Business

Ep 26. The Secret to a Successful Business

Mompreneur article about success in business
I'm Ashley!

My mission at The Purpose Gathering is to help driven momtogs like you level up, so you can build a sustainable business AND a fulfilling family life. I do that through authentic brand photography and my signature program for mompreneurs: The Efficient Mompreneur.

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I want to talk to you about the secret to a successful business. Can you guess what that secret is? It’s you! You are the secret sauce. Now, I know this seems super obvious, but so many people miss this. Are you capitalizing on who you are as an individual? Are you showing up authentically and showing your face consistently? Or are you hiding behind your product and your services?

I want to walk you through just three things today that are the secrets to having a successful business; I want you to show up for yourself, show your face and show up consistently. That’s it. That’s the secret to a successful business.

Step # 1: Show up for Yourself

I think self-care is so important yet so many moms just completely disregard the need for it. Whether they don’t believe they’re worth it, or they just don’t know how to show up for themselves. So, I created an entire module in my course, The Efficient Mompreneur, all about self-care. I show you exactly step by step, how to show up for yourself so that you can show up for your family and your business.

Now, I want you to start every morning with intention; I want you to wake up and I want you to do something for you. If you are not consistently showing up for yourself and you’re always showing up for everyone else, you’re going to burn out quickly. You’re going to find yourself always feeling overwhelmed and anxious and never feel like you can get ahead.

So, I want you to take care of yourself and this can look so different for all of us. So, you’re going to have to do some assessment and some soul searching to figure out what it is that you like to do for you. Maybe it’s reading a book, maybe it’s journaling, whatever it is that fills your cup, do that and schedule time in the morning to do it. You will see immense returns both in your business as well as in your family dynamic by showing up for yourself.

Also, I want you to think about always investing in your personal and professional development. So, when I say show up for yourself, I also mean that we should consistently be bettering ourselves; We should always be learning and always be growing. I want you to also be thinking about bettering your craft. So maybe not even investing in a business course, but maybe in the specific product or service that you do and sell. Always be learning, always be growing and show up for yourself.

Step # 2: Show Your Face

This intimidates a lot of people for multiple reasons. I’ve heard every excuse in the book and some of it may be true. However, it’s not enough of an excuse not to show up.

I’m going to drop a truth bomb right now. Your feed and your stories are not for you, they’re for your audience. We want to see you authentically. We don’t care if you have your hair in a messy bun, or if you have no makeup on. Actually, that makes us feel more connected to you because that’s pretty much what our life looks like too. Don’t be afraid to show the messy, just be who you are, and people will be attracted to that. Just push past the excuses because your people are waiting to hear from you.

And here’s the other truth bomb, you’re competitors are showing their face. Your competitors are getting on stories and pushing past the awkward. Don’t give your business away to your competitors because they are less afraid.

And you might be thinking, well, that’s my biggest problem, I don’t have anything cool. I guarantee you that you do, you just don’t know it. If you need help identifying those things, I want you to check into the Facebook group, join it if you’re not a member already and let’s brainstorm some ideas with you. I encourage you to join our Purpose Gathering Mamas group, and plug in, get connected, and we will help you find the unique you that you think is not there.

There are a couple things to keep in mind with this tip, show your face. I recommend a branded session with a professional photographer and to start to take photos of yourself or enlist someone to do that for you. I am a brand photographer and what is so awesome about having a branded styled session for your business, is that you can get those behind the scenes photos. You can show people your face without it being a stuffy headshot as well as showing them your personality and what you like to do outside of your business.

Remember, you are not always going to be on everyone’s radar and they’re not always going to be ready to buy your product or service. But when they are, you want them to think of you first and you want people to be able to stick around and follow you and to have something to connect with you on outside of your product or your service.

I have an incredible free training, all about how to plan your Instagram content and when to show your face. I would love for you to go grab that training here. This training is so incredibly impactful and those are words from actual mamas who have gone through this training and are implementing all of the strategies that I teach.

The second thing that I want to mention is that if you are local in Arizona, I do many Branded Babes sessions every single month or sometimes even twice a month. You can sign up and join us for quick 15-minute sessions where you can update your photos on a regular basis, but not spend the time and the money for a full custom session. I will walk you through every step of the way to make sure that you get the photos that are going to show off your personality. So, if you’re interested in checking out my upcoming Branded Babe sessions, you can do that by visiting this link.

Step #3 Show up Consistently

Now my biggest downfall as a business owner, has been giving up too soon. And not being consistent and really just giving up, when things were not showing results as quickly as I thought they should. Now you have to be willing to show up, even when no one is watching or even when no one is engaging. And I can speak to this with so much experience, because I have felt this firsthand.

I actually just started going live in my Facebook group twice a week. And it took eight times of me showing up live before I even got one person to stick around for the full live stream. People would pop in, they would watch for a few seconds or a few minutes, and then they would leave. And it would totally crush me, and I was literally ready to quit. My coach and my trusted advisors told me to show up consistently and keep doing it. You have to continue to show up even when you think no one’s watching. Now I have like three to four people showing up on the lives and watching the whole thing. And it feels incredible because if one person gets something out of my live, then it was worth it.

Here’s the other thing I hear from so many people. They’ll come to me or we’ll bump into each other in person, or they’ll DM me or we’ll talk on the phone, and they’ll say, oh my gosh, I love your content! And I’m like what? You watch everything I’m doing? Why have you never said anything until right now? All these people, they’re watching you, you just don’t know it. Show the people that are showing up for you, that you see them and that you find their content valuable. You know, as a business owner, how important it is to hear from other people that they like what you’re doing. So, do the same.

Have a Plan

I also want you to know that if you are going to show up consistently, you have to have a plan. You can’t just show up when you feel like it; You need to have a plan. This is the only way I’ve been able to stay consistent.
I had this dream or this idea that it would be really nice to blog once or twice a month. It never happened, because I just had an idea, but I never had an intentional plan. Then I started this business and I decided I was going to do things differently. I decided that I was going to do this podcast and show up consistently once a week for a year, before I decided whether or not I was going to keep doing it. I also decided that I was going to show up live, twice a week in my Facebook group for six months, whether anyone showed up live or not. And I was going to see where that took me.

So, I think it’s only been a couple of weeks since I started showing up consistently live, and I’ve already seen so much engagement in my Facebook group. I have already had people reaching out to me and emailing me about my podcast episodes, because I decided that I was going to show up even when no one else did.

I hope that you are starting to understand how important you are in your business. And that I don’t want you to give up when things are hard, or when you feel like nobody is listening, because it just takes time. And even when you feel like no one’s listening, they are.

So, I hope that you have found these three tips, extremely helpful. And I want you to start to make a plan and put it into action. Start to be better about showing up for yourself. Start to strategically think about how you are going to show up in your feed and in your stories. And then think about what it is that you’re going to do to move forward, no matter whether people are listening or you’re getting the engagement or not.

So, don’t be afraid of that as always mama I’m rooting for you and you are not alone on this journey.

xo, Ashley

Resources:

The Efficient Mompreneur – Online Course
Find me on Instagram
The Purpose Gathering Website
Join our Facebook Community

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My mission is to help fellow mom business owners experience success in business and in motherhood. As an Arizona brand photographer for mompreneurs, I’m passionate about capturing authentic images that show off my clients’ unique personalities so they can connect with their ideal clients. And as an online business coach for mompreneurs, I LIVE for helping mamas experience incredible transformations that help them build a business they love, without sacrificing their precious time with their littles.

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