In this podcast episode, we break down the phrase “fake it ‘till you make it” and talk about the practical uses and the impractical side effects.

Our three main problems with the idea of “faking it till we make it.” 

1. It never ends because there is no quantifiable “making it” period. How do you know when you’ve made it?
2. It breeds the foundation for the Imposter Syndrome. Even if you’ve gained experience, this way of thinking will knock you down into believing that you’re not supposed to be here or that you’re no good at this.  
3. It doesn’t allow you to learn and grow, because you avoid vulnerability.  

We talk about the psychology of what happens to your long-term confidence and growth and what you can do to maintain a healthy confidence level.

“Faking it” breeds a long-term identity crisis. You become obsessed with your external image and you end up putting yourself in a lot of stressful situations.     

We share stories of things that we experienced when we launched a photo portrait studio in 2013 and how “faking it till we made it” affected our business starting out and as we grew.

The Next 3 Steps to keep “fake it until you make it” in check

1. Set a goal for when you’ve “made it”. It can be a monetary amount, a certain number of clients, your number of products sold, or even a time frame. It’s entirely up to you and your business goals. But the point is to set a tangible goal and allow yourself to say you’ve “made it” and can stop “faking it”.
2. Take daily action towards “making it”.  Stop spending time, money, and energy projecting that you’ve made it and just focus on actually doing the things that put you on course to your success.
3. Find other ways to build confidence. You can do things like taking courses, networking with peers, and getting client reviews.

Host Bio –  Rhi and Pete [Rhi-Pete – now you’ll remember] are a wife and husband team who have been in business together for over a decade.  They run a creative media agency [Do Something Different Media] that provides strategy and consulting, video production, website development, photography, graphic design, and content writing for small businesses.  

Recommended Resources

Leave a voicemail for an upcoming podcast: www.learnit-doit.com/podcast

The post The Problem With “Fake It Until You Make It” appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Then we found out that we were expecting a baby girl and that slowed my progress a bit and it definitely changed the content of what I’d be reading.  Despite all the excitement, I was still able to read more books than I have any previous year, including a few pre-baby titles. And with every book, comes a whole lot of lessons to put into practice…

My Top 4 Must-Reads from 2019

1. A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle
2. How to be an Imperfectionist – Stephen Guise
3. Declutter Your Mind – S.J. Scott
4. Everybody Writes – Ann Handley

My number one must read from 2019 was A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, in fact, we are only a few days into January and I just finished re-reading the book.  This is the kind of book that you can keep coming back to and get something out of every time. I think that’s something I really enjoy about personal development books; the lessons you learn while reading them are really dependent upon the moment you are in and what is going on for you personally at the time.

How to Be an Imperfectionist was one of the last books I read last year and it really hit home.  If you suffer from perfectionism and find yourself not finishing things – or worse, not starting things –  because you are waiting for perfection, then this is a MUST READ. This book details the root of perfectionism, how it manifests itself in your life, and step-by-step habits to put into practice so you can “become an imperfectionist.”

For the self-marketers out there, I think Everybody Writes is a must-read.  And in reading the book, you’ll realize that these days, we are ALL writers whether we consider ourselves writers or not.  This book is full of tips, concepts, and insights that will make you a better writer. As someone who is constantly creating content and marketing materials for my audience to consume, this book was incredibly insightful and immediately applicable.

Declutter Your Mind was another book with immediately applicable concepts.  If you are looking for a book to read to kick off the new year with a bang, this book is an easy read and loaded with advice and activities you can start to implement right away that will improve your productivity and peace of mind.  I read this at the start of 2019 and you’ll find that we talk about a ton of these concepts in our blogs and podcasts because they are super helpful for the self-employed business owner.

In Summation…

These books definitely taught me a lot of lessons to implement in the new year and I look forward to diving into my 2020 reading goals.  This year, I’m sticking with the 30 book challenge because I really want to hit it and know that I can make it happen if I put my mind to it.  I may have a few re-reads on my list, like “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” a classic that I try to read every couple of years to refresh myself on the age-old concepts that book shares on relationships and success in life. 

For those of you who’ve been meaning to read more, challenge yourself to read a certain number of books this year and let’s hold each other accountable.  The key to getting your reading done is to make time for it regularly and to have a list of books that you want to read so that you always are a few books ahead of yourself on what is coming next.  There were a few times this year when I finished a book and a few weeks would go by before I realized I didn’t have another book on deck to read. So I recommend planning a few books ahead and always looking for new books to add to the list.  Reading is a great way to take a break throughout the day, clear your thoughts, learn and grow. Let’s make it happen in 2020!

