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.

Episode Summary 

I know what you’re thinking; “Never finish your To-Do list is bad advice.”  But hear us out!  You always need to have something on your list to keep you moving forward. If you have completed everything on your list and have nothing left to do, this means you aren’t working towards anything.

In order to be successful in your business, it’s extremely important to eliminate stress, be efficient, and make sure you are always moving towards your goals. We’ve noticed that things that generate a lot of stress for self-employed business owners are often related to their To-Do lists.  

Three common To DO list stressors business owners struggle with are:

1. Unrealistic To-Do lists
2. Not knowing what to do next
3. The “Getting Ahead” Myth

How to Overcome Stress from Unrealistic To-Do Lists

We’ve all been guilty of creating To-Do lists that go on forever and are impossible to complete. We think that writing everything down on an epic list is the perfect way to relieve the stress we have of keeping everything in our heads.  The reality is, these impossible To-Do lists end up adding to our stress because they are impossible to complete!  This means we end every day with a never-ending list of things we didn’t get done and it’s deflating.

The way to fix this problem is to focus on making different To-Do lists.  Your Daily To-Do list should only include tasks that you can actually complete that day.  Force yourself to really consider how long something will take you to complete and make sure you are breaking down your tasks into their smallest form so you can easily check things off as you go.  It’s not helpful to have giant tasks on your To-Do list that require multiple steps.  This means that as you complete each step you have nothing to check off so it never feels like you are making progress.  This can lead to stress!  After focusing on your daily To-Do lists, think about breaking things down into different categories and making different lists to work off of.

Tips on Making Different To-Do Lists:

• Weekly Tasks

These are things that have to be done no matter what, like housekeeping.  It’s not exciting but it’s got to be done.

• Client Tasks

These will constantly change as weeks go by, but if you’ve got a good client workflow process and a project management system in place, it should be simple to manage.

• Internal Business Tasks

Any time an idea pops into your head of something that you want to do or SHOULD do for your business, you need to write it down.  Not on a sticky note, but in an organized place for your business tasks.

How to Overcome Stress from Not Knowing What to Do Next

When you don’t know what you should be doing for your business or your current clients/projects this can be really stressful.  We use WRIKE to manage our projects and when we come up with things that need to be done, we create the task and keep it in a folder that we can pull from when we begin to make our next week’s agenda.  Think of this as your “Backlog” that you can pull from whenever you aren’t sure what to do next or you have extra time.  Believe me, when you properly plan a daily To-Do list, you’ll sometimes have “extra time” and this Backlog will come in really handy to keep things moving forward and avoid time-wasting.

If you have nothing on your list to do, it’s impossible to keep moving forward. For example, I like to always be reading a book so I keep a list of potential books that I can always pull from.  A few months ago, I finished the book I was reading and realized that I didn’t have any more books on my Reading Wish List, and before I knew it an entire week had gone by without me reading!

How to Overcome Stress from The “Getting Ahead” Myth

I used to work tirelessly in my business to try and get EVERYTHING done so I could get ahead and relax.  The reality is, it is impossible to “Get Ahead.”  Think about it,  if I ever actually finished EVERYTHING that needed to be done for our business, it would be the day we were no longer in business.  Finishing your To-Do list means you are out of business. 

There is always client work to do, bookkeeping, business development, organization, etc.  If you actually finished everything, it would be because you had no work and no money coming in and effectively, NO BUSINESS.

Quick-Wins:

1. Organize your To-Do lists into different categories
2. Make realistic daily To-Do lists
3. Create a “Backlog” list with tasks you can pull from when needed
4. Forget about trying to get ahead and focus on always moving forward

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 

Wrike Project Management

The post Quick-Win Episode 7: Never Finish Your To-Do List appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

We are in unprecedented times right now amidst the COVID-19 public health crisis, and a lot of us self-employed business owners are finding ourselves forced out of work, or waiting for the economy to pick up and the customers to flood back in.

It’s important to take a minute, take a deep breath and focus on what you CAN do right now, while you are staying inside to #flattenthecurve. In this video, I talk about how you can take advantage of the extra time in your business right now and get productive while you prepare for after the dust settles from all this.

