One foot in front of the other. Sometimes that’s what we have to do to keep moving forward in our goals to build a business. When I’m feeling like that, I have to pull out my list of “why I’m doing this” and hope it will make me feel better. It’s hard when I’m working full-time to make this work. I have to remind myself to be patient and look at what I’ve accomplished so far. And when I look back over these past few months, I have moved forward in an upward, positive motion.

My sessions with my business coach have come to an end for now. I got a lot of great information from these sessions, even though I always felt tired and unprepared. Our phone calls were always at 7pm because I work during the day. It’s rough when I get up at 5:30am to be chipper and not sound like a slug on the phone. The calls were recorded and when I would play them back to take notes I always sounded SO tired. Not a good impression BUT I did push on through and get great information and goal setting.

One awesome thing that was included in my package was a certain number of hours with her developer and designer. So guess what? I used those hours for the design of my logo so I could finally Brand myself. Branding was a big deal because it was obvious that my website didn’t reflect any. Even though I am a designer, I get too close to my work and decided to put it into someone else’s hands. This was the best decision I made. I love the logo and it’s a great place to get started.

You can see the new branding on the image from my last post, Week 12. What a difference from the previous post images. The new branding is currently in the works for a new redesign and branded website. I’m planning on having it launched before the end of August. I’m VERY excited about this, needless to say.

Also a BIG hoorah and milestone….I FINISHED the book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. What an awesome book and really helps put social media into perspective. Lots of takeaways from it. Makes me realize how much I LOVE online marketing and technology.

Now I’m moving on to the book Launch by Jeff Walker. I’m already into it and LOVING what I’m reading. Great stuff going on there and getting me very excited about moving forward.
It was a bit rough start to the week, coming back from New York from visiting my Dad but it all worked out. I have my ups and downs, but I’ll be going back to visit him soon. In case you missed that post, you can read about it in Week 12.

So here’s a recap of this week:

• Completed sessions with business coach.
• Got my new logo. Thrillsville!!
• Began branding images to new posts that go out.
• Chose new template and have begun branding on new site.
• Finished the book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk.
• Started book Launch by Jeff Walker.

Thank you for being a part of my business journey and I’ll talk to you soon!

At this very moment, I’m sitting on the plane, flying back to Atlanta. My father, 91yrs old who was diagnosed with dementia several years back, took a turn for the worse and had to be admitted into full time nursing care. My mother, 70 yrs old, could no longer care for him because he was having more frequent violent episodes that could get both her and him hurt. It was a very sad time for all my family as it can be one of the hardest decisions ever made.

Each day, I would go spend time with him in his room. In the halls there were other patients with severe cases just like his, which was a very difficult thing to witness. All these people who had come full circle in their life and were now here, waiting their turn to leave this world. Truly at the end.

There’s something that happen’s to a person when they are surrounded by those who are in there elderly years. I wondered about each of them. Did they have families or were they alone? What type of work did they do in their lives? Did they live their life to the fullest?

It began to make me reflect on my own life because at that moment I was so far away from my everyday life. Am I happy with what I’m doing? What are the most important things in my life? What kind of legacy do I want to leave? Have I done enough charitable work? Will I have my family by my side during this time in my life when I’m so fragile and helpless?

So many questions and so much reflection when we go through difficult moments like these in our life. In all that, I do feel like I’m heading in the right direction with focusing on this business venture. I plan to keep putting one foot in front of the other to keep rising up to success.

Nothing like a bump in the road to shake things up again. Well, what about a major earthquake along the business journey? Yes, I’ve been off the radar for over a month now and feeling pretty bad about it. Life has a way of suddenly taking a left turn but it’s okay because that’s what can make life exciting….right?

Since I last posted, there have been some changes in my life. Let me give you a bit of back story so you can understand this a little more clearly. Back in November 2014, the company I was working for laid off more than 2,000 employees and my role was affected. I saw the possibility of it coming but thought I had made it through. How wrong I was. Chop! And I’m done.

Not planning on being out of a job, I let my friends know what happened and one of them let me know that there was an immediate opening I might be interested in. After reviewing the job description, I was iffy but I was laid off and left scrambling to find something else.

I ended up getting the job and regretted it from the very first day. OMGosh, I took a slightly lower salary (don’t EVER do that!) and the commute was horrendous! I live in Atlanta where traffic is a hot mess and it was on the side of town which left me with an 1 1/2 hour commute….EACH WAY! Crazy right? But…when I interviewed for the role, I was very clear about flexible work hours and teleworking.