And I’m also always looking for recommendations and would love to hear what personal development and business books you might recommend. Share in the comments your favorites and I will be sure to check them out! And as always, I’ll be sure to share my book reviews throughout the year as I find titles that really speak to me which I think you might enjoy.

Happy reading, DOers!!

The post A Year Of Reading In Review – 2019 appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

It’s important to pay attention to the language that we use on a day-to-day basis. In this episode, we zero in on the term “busy” and discuss why it’s not a great thing to say about yourself and your business.  It’s easy to assume that busy is good, but we unpack many reasons why you should remove it from your business vocabulary and how removing it will help your personal and business mindset.

Host Bio –  Rhi and Pete [Rhi-Pete – now you’ll remember] are a wife and husband team who have been in business together for over a decade.  They run a creative media agency [Do Something Different Media] that provides strategy and consulting, video production, website development, photography, graphic design, and content writing for small businesses.  

Episode Summary 

• The term busy is generally used in a negative way.  “I’m too busy and there’s never enough time”. It makes you feel lousy, too, because it comes from a place of lack.
• It’s not a good term to use when you’re networking because it’s a conversation ender.  The term “busy” shares nothing productive about your business.
• People may assume that being “busy” means you’re unavailable, not interested, or that you can’t handle more work.
• Being busy shouldn’t be your goal, making more money while doing less work should be.

Quick-Wins

1. Remove the word “busy” from your vocabulary for at least a week. Instead use description, stories or anecdotes to describe your current situation.
2. Listen for other people saying that they’re “busy”. Pay attention to their body language, what they’re speaking about and just be present with the term.  Also, see how other people react to hearing the term.
3. Remove the goal of being busy and replace it with being efficient.  You can make the same amount of money being busy as you can while being efficient, the main difference is that when you’re efficient you earn a lot more free time and it’s less stressful.

Recommended Resources 

You Are A Badass – https://jensincero.com/

The post Quick-Win Episode 3: Busy Is Bad For Business appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Let’s Define Social Media

By now most of us are accustomed to using social media (at least personally) and we know that it seems important to be on there in some capacity.  We see it everywhere, we hear about it, read about it, and we certainly know that it’s here to stay, but almost all of us have zero ideas on what to do or even where to start.  

These are all frequent questions that we are asked during consulting meetings:

• Should I get a Facebook Page? 
• What about Twitter? 
• How do I get immediate business from Instagram? 
• I set up some accounts but that’s basically it. Now what? 
• Should I have a Linkedin because it’s about business?

Before we get into any of this, I want you to understand a realistic perspective that you should have about social media and what it can do for you as a self-employed business owner. 

What Social Media is.

It’s a tool that is used to engage with people. 

That’s it. Think of this as a tool and only a tool. 

It creates top of mind awareness among your customer base.  

Word of mouth referrals happen because of top of mind awareness.  When the timing is right for someone to need your product or service, they will probably talk to someone about how they are looking for “X Product/Service.”  Your followers will be more likely to refer you and your business because they are seeing your regularly posted content, which allows them to recall who you are, what you offer, and why you’d be a good solution for their friend in need.  It’s all about “Top of Mind Awareness.” If you and your business are at the top of their mind, they are MUCH more likely to refer/hire you.

For Example – You own a chiropractic business.  Your patient Jody loves your service and follows you on your social accounts.  You post about your practice and general body health regularly. Jody has a friend Taryn who was mentioning over a luncheon that her sciatic nerve has been bothering her and she needs to find someone to do some bodywork on her.  Jody will most certainly recommend you and your services and she’ll remember to do so because you were at the top of her mind.

It is a resource of information for prospective customers. 

When people go to look up a company, brand, product or service they usually type it into google and look for RELEVANT and RECENT information.  This is incredibly important to understand. You’re creating your own database for your brand. You get the opportunity to educate your clients about who you are, why you do what you do, why they’d want to work with you, and what overall solutions you can provide them. People like to use social feeds to see how legitimate a brand seems before reaching out.

It creates a brand voice and a perceived brand value.