Here’s what we discuss in this video:

• Audit Your Marketing: Website, Social Media, Emails, etc.
• Audit Your Messaging for Audience Focus
• Organize your Database and Prepare Email Marketing
• Do a SWOT Analysis on Your Business
• Create Helpful Content for Your Audience

Take advantage of this extra time you’ve always been waiting for. The world is sort of in a state of “PAUSE” right now and you can talk this as an opportunity to get organize, re-evaluate, and create some amazing content to take your business forward! Stay safe and good luck!

HERE’S MORE CONTENT FROM LEARN IT – DO IT:

FREE MINI-COURSE “How To Present A Proposal” : https://learnitdoit.teachable.com/p/how-to-present-a-proposal

LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST: https://learnit-doit.com/podcast/

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/learnit_doit/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/learnitdoitedu

The post What Should I Be Doing for My Business During COVID-19 Crisis? appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

In this video, I outline some content ideas you can be making right now, amidst all this COVID-19 chaos. Now is not necessarily the time to solicit business from your customers, but now is a great opportunity to build credibility, lend a helping hand, and stay memorable in the eyes of your clients.

Here’s what types of content we discuss in this video:

• DIY Video Content Ideas
• Email Content You Can Create
• Social Media Messaging

It’s important to avoid being tone-deaf and simply talking about yourself right now. Think of ways you can be helpful and inform or entertain your potential and current customers right now and you’ll stay top of mind in a positive way through this unprecedented time in our history. Stay in and Let’s DO IT!

HERE’S MORE CONTENT FROM LEARN IT – DO IT:

FREE MINI-COURSE “How To Present A Proposal” : https://learnitdoit.teachable.com/p/how-to-present-a-proposal

LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST: https://learnit-doit.com/podcast/

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/learnit_doit/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/learnitdoitedu

The post Content You Should Be Making Right Now appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

In this video I describe what batching tasks is and I give you examples of how to apply batching to your daily routine in your small business. What exactly does “Batching Tasks” mean? It’s the act of organizing your tasks into categories to improve efficiency, production, and mental stability.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this video:

• How to breakdown and organize your tasks
• How to batch your client correspondence
• How to use batching to your advantage when creating your schedule

It’s important to batch all your tasks so you feel more in control of your daily schedule. By the end of this video you’ll understand why it’s important to batch tasks in your small business and how you can do it effectively.

HERE’S MORE CONTENT FROM LEARN IT – DO IT:

FREE MINI-COURSE “How To Present A Proposal” : https://learnitdoit.teachable.com/p/how-to-present-a-proposal

LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST: https://learnit-doit.com/podcast/

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/learnit_doit/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/learnitdoitedu

The post Batching Tasks To Save You Time & Energy appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Episode Summary 

Brand value is a very important thing to understand, especially when you’re a SEBO who is on your own. 

It’s also very important to the business owner who is looking to revamp themselves due to inefficiencies in their pricing, marketing, and overall brand image.

We assume that you’re awesome at what you do.  There’s a ton of people who are really awesome at a lot of stuff. But what’s going to get you into the conversation with bigger markets, clients, affiliates and frankly more overall business — is how legitimate people feel you are — based on your branded marketing materials.

You’ve been there.  Someone refers you the name of a company for a cleaning service and you immediately google them.  First, I check their website to see if they’re “legit”…and that’s the key thing. We’re all looking for legitimacy.

Then, I might head to see if they’re active on social, check online reviews and etc. 

Have you ever looked up a business and found they had no logo? Or their logo looks like your nephew made it?  When you see a low-quality brand it tells you that the business didn’t invest a lot of money into the way they look.  And if a company doesn’t care enough about how they look to invest in it…I assume they aren’t a very profitable business…which probably means they aren’t very good.

Think of it like hiring a new employee.  Potential Employee A sends in a typed resume with a nice photo of themselves and a portfolio of their work.  They show up to the interview dressed professionally and present themselves well. Potential Employee B scribbled their past experience on a napkin and shows up in pajamas.  They could both be equally qualified and skilled, but there is no doubt one of them has a higher perceived value and THAT person is getting the job.

Is your business wearing pajamas?

Perception is everything!

Quick-Wins

• How would a stranger value your brand? Audit your brand and see where you can find any deficiencies. 

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.

The post Quick-Win Episode 5: What Is Brand Value? & Why Do I Care? 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.