Flow. Rhythm. Consistency. These are all words we want to associate with how we do...
BONUS: Finding Your Podcasting Rhythm With The Standout Podcast Club
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Ask Better Questions
I’m fascinated by the way that different people can look at the same problem and ask wildly different questions to solve it. This fascination is one of the reasons I became a podcaster. I wanted to ask entrepreneurs about how they arrived at their ideas and...
EP 317: Leveraging LinkedIn With The Pocket PhD Founder Emily Crookston
Obviously, we all got thrown for a loop last year when Covid hit. That wrench in the works played out different for every one and every business—but we all had to adapt in some way.
If you fought, fled, or froze, you’re not alone!
I think we all responded that way initially. I certainly did—big fighting energy over here!
What was amazing to watch though is little by little, the business owners I’m in community with started to ease up on that immediate reaction and started to find a more adaptive, proactive response.
I saw amazing things happen for people when they adapted—even if those things didn’t always lead to financial relief or more time to themselves.
One of those people is my guest today, the founder of The Pocket PhD, Emily Crookston.
Emily is a ghostwriter and editor who works with experts and thought leaders to help them bring their ideas to the masses.
As you’ll hear, Emily’s plan for 2020 was to grow her business through in-person speaking engagements. Her first gig was on March 8—and then… lock down.
But Emily adapted—taking the same strategy she was applying to speaking gigs and applied it to LinkedIn. She’s seen tremendous success on the platform over the last year and I wanted to talk with her about how she adapted her plan, decided on LinkedIn, and then figured out how to make the most of the platform by working her plan.
We talk about how she made the jump from posting spontaneously to planning her content & scheduling it. We talk about the video interview series she started. We talk about how she approaches the LinkedIn algorithm (hint: she doesn’t). And we talk about the results she’s seen for her business.
This Article Contains Remarkable Content
Do you have your social media strategy all squared away for 2021? Are you on all the hot new platforms? Have you experimented with all the latest features and stickers and filters? Do you have all your content scheduled and recycled at random intervals to appear...
EP 316: Planning For Parental Leave With Startup Society Founder Gillian Perkins
This week, my guest is Gillian Perkins—a YouTuber with over 450 thousand subscribers, marketing expert, business strategist, and the creator of Startup Society.
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Gillian through YellowHouse.Media, where we produce her podcast, Work Less, Earn More. Gillian is a disciplined, rigorous executor who is no stranger to making a plan and working it.
And there are plenty of conventional ways that Gillian manages the work to be done—for instance, she loves Asana!
But there was a really intriguing part of our conversation where I learned that Gillian’s found her true way of working on big projects—like planning for her recent parental leave—doesn’t necessarily fit the way we think it’s supposed to be done. She calls it “batching chaotically” and it’s a mode of operation I can definitely relate to!
In this conversation, you’ll hear what Gillian’s average 20-hour workweek looks like, how she changed that up to prepare for parental leave, how she made her leave plan in the first place, and what she’s learned by taking time away from the business over the years.
Hope Doing More Will Make Your Business More Successful? Let’s Talk About That
What are you doing to grow your business this year? Wait. Let me guess: You're doing more. Doing more is rarely the answer to the question, "How do I grow my business?" But... it seems like it should be the answer. So it's the first tactic we consider....
EP 315: How I’m Planning For 2021 at What Works & YellowHouse.Media
Welcome to the first What Works episode of 2021!
This episode is going to be a look behind the scenes of my two companies and how we’re planning for 2021, some of the choices we’re making, and what we’ll be looking for as the year progresses.
Not only is this the kick-off episode for 2021, it’s the kick-off for our January series on “working the plan.” This month, I’m going to be sharing conversations about planning for parental leave, leveraging LinkedIn, and writing a book—all things that have taken intentional planning and execution!
But before we get to those, I wanted to share not only how I’ll be working the plan this year but how the plan got made in the first place.
I recorded this episode in mid-December 2020. And in that time, I’ve already discovered some things that are altering my plans. After all, the very act of working a plan means you’re gaining new information and even discovering new ideas.
Planning is a learning process.
It’s not about getting the plan right, it’s about finding a starting point and then learning from the result as you go.
My plan is never set in stone. Adjusting my plan doesn’t mean I’ve failed or done something wrong. It means I’m learning. So start with my best guess of what I want to do and then adapt from there as I gain new information and experiences.
In this episode, I’ll share how I’m reallocating my resources this year to better serve my companies, what commitments I’ve made for the year, the Strategic Priorities we’re focused on, and what projects we’re kicking off the year with.
Here’s what works for me when I’m working the plan!
Your Goals Do Not Define You
As you make your New Year’s resolutions, intentions, commitments, vision boards, or goals, a gentle reminder: Your goals do not define you or your worth. The other day, I was thinking about my "origin story." It's the story of why I started a business in the first...
Your Business Is Not A Problem To Be Fixed
Messages urging you to fix yourself or fix your business are all around. It's all part of the annual ritual of improvement that is the New Year. Most of these messages revolve around invented or exaggerated “problems” that can be easily solved if only you’d buy this...
Reset Your Reactivity In 2021
2020 has been a year of reacting. We’ve reacted to the shock to our economies. We’ve reacted to injustice. We’ve reacted to the fear of getting sick (or spreading sickness to others). We’ve reacted to lost contracts and unexpected surges in demand. We’ve reacted to...
Host of What Works
Tara is a podcaster, small business community leader, strategist, and speaker. She’s been helping small business owners build stronger businesses for over a decade.