Your brand voice is what will turn casual followers into fans.  People want to be educated and entertained and you get to choose how you present yourself via your messaging.  Perceived brand value comes when people believe something is valuable based on the way that it’s presented and understood.  We all know that a pair of gas station sunglasses cost $5 and we’re totally okay with the fact that a pair of Rayban Sunglasses can cost upwards of $200.  That’s brand value and it begins when people assume value and are 100% excited to be a customer.

It helps create brand fans and convert them into customers.

This is your chance to build a relationship with your customers and fan base through conversations.  The more you engage with your audience, the more meaningful of a relationship you create with them. When your audience becomes champions for your brand, you’ll certainly begin to see a lot of word of mouth (WOM) referrals and repeat business.

What Social Media is not.

It is not a gauge of your success

Do not use followers or likes as a business thermometer. We’ve seen it hundreds of times where our clients will wonder what they’re doing wrong in their business because they’re not amassing followers like they thought they would.  The internet is a busy place and it takes a lot of time and money to grow a social account. On the plus side, there are a lot of people there too, so be sure to regularly post valuable content and you’ll start to see followers convert to customers over time.

It is not the be-all-end-all of your business

Do not put all of your stock into social platforms.  You do not own your accounts and you can’t control what happens to algorithm changes, ad revenues, etc. A lot of people think that likes, followers, fans, and re-tweets are a measure of success and that is simply not true.  So much of these “metrics” are meaningless and the statistics hold no weight for your business. It’s much better to have meaningful conversations with a smaller number of followers than to have an inflated following of random people with little to no engagement.

It is not an immediate ROI

It takes a lot, I mean A LOT, of time and energy to successfully build and run a social account.  It will be extremely beneficial and valuable to your business, but not immediately. Again, initially, we’re looking for the top of mind awareness among our followers and we’re posting as an informational resource for prospective followers to read up on you and your brand.

It’s not worth stressing or obsessing over

Just know that you should be posting regularly and don’t worry about likes, engagements, stats or metrics.  To be clear, we’re not looking to post our valued content into the void of the internet for no one to see it.  You should be posting once a day or once every other day in order to keep your brand current and relevant. Regardless, it’s important to not beat yourself up about a lack of engagement or viewership on what you post.  Just focus on the goals and keep sharing valuable content for those that do see it…it will all work itself out over time.

Mindset

We often lose sight of why we’re on these social platforms in the first place.  The endgame with social media is to create more customers. That’s it. 

The problem that arises is that our ego takes over and we begin to seek external validation.  While doing this we begin to compare ourselves to everyone else, and it’s really easy to fall into the trap of envy and comparison. Likes and follows are not a metric that should be driving your business strategy.  Genuine conversations in comments or groups, email subscribers, and direct messages are how you can get the most “ROI” from social platforms.  

Unless you are a 100% Social Media brand and putting in 100% effort daily, it’s not worth the constant let down, especially while you’re in grow-mode.

That said, it is extremely important to have a social media strategy.  If you do not plan your content, implement a content creation strategy and distribution workflow, you WILL get BURNT OUT VERY QUICKLY!  If you think that you just need to sit down each day and write a quick post, I’m here to tell you that it’s much harder and more time-consuming than that.  You should be able to write out a month’s worth of content in one writing session and then use a scheduler to ensure that you’re not chasing your tail each day trying to keep up with your daily posts.

Even if you don’t have many followers at the beginning, it’s easy to overlook the people who are constantly interacting with you.  Don’t write them off, they are actually the people that matter the most. Each person that is a fan of your business is connected to at least 200 people.  Just remember that there is value in each and every person who supports your business. Stop worrying about who isn’t there yet and nurture those who show support.

The moral of the story.

Understand that this is a long game of creating a brand voice, brand value, and loyal fans of your brand.  Having an active social media account does matter in today’s landscape, but it should supplement what you’re doing offline and you shouldn’t get caught up in chasing likes or getting let down when your accounts don’t grow as fast as you thought they would. Keep yourself focused on providing value and getting new customers, both online and offline, and you’ll begin to see your business grow to new heights.

The post As a Self-Employed Business Owner – What’s Your Social Media Mindset? appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Learning how to control your schedule is crucial to being in business for yourself.  Without setting proper processes, boundaries, and expectations, you’ll soon find yourself running in circles and spending most of your day in between productive activities, rather than getting things done and feeling accomplished. This is a lesson we learned (the hard way) when we were running our measuring business.

How We Learned This Lesson The Hard Way

As we described in Episode 0 – Who are Rhi & Pete and What’s this Podcast All About? we started a side business doing carpet estimates for multiple carpet installers who were contracted with a box home improvement store while we were in college.

Every week, we’d be sent the contact information for 20-40 people in the New Hampshire and Northern Massachusetts areas that we had to schedule appointments with for that week.  Our territory included 9 stores that spanned 86 miles at their furthest points. In order to effectively schedule ourselves, we had to account for: 

• The location of the home we were measuring
• Any traffic or construction we might encounter on the way
• What we had to measure and how long that might take 
• Hoping the people we were meeting weren’t running late or not showing up
• Using map books, printed directions and old school GPS devices without real-time traffic updates.  

Needless to say, scheduling all these appointments was quite the cumbersome task.

When we first started, we would simply call each person in our pile of paperwork and ask them when they were available, and put them in our calendar.  We’d write down the list of appointments we’d scheduled in order, print out directions from the internet, hop in the car and hope for the best.

Before long we realized there had to be a better way.  We’d run into traffic, no-shows, incorrect directions, and endless days full of stress, running late, and rescheduling.  Our days were long, stressful, and inefficient and we realized that it was costing us time and money. It was pretty agonizing at first…what had we gotten ourselves into?!

So how did we attempt to fix this problem?  Well, we started by sitting down and outlining all the places where we were running into issues.

Once we outlined our major issues, we decided that if we could improve our ability to estimate how long tasks actually took and improve our customer process, we could get more estimates done in less time, and create days with less stress and more productivity. 

Sound like a dream come true?  Well, it certainly was for us! We went from barely getting 25 estimates done in a week to easily scheduling 50 estimates and working fewer hours…this was like doubling our income without increasing the number of hours we were working!!  It was all about efficiency.

So, let’s take a look at how this could be applied to your business to save you time, decrease your stress, and increase your productivity (and hopefully increase the amount of money you’re making)!

How We Solved This Problem

1. The first thing you need to do [and as we did in our situation] is to define the problematic areas of your scheduling process.

Take a hard look at what processes or routines (if any) you use to schedule yourself.  

• Is it first come first serve for your time slots?  
• Do have dedicated days for certain clients, geographic areas, meetings, or work? 
• How do your personal obligations fit into this schedule? 
• Are there certain tasks or obligations that keep being bumped for “things that come up?”

Consider your answers to all of these questions and try to pinpoint the places that are creating the logjam and stress for you.

For our measuring business we uncovered that our biggest roadblocks were:

1. We were constantly underestimating the amount of time it took to complete a measurement, travel between point A and B, and stop for lunch/gas, etc.
2. We were assuming that every appointment we made was going to be kept by the customer without any sort of reminder process.
3. We were letting each customer set the day and time when we would come to them, rather than being more efficient and scheduling similar locations in the same time window (kind of like batching our stops together based on location).

2. Second, we brainstormed solutions for each of our roadblocks.  

Problem 1: We realized that it was extremely important for us to be realistic about estimating the amount of time we needed to do our jobs correctly.  In order to do this, we recorded the time each task took us for two weeks of measuring (because each job and destination was different every time) and we used the averages to help us schedule and plan.  This is what we came up with: 

Time spent measuring

• Single Room: 10 minutes
• ½ house: 25 minutes
• Whole House: 45 minutes

Driving Times

We used MapQuest at the time and just added a 15-minute buffer for each stop.  This gave us time to get gas, eat and helped with any traffic we encountered.

2 Hour Window

We gave our customers a 2-hour window on when to expect us.

Having these numbers allowed us to use a formula for scheduling. We’d just plug the numbers in and know exactly how much time we needed and it saved us from guessing or trying to figure it out every single time.

Problem 2: We encountered a lot of no-shows.  Most of the time people just forgot because they too, are bad at making or keeping a schedule.  So to fix this issue, we told each customer that we’d call when we were about 15 minutes away and we made sure to get the phone number of the person that we’d be meeting.  This is twofold — first, a lot of people were meeting us and this 15-minute heads up ensured that they’d have time to still get there if they forgot; second, we weren’t always meeting with the person who we originally scheduled the appointment with.

Problem 3: We’d just start calling the customers as the jobs came in and asked when they’d like us to come. This made for total chaos in our schedule and made for very long and stressful days.  To solve this issue, we batched together when we made our phone calls. We decided since the store’s policy is to call the customers within 48 hours of receiving their paperwork that we’d wait until multiple jobs came in so we could organize them by geographic location, map out our ideal itinerary and begin making calls.  

We also decided that we were going to give the customer two options for the appointment (ie. We’ll be in the area on Monday morning or Wednesday afternoon, do either of those times work for you?).  The majority of the time those time slots did work and that’s the moment when we started making our schedule on our own terms.

Realizing that our clients don’t know our schedule and don’t assume we are always available for them was a big lesson.  We always felt like we needed to accomodate them in order to provide an awesome service, but the truth is, the more efficient we are the better service we can provide.  It’s also so much easier for our clients to choose between two options than to review their entire schedule and toss out their own ideas. We assume that their suggestions are convenient for them, but sometimes they are just as random as you allow your schedule to be when you don’t control it.  Giving a few options shows that you are organized, efficient with your time, and accommodating because you are giving them options.

Improve your process to get more done

Lastly, think about ways in which you can improve your process to control your schedule more.  For us, it meant letting our customers know the window during which we would arrive, and telling them we would call them when we were on our way to their location with an exact time.  It didn’t really take extra time on our end because we were already in the car. What it did do though, is allow some flexibility for us if there was traffic or other unforeseen reasons why our day was running a bit off schedule.  It also meant that our customers knew exactly what to expect, knew that we valued their time, and made our “no show” ratio almost zero!  

Now, if you’re schedule meetings with your clients, no-shows may not be a big issue for you.  But I am sure we have all had meetings cancel last minute, or arrived at a location to find that our client was running behind or no longer had as much time to meet with us as we or they had planned.  This can really mess with your schedule and efficiency. Think about simple ways you can improve or add to your client process in order to improve your efficiency and I am sure you won’t regret it!

Let’s do this!

Now that we’ve outlined a few ways you can audit and improve your processes, habits, and management of your schedule, it’s time to put it into practice.  Take a few of these tips and start implementing them in your business and see how you can start to be more efficient, avoid unnecessary stress, and take control of your schedule!!  

Have you tried any of these methods before?  Have other ideas you want to share? We want to hear what works and doesn’t work for you!  Comment below to share the scheduling challenges or successes you’ve experienced.

The post How to Control your Schedule and Accomplish More Each Week appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Last fall, we were looking for a jolt of positivity and enthusiasm to zap us out of a funk.  They weren’t dire times [we were actually in the midst of developing and producing LIDI], but we were definitely in the need of a 3rd quarter pick-me-up to help us spring out of bed on those colder mornings and finish strong.

What Prompted Us to Pick up this Book?

One random night, while we were caught mindlessly scrolling on our phones before bed – we happened to see a friend of mine post about You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero on Instagram and I thought, “what the heck? – I’ll give it a read!”

Honesty Alert: Reading You Are A Badass was like drinking a 2 pm Redbull and finishing the day with a slam! It’s a shot of adrenaline to get you past the small roadblocks that you’ve built up in your mind that are currently standing between you and your goals.  Its “No B.S.” attitude is just what you need to wake up from the craziness in your mind and start taking action to live your best life!

Not only did this book completely jazz us up – it actually sparked feverish creative energy that helped us reach our year-end goals and prepare ourselves for the launch of this very website.

Who would get a lot out of this book? 

If you are currently pursuing a goal and you’re feeling “stuck,” this is a great book for you because Jen Sincero paints a comically honest picture of the harsh truths that we all need to hear.  Whatever your reason may be, I bet that the majority of what’s keeping you from the success you’re looking for are roadblocks that are actually quite simple to remove.  Sometimes a slap in the face can help change your perspective and if you feel like you’re ready to understand life from a new perspective, then you absolutely should read this book.  She’s raw, funny, and tells you the things that you need to hear without the sugar-coating. This book is oh-so-human, real, honest and just the kick in the butt you’ve been looking for!

What are our takeaways and how will we apply them?

1. Awareness & Consciousness

When you start getting into self-help books, there is a lot of talk about the “ego,” and if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t think you are the greatest (even though you totally should value yourself that much), it’s hard for you to believe that you have an EGO problem.  

The truth is, the “Ego” is your subconscious that is “driving the bus,” so to speak, when you put your brain on auto-pilot.  It’s the little voice in your head that pulls you down, helps you make terrible decisions that sabotage your goals, or reminds you of a bunch of useless false beliefs you’ve been taught throughout your life at just the right moment to hold you back.  