Several weeks later, none of that came to pass so I began looking at other options. It was on those LONG dreadful commutes that I began to listen to podcasts again, but this time taking a slightly different turn into focusing on my online business. The daily hell was pushing me further into that direction of what I had always dreamed of doing.

I came up with a plan that would get me out of that situation and decided that I would leave the company, no matter what, by the end of April, regardless if I was able to secure another job or not. One day I spotted a job on Linked In that was in line with what I was looking for, so I thought, what the heck, I’ll apply for it. Turns out, they were interested and reached out to me the very next day and here I am now, four weeks into my new job.

Now I will say, I did take off three weeks of vacation time in between jobs to recover from the previous job’s stress and get some much needed family time in. A nice trip to Orlando to Universal Studios to cast some spells and drink butter beer in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, adrenaline rollercoaster rides and chilling on the lazy river at the resort will help a girl like me recover from the four months of nastiness that had weighed me down to misery.

All while on this short hiatus, I kept my online business in my mind but I knew I had to get things right with me first. So why didn’t I just stay home and focus on the business? I have a financial plan in order to make this business a success. There are a few debts that I want to pay off so that I can really pave the way to going off on my own. Things like my car notes and a couple credit card bills while simultaneously saving money towards my business goal. There are other things like plugins, services and courses that will require funding as well.

Now that I’m four weeks into my new job, which I feel fortunate to have because it has given me several hours of my day back to focus on my family, this business and my overall happiness. My salary is where it should be, my commute is short, the hours are great and soon I will be working remotely again.

I’ve learned that these are only bumps in the road and that I must keep moving forward on this business journey because it is what I yearn for, to live a certain lifestyle as an entrepreneur. Life is full of bumps and it’s how we handle those bumps that lead to either success or failure. I choose success.

Week 3 of The First Year Business Journey

Welcome to my third week down! Can’t decide if I want to do a countdown but I keep coming back to it, so I guess I will.

Wow, what a week though. I did get lots of work done amongst my crazy, busy life. The biggest challenge for this week was creating my Opt In. First deciding what value I was going to bring to clients. I started heading down the wrong path with it but then was able to quickly correct myself when I asked the questions “Will this benefit my client? Will this be something my clients will be interested in?” Once I was able to answer “yes” to those questions, I knew I was on the right path. I was also able to get clarity on this after my initial strategy session with my business coach.

Speaking of business coach…I met with her and it went very well. One of the things that I loved was that she recorded the session so I can go back and review it to take more notes of our discussion. Being that I received the recording last night, I haven’t had the chance to go through it, but I will and tell you all about it in another post.

The TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS from my meeting with my business coach that I need to work on are:

• My brand.
• My opt-in.
• Producing content.

Overall, I feel that this week was very productive and went well. But, I do feel I set up TOO many goals for myself. Big mistake! I don’t want to set myself up to FAIL. I’ll need to work on spreading out the goals so that I’m moving forward at a realistic pace but NOT stuck in a discovery and/or design phase either.

Week 3’s accountability report:

Completed:

• Recorded 1st podcast! Whoop! Whoop! (now it’s into the editing phase)
• Installed and integrated Sumome plugin.
• Wrapped up 1st client’s website. Success!
• Confirmed appointment for another client site. This is for another freebie that I’m doing to build up my freelance portfolio because most of my work is from corporate.
• I also have another client interested in redoing her website. It is in desperate need…OMGosh!
• Organized my computer files, they were such a mess. I don’t want to waste time searching for things when I need them.
• Purchased book Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook. (Now I have to make time to read it…without falling asleep!)
• Set up WordPress backup plugin for my website using WordPress Backup for Dropbox. This was free so I’ll use this for now as I investigate more options.
• Had a major brainstorming session for blog content ideas. If its for 1 per week, I’ll have over a years worth. It was a major breakthrough so I let the floodgates open and went with it. AND it was all focused on things that would be valuable for my clients.
• Installed security protection on my WP site using the Wordfence plugin.
• Met with business coach and my SKIN is totally in the game. Going to commit to three months of coaching.
• Purchased book on branding. Did a search on Amazon with keyword “branding for business” and up popped up Branding: Create Your Difference Through Smart Branding. Only .99 cents. I’ll let you know how it goes.
• Designed and created Opt In for my website. Felt like I birