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00:00:01
Operating Like the Business You Wish to Become
66 Plays1 year ago
In this episode I share one of the key learnings from my experience in establishing unique businesses based on my passions & purpose.
Doing Business to Your Own Beat is much for enjoyable when structures are in place that enable you to keep it sustainable.
This is all about reducing the stress of taking what you love to do and using it earn your living and doesn’t lead you to burning out and loosing the joy of why you started the business in the first place.
Now as the Owner/Operator of a unique retail store offering which is still today evolving, and Dharma Coach I hope to facilitate and support others in realising their dreams of creating a life they truly love, doing work that aligns with their values and unique skills.
Book an immersive shopping experience at Creators Nest, a space showcasing handcrafted wares of professional creatives locally & beyond.
https://creatorsnest.com.au/pages/about-us
Find out about Events & Workshops offered
https://creatorsnest.com.au/collections/workshops-events
Learn more about my Dharma Coaching service
https://creatorsnest.com.au/pages/dharma-coaching
Join me on this wild ride - looking forward to drumming, dancing or soaring alongside of you…
connect via instagram
https://www.instagram.com/creatorsnestyass/
https://www.instagram.com/bymarienicole/
Intro & Outro Music: Shaman Dance by slavamusic
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Transcript
Introduction and Vision
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you desire to turn your passion into income? Connect with other creative souls who also dance to the beat of their own drum?
00:00:08
Speaker
I'm Marie Nicole and I'm devoted to combining beauty, uniqueness and connection in everyday living experiences. As a creative professional and Dharma coach, I help people connect to the truth of who they are and facilitate them in embodying their uniqueness. It is my hope in this podcast that I inspire you to live your life on your terms and earn your income through being uniquely you.
00:00:33
Speaker
After all, it's the unique thread that we each contribute to the collective tapestry that creates the whole.
Key Business Insight: Aspire and Act
00:00:50
Speaker
In this episode, I would like to focus on something that I have found to be invaluable.
00:00:56
Speaker
in running a sole trader business, a small business and that is to operate like the business that you wish to become. So that's putting into place systems, habits and practices that enable you to grow into that business that you wish to become without being overwhelmed. Now
00:01:16
Speaker
Part of that can be planning and scheduling, looking at all the different areas of your business and what needs to be done.
Planning and Scheduling Essentials
00:01:26
Speaker
So production, marketing, working on your website, actually designing, finances, all of those different areas, writing them all out and allocating time over the course of a week that you're going to look at every area of that business.
00:01:43
Speaker
or even over the course of two weeks if you don't want to do your website necessarily every single week. But it is still important to keep fresh and out there in the world.
00:01:55
Speaker
keep things up to date in the World Wide Web because when people stop at your website, they want to actually see what they're going to be experiencing when they come into your business. But allowing yourself to schedule out time doesn't mean that you need to live a life that's regimented. It is more about giving yourself the boundaries that you can work within to then
00:02:21
Speaker
realize your dreams, and if you're planning to build your business to get into the point where you employ other people to help you in it, then having those tasks allocated out, separated in a schedule, and then underneath that, knowing exactly what's involved in those tasks and recording
Simplifying Delegation with Manuals
00:02:39
Speaker
it. I've put together procedures manuals for both my photography business and for Creator's Nest, which made it much easier to then have other people step into the business
00:02:49
Speaker
and understand what it is about. When I was just an artisan working on my own doing markets, I didn't actually have other people work for me at all, but I still allocated my time in ways that I knew that I was staying on top of everything.
Transitioning from Service to Product
00:03:04
Speaker
In the early days of my artisanal business, going from a service-based to a product-based business, I had a coach actually work with me on ways that I could work out, one, my capacity, how much I could make, and in what timeframe, and what the steps were for each of those products, so that when it came to preparing for markets, I would make sure that I had enough stock to take with me and could plan weeks in advance how to do that. Now, by actually
00:03:33
Speaker
having this practice in place where I scheduled out and had time I knew that I would have like a full day that any opportunity that I got to work on making I would at least have some idea how many I would need to make and what my objectives were at the end of the month for that market.