I love how simply, and realistically, Sincero talks about this concept of the ego.  It’s so important to take a step outside your “self” and realize that you CAN make changes to your life, things aren’t always going to be the way they have been, and everything you’ve been told isn’t necessarily gospel.  If you want something, you can have it…just tell that voice in your head that you’ll take it from here and make it happen!

2. Gratitude: The Gateway Drug to Awesomeness

Appreciating when someone does something for you seems like a simple concept.  Sometimes we say “thank you” without really thinking about it or feeling it. The truth is, when we can really take a minute to truly feel gratitude and appreciate the things and opportunities we have, it puts us on the frequency of receiving more of those awesome things.  When you are in a good mood, you notice more good things coming your way. So when you are having a down moment, take a minute to be present and think about some things that you really appreciate and you’ll find yourself climbing out of that mental hole and pulling yourself into that happy place again!

3. “I Tried” is the Poor Man’s “Kick Butt”

I love that Sincero points out that we as people tend to let ourselves fall short of a goal because we aren’t really willing to do what it takes.  People who are successful push themselves outside of their comfort zone again and again. They achieve their goals and reach the highest levels of success because they simply aren’t willing to let anything get in the way of that.  The truth is, if you want something bad enough, nothing can stop you. So don’t make excuses or allow yourself to fall victim to yourself or outside obstacles. If you REALLY want something, you’ll make it happen!

4. Give Yourself  Permission to be You.

All too often we allow ourselves to settle or be less than our best versions of ourselves because of something someone else says or a silly belief we’ve been holding on to.  The truth is, anything you want to be, do, or have is totally available to you if you can get out of your own way and really believe it’s possible.  You deserve to be the best version of yourself; whatever that means to you.

Link to the book: You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero

Author’s Website: https://jensincero.com/

The post “You Are A Badass” Book Review appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Why did we decide to write our first course on “How to Write, Shoot, Edit & Share Videos for your Marketing?”  

The answer is pretty simple.  Professional video is pretty expensive — however, extremely beneficial.  A lot of business owners see the price of video production and immediately dismiss it — completely ignoring how effective it can be for their business.

In addition, every single one of us has the means to create effective video content with the device that is in our pocket right now.  By now, we all know the statistics that video marketing far outweighs plain text and graphics — but still, tons of business owners drag their feet when it comes to creating video content for their marketing.

IN-HOUSE TRAINING

For over a decade now, we’ve been producing professional video content for small businesses.  During this time we’ve also been hired to train marketing teams and employees how to create effective videos.  Most of those companies had us come in and teach the basics of how to produce a video in a four-hour training session.  By the end of the session, our students were able to film and edit a quick video for social sharing on their own.  

Once we knew it would work, we decided that we’d not only teach people how to film a video, but we’d focus on how to write and plan a video.  You’ve never watched a video just for its quality, right? You usually watch it because of its content. So we took our 4-hour, in-person video training outline, and wrote an entire course on how to write, shoot, edit, and share videos for your marketing.

We want everyone to be able to use video to help their business grow.  Why? Because we know how valuable it will be for you. There are numerous applications [testimonials, sales, promotions, training, reviews, etc] for video, and most importantly, it allows you to engage with your audience in a way that other media can’t.

CASE STUDY 1

During our Beta-Test group for the course, we sent the course to a friend of ours who is the head of marketing at her company.  Since her company was trying to incorporate more video content into their marketing plans, she asked if she could share the course with her team members, to see if they could learn exactly what they needed in order to make quality video content for the company on their own.  

After taking the course this is what one of her team members had to say.

“This course covers most, if not all, of the information I spent weeks going over in college classes that were very expensive. Pair this material with some practice making your own videos and you will have a recipe for success. – Liam M.”

Just a week after finishing the course, her team member Liam was able to create and fully produce a Team Member Spotlight video with interviews, B-roll, and basic animation that they were able to share socially and on their website blog!

Now the team can produce their own in-house videos for their daily social sharing and they’re seeing their social post engagement grow.  In addition, their C-Suite is very excited to jump into regular video production both in-house and professionally produced. That’s a Win-Win.

