logos have a coffee cup in them?

Lazy branding tells potential clients to expect average quality at a cheap price point. On the opposite end of the spectrum, St. By the name and logo alone, we are setup to expect something original. With everything demanding your attention as you start or run a business, you may be tempted to put your brand on the backburner. When it comes to reducing risk of failure, your brand is the most important aspect of your business. Choosing to depart from industry norms attracts a different type of customer: With strong branding, growth becomes less about selling and more about building a relationship.

Weaker brands have to shout, beg, and undersell themselves to attract attention. Businesses with weak brands attract customers are only interested in what sort of deal they can find. Strong brands know their client base and organically grow a deeper connection with their market. As an entrepreneur with a honest brand, you have freedom to focus on your business without having to run sales that cut into your profit, spend money on wasteful advertising, or beg for attention.

Every time another pallet wood bar is installed in the St. Louis area, I die a little inside. You cannot build a lasting brand on an existing trend. Fresh or timeless branding interests dedicated clients for the long term and naturally attracts enough attention provide steady growth over several decades.

Dropping thousands of dollars to rebrand and remodel every ten years is only something large corporations can afford. As a small business owner, you will find that a brand woven with original fibers will have superior longevity and cost far less to maintain. Building a targeted, honest brand unique to your business will play a critical role in your personal success as a small business owner. That feeling is one that stays with me through unexpected equipment repairs, staff changes, and the hectic pace of a high volume shop.

If you are starting a business and want to see it making money, or your current business now has become stagnant, you need to take a closer look at the strength of your brand. The course I will be teaching in late August covers the how-tos of all of the above, plus the logistics of putting it into practice by creating a targeted low-to-no cost marketing plan. It is specifically designed for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs, with a class size is limited to Because I adore helping small businesses in my hometown, I always stick around for as long as you want after to discuss the specifics of your situation.

Check out the details here! In May of , the US Department of Commerce reported the temporary service industry had also reached a record high, with 2. Realize how your beliefs liberate or limit your money experience. Relationships are the foundation of success. Learn the tools you need to have successful relationships.

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Break through being stuck and get into action creating the life you want. We can all access archetypal wisdom to turn obstacles into opportunities. It is up to you. Remember when you have felt truly free and grateful? How about that experience more often? Create inner freedom while simultaneously fully engaging in life, creativity and business.

When you are free, you are able to go for your dreams with more passion, joy and enthusiasm. Trying to figure out what i need to do each day to be able to reach my goal is harder than I thought…could I be overthinking it? It just feels like a guessing game — like I should pluck a number out of the air and stick with it? Writing down what I want is easy but putting that altogether to make a number just seems like a complete and utter guess!

You have to reverse engineer it, so yes at first you pick the number out of thin air, what is the amount of monthly income you would be satisfied with earning? It can be any; the next step is to determine the time frame in which to reach this that you will also be satisfied with.

This is exactly the same process you should be using with your fitness clients in regard to keeping them committed to their goals. We now work backwards to determine what are the things you would need to do today and every day to reach this goal, but a little more info is needed along the way. In this case to get 40 new clients you will need to meet with 70 new prospects. So now we can begin to evaluate our lead generation and marketing tactics, how many hours a day do you need to contribute to these efforts?

Can you hire someone to help you, and so on. Please check out www. What is your time worth? This is a very serious question and one you need to answer for yourself. In the early days, and maybe still, you were doing everything. You were the head trainer, chief salesman, sanitation engineer, accounts receivable clerk, lead marketing consultant, web developer, and well you get the picture. Do you ever notice how difficult it is to switch between two very different tasks? We all have tasks that we detest so much that we just consciously or subconsciously avoid them.

You probably have other fears like I had. Let me ask you if you decided to play handyman in your business this coming weekend and spent hours on both Saturday and Sunday at your business do you think you might be less enthusiastic for your first clients come early Monday morning? What if instead you had a fun weekend with your family, would that leave you more refreshed and excited to see your clients come Monday morning?

Sometimes by doing a variety of tasks saves us money in the short-term. But long-term these tasks can catch up to us in a variety of ways:. Draw your line in the sand, what is your time worth? For instance if you have tasks like cleaning, filing, calling to confirm appointments, posting updates on your facebook fanpage, tweeting, or creating a new blog post on your website, these are all things you can hire someone else to do for likely minimum wage.

Even today I responded to multiple emails from clients that stated: What we do as fitness professionals is world changing, every day you are a hero. Want to find a Fit Body Boot Camp near you or learn about franchise opportunities? I remember having this obsession with bouncy balls as a kid. I thought the coolest thing about them was that if you dropped one it would come back to you. I would take that tiny ball and throw it down on the ground as hard as I could and it would shoot off the floor and bounce from one object to the next.

The more force I could put behind that ball the more things I could get it to bounce off. This was a ton of fun, well until I broke something and my mom found out. Then it was all bad lol. My point is that I want to be more like that bouncy ball. I want to be Resilient. The dictionary defines resilient as: I have had a lot go on in the last 30 days and at times I wanted to have a pity party and sit and say woe is me. I wanted to ask myself the million dollar? In entrepreneurship we must accept the good with the bad.

We must be be mentally prepared to bounce back no matter what the odds are. So my challenge to you today is to be like that little bouncy ball and be virtually indestructible. Use those little things to bounce back faster, harder, and better. I encourage you to welcome trials and adversity when they show up in your life because I realized some time ago that they make me BETTER. But somehow, I still stumbled upon the importance of content.