00:03:54
Speaker
And I started my biz, this artisanal, the artisanal business, sorry, with a baby in tow. So I was working within his sleeping, which was limited. My second child didn't sleep very much at all for the first 14 months. He was a very alert baby and he's such a switched on kid, so I'm not surprised.
00:04:15
Speaker
But what having this habit of operating like the business I wanted to become did for me was I actually allocated 45 minute slots. So I would get him down to sleep and I'd go, right in this 45 minutes, I am just focusing on my marketing material.
Marketing and Ethical Storytelling
00:04:33
Speaker
So I'd focus on the story I wanted to tell when I was writing my product listings and my social media posts.
00:04:41
Speaker
And I would just focus for 45 minutes on the words and the emotions and the feelings behind the work that I was doing. Because I wasn't seeing people face to face all the time. I was doing that at markets and I could get a lot said.
00:04:57
Speaker
in just a couple of minutes conversing with someone about the product. But when I was selling online or trying to reach out to retail stores with what I did or what I was creating, I needed that marketing material was super important to get the messaging across because it wasn't just about making money. It was also about making a difference and impacting people in ways that made them know that this is ethically and
00:05:23
Speaker
sustainably created and the intention is to bring beauty into their everyday living experiences. So marketing, my marketing material was really important to get that message across in words, in imagery. I also allocated time to photographing, capturing images and I actually created like collections and seasonal collections and themed them and planned that out. So in one of those 45 minute increments that I allocated to say photography,
00:05:53
Speaker
I could also spend that time planning what would my next shoot look like, what do I need to source for that shoot to happen and then allocate another time period to just photographing rather than getting to the shoot time or you know getting to photograph my products and going oh my goodness now what am I going to do this time, where am I going to grab
00:06:13
Speaker
that I can put into the shot to try and make it look interesting instead of that I was considering ahead of time that I wanted to get this story across for this product and it's used in this way and it's going to make you feel this way and so allocating that time made it so much easier to get that message across and more enjoyable for myself.
Financial Review and Management Practices
00:06:35
Speaker
Now another area that was not something that I love to do but most creatives don't
00:06:42
Speaker
was working on finances but I was very strict on that that I would spend at least one day a month that I would just look at finances and as grueling as that was it and still is I still I actually do it weekly now and
00:07:00
Speaker
That's a really important thing because I'm selling on behalf of consignors and I need to make sure that I set money aside to pay the consignors at the end of the month, know exactly what's coming in for my business and what's going out for their business. But putting in that strategy of allocating time to focus on that, not only means that I get it done and I don't get overwhelmed and I'm not avoiding things that I don't like, it's allocating out tasks that I can then
00:07:28
Speaker
hand over to somebody else and say right I'm going to employ somebody to do that and so having that organized in a way that I can then transfer that information across to somebody else makes it easier to expand the business and
00:07:43
Speaker
On that note, it's things like preparing for taxes.
Workflow Systems in Photography
00:07:46
Speaker
When I had my photography business, even though I didn't have to register for GST straight away, when it got close to the time that I would need to register for GST, I actually did it ahead of time so that I knew what I needed to do, what practices I needed to put into place. So when it was a must, I was already prepared for it. And the same goes with workflow.
00:08:12
Speaker
In terms of my photography business, I had systems in place where every step of the process had a tray allocated to it with a particular color folder, so client files would go into those trays.
00:08:27
Speaker
into that set colour so I knew what stage of the process it was in. And then when I had other people join me in the business and we're doing colour correcting and album assembly, they would just look at the tray for album assembly. It was a particular colour tray. They knew that they were the task that they were supposed to
00:08:47
Speaker
start with for the day and once they'd finished they then put it into the next folder in another color and then the next person who was looking after that part of the process would pick up that color folder and work on their bit and there were checklists in there to make sure that people signed off with even the dates that they had finished so we knew exactly where a client's album was at in the process or
00:09:13
Speaker
in even um well this is wedding photography I'm talking about here but if someone called and wanted to check on how their their album was going we could look at their file and see exactly where it was at. So that's actually just being strategic in minimizing the stress and because I wanted to be a business that employed other people
00:09:32
Speaker
I wanted other people to be able to come in and fulfill those roles without me fumbling around trying to tell them how I do things. So that's what I'm trying to get across here, that it's really important for you not only to work efficiently, especially as creatives, working on your own quite often. By operating like the business that you want to become, you actually put into place habits and practices that enable you to get more done in less time.
00:10:01
Speaker
and allows you time to have off.
Balancing Creativity with Time Off
00:10:05
Speaker
Now that's another thing that I think is really important as a small business owner, especially as a sole trader, allocating that time ahead of time because you want to be able to live life and enjoy it. You're not just trying to make money by working yourself into the ground 12 hours a day, 7 days a week,
00:10:26
Speaker
that's not living that's not going to actually keep your creative juices going actually allowing yourself that time to go on holiday take a day off have a morning off afternoon walks you know basking in the sun playing with the drum that you've actually just made or enjoying the clothes that you create and utilizing them out in the the situations that
00:10:52
Speaker
you would want your customers to enjoy them in and capturing imagery of that, not so you're working all the time, but just in ways that you're enjoying the products that you make in the same way that you want your customers to enjoy the products that you make. So allowing that downtime is so important.
00:11:09
Speaker
and you know when we start working for ourselves we don't do it to grind we do it to fulfill our passion so when we allow ourselves time off we also allow our brains to absorb new information and experiences and that's you know so important especially as a creative to step away from the sewing machine from the camera from the pottery wheel from however it is
00:11:34
Speaker
You use your creativity. It is so important to step away and allow yourself time to just be inspired and to have new information come into your realm, new experiences. That is such a big part of being a creative, running your own business, is allowing yourself that time. But knowing that you need the discipline to come back and do what just needs to be done.
Enhancing Efficiency with Enjoyable Tasks
00:12:01
Speaker
Look, I started when I was first finished school, high school, many, many years ago. Now I was an accounts clerk. And so I was fortunate enough to actually work in that financial realm to have some ideas of how to set up systems in place. But it's so important as a business owner to find those ways that you can do the tasks that you really don't love to do, but you know you need to.
00:12:30
Speaker
and make it pleasurable for yourself. So for me, my spreadsheets are color coded. There's, I could not just work in a black and white spreadsheet, anything. So, you know, making it playful, joyful, but allocating that time. And then when you do become that business that enables you to step away, hand that task on to somebody else,
00:12:53
Speaker
take on something else that brings you much more joy, you're gonna really enjoy it even more because you know what that person is doing for you know what the investment is that you're making in that person and how valuable that is because you've sat there and you've done it yourself and you know what the grind is like when it's not in alignment with your skill set or when it doesn't bring you joy.
Conclusion and Invitation to Connect
00:13:17
Speaker
So I hope that this has helped you think about things that you can do
00:13:23
Speaker
to operate like the business you want to become and make it so that it is possible for you to grow and evolve into that business rather than getting overwhelmed and disheartened because you're doing all these things that you just don't love. But this will allow you more time to do what you love.
00:13:45
Speaker
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is, and I hope you got value out of listening to this podcast. If you are looking for a coach to support and guide you through your own unique journey of creating a life you love, then reach out for a connection call. And if you'd like to connect with other creative souls in person by joining us at a workshop, a retreat, or to book a unique shopping experience here at Creators Nest, I run those by appointment. So check out the website for more details. The link is in the show notes.
00:14:16
Speaker
Oh, and please leave a review. I'd love to hear any insights or inspirations that were activated in you from this podcast. And I look forward to drumming, dancing or soaring alongside of you.