CASE STUDY 2

Another member of our Beta-Test group is a self-employed business owner who provides IT consulting for local businesses.  He took the course thinking that he could use it to help train his internal team and save himself some time repeating certain processes over and over.  While taking the course, a client of his needed to know how to set something up on their computer for a new employee. Rather than packing up and heading to their office, he decided to give video content a try!  Using what he learned in this course, he recorded his screen and walked the client through each step of the process and sent it over via email. The client was instantly able to see how to do the process on their own and now will always have that video as a reference when this particular need arises again.  This saves the business owner time and it saves their client money. Another Win-Win!

WHO IS THIS FOR?

Whether you are a self-employed business owner, a small business owner, or you’re in charge of a marketing department — you will benefit from this course.

We’ve broken our entire creative process apart into bite-sized pieces so that you can learn how to come up with ideas and organize your script and plans, all the way to how to edit and upload your video to different sharing platforms.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How to come up with good ideas for video content
• How to write a script
• How to plan your shoot
• What gear you need to be successful
• How to get good shots
• How to load and organize your footage
• How to edit your story
• How to prep your video for sharing

WHAT ARE THE DETAILS?

This course is entirely self-paced, meaning you can go through it as quickly or slowly as you would like.  Once you purchase the course, you will always have access to it, so you are free to take your time with the material and come back to it for reference at any time.

This course is filled with video explanations, written lessons, PDF downloadable worksheets, helpful visuals, and sample videos that peel back the curtain on every step of the video-making process.  By the time you finish the course, you won’t only have learned how to make a video for your marketing, you will have already made your first video!  This is why throughout the course we created DO IT assignments that walk you through each step of the video-making process with examples, visuals, and hands-on worksheets.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

Our course, “How to Write, Shoot, Edit, and Share Video Content for your Marketing” is available on our website at www.LearnIt-DoIt.com/courses for $499.  This price includes forever-access to the course, and a 20-minute, ideas consult call with us, where we can help you generate video content ideas for your specific business to help you get started on your video making journey!

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In our maiden voyage of the Learn It – Do It Podcast we introduce ourselves and give you a little insight on what this show will be about.  We’re a husband and wife team who’ve been in business for ourselves since the fall of 2008. We share our story of how we jumped feet first into being self-employed entrepreneurs and discuss how we navigated the challenging task of creating our own opportunities in business.  Over the last 10+ years, we’ve worked with hundreds of clients and we noticed that almost everyone struggles with similar challenges. We decided to focus this podcast on the topics of Content & Marketing, Business Strategy and Personal Development, because no matter what industry you are in or what your business is, these topics play a crucial role in running a successful business.

Episode 0 Summary

• We introduce ourselves as business owners and podcast hosts
• We talk about our qualifications and experience in this space
• We share why we wanted to start this podcast
• We tell you what this podcast will be about and talk about who it’s for
• We describe the show format and episode details

Recommended Resources 

Check out our creative media agency: 

Do Something Different Media – www.dosomethingdifferentmedia.com

If you want to apply to be a guest on the podcast head over to www.learnit-doit.com/podcast

The post Episode 0 – Who are Rhi & Pete and What’s this Podcast All About? appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

We are launching a podcast!  Our goal is to provide resources and education to the self-employed business owner who’s in the trenches day in and day out.  And to that end, we figured that in addition to the online course material, blogs, and free downloads, we’d create a bi-monthly podcast to provide you with more real-life, valuable information.

WHAT IS THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST ABOUT?

(the official Podcast Intro Description)

“Welcome to the Learn It – Do It Podcast. We focus on content & marketing, business strategy and personal development for self-employed entrepreneurs. Each episode will feature a live coaching call with a small business owner just like you – where we will tackle a specific challenge and develop a plan of action to overcome it.”

We want to unpack what it is like to run a business day-to-day. There’s so much involved with running a business that most of us are never taught, and being in business for yourself is challenging. Each week, we’ll roll up our sleeves and pull back the curtain into real small businesses so that we can help solve problems and develop solutions for growth.

No matter what industry, or whether you’re a product or service provider, we all face similar challenges each day — especially if you’re the one wearing all the hats.

WHAT IS THE FORMAT FOR THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST?

Each episode will be hyper-focused on a particular topic [or challenge] faced by our guest.  Rhi and I will introduce the concepts and premise of the topic and then we’ll share a live coaching call with a real business owner.

Our guest will introduce their business and describe the main challenge that they are currently struggling with.  We’ll have a conversation that dives deep into the specific topic and by the end of the episode, we’ll come up with the next three steps to solve it.  The whole point of this coaching call is for our guest to leave the call with an action plan that they can start implementing right away.

As a listener, you’ll be able to relate to similar challenges you face with content & marketing, business strategy, and personal development and you’ll immediately be able to utilize the next three steps for yourself in your own business.

WHEN WILL THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST BE AVAILABLE?

Twice a month we’ll be publishing new episodes of the Learn It – Do It Podcast.  Each episode will be 30-60 minutes in length [mainly because some topics are cumbersome and we want to make sure that our guests get a proper plan of action before the end of the episode].

HOW DO I GET ON THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST?

In order to be a guest on the show, head over to the podcast page and fill out a brief digital interview.  If you have more than one challenge you’re interested in discussing, feel free to fill out more than one form.  While it is not guaranteed that every applicant gets a coaching call, we will be reading each submission and truly appreciate your interest in being a guest.  We rely on submissions from listeners just like you and will choose the topics that we know will best suit our listeners and help us cover a variety of challenges that are relatable.

WHERE CAN I LISTEN IN?

Our podcast will be launching in September and will be published on our website biweekly.  You can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.

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Why did we decide to read this book?  What prompted us to pick it up?

In February 2019, Rhi and I attended a conference called “Think Better, Live Better,” hosted by Marc and Angel Chernoff [of marcandangel.com].  One of the distinguished keynote speakers was Humble the Poet, who is an author, rapper and spoken word artist. Humble, or Mr. Poet (we’re basically besties by now), presented on how to overcome fear and adversity to stay creative.  Most notably, how to overcome failure, which is bound to happen at some point.

During his presentation, he discussed his upcoming book Unlearn and shared a few chapters with the audience and we knew immediately that this was definitely something we’d be interested in reading.

During the break after the afternoon speaking sessions were completed, we got to meet Humble and talk to him briefly about creativity and pushing forward even when you think you’ve hit a dead end.  He was extremely eloquent, helpful and insightful [and we thank him again for taking the time to meet with us!. 

We waited until the US release of his book and immediately snatched it up and read it in a day and a half.

Who would get a lot out of this book?

This book is a collection of his social media posts and they can be read as daily lessons.  I chose to read it cover to cover, but you can literally pick it up and open to a random page and get some great life knowledge. Humble The Poet doesn’t spout off puffy cliches, instead, he tells it straight and lets you know that you’re not alone in whatever pain or suffering that you endure.

I think that anyone in the trenches of a creative career will absolutely get a lot out of this book.  The author is extremely transparent about the battles that we face internally and externally as we continue our creative journey.  Through both the ups and downs, his lessons ring true and they serve as a great daily reminder to stay on the level and to remember what we’re actually doing here.

What are our takeaways and how will we apply them?

I’ve paraphrased my favorite takeaways, but really, each of the 101 lessons are true takeaways.

1. The only truth to life is death – everything else is what you decide to make of it. This message is incredibly helpful, especially when you find yourself in a distracting cloud of stress and fear.  It allows you to center yourself and remember the big picture.
2. Our minds are the cause of our unhappiness – not the actual world around us.  We can’t expect life to be the fairytale that our brain feeds us. We’ve got to cut the cord of the rom-com expectations that we’ve created for ourselves and actually take a good look at how fortunate we are in our own lives out here in reality.
3. We all experience pain – it’s how we grow, push our boundaries and do extraordinary things. If we spend our time building barriers of protection we are just setting ourselves up for catastrophic failure.  We only learn from stumbling and falling here and there. In addition, the happiness and sense of accomplishment that we’re all striving for only comes when we step out of our comfort zones, experience new things [good and bad], and notice that this journey is exactly what we’ve been looking for all along.
4. Don’t allow the opinions, expectations or narratives of others to affect you and your day to day life. You have to remember that each person lives their lives inside their own head and they’re only concerned about themselves.  When you view it from this perspective, the weight of opinions and expectations of others is lessened. It is up to you to live your own life and make it what you want.
5. You are the only thing or person that can make you happy.  This is a big one.  Our reaction is to look outward for happiness, but the truth is that it can only come from within.  So in order to get a head start on your own happiness, immediately stop looking to any person, product, or vacation to create happiness.

Uncover your favorite takeaways by visiting Humble’s website and/or ordering the book Unlearn here.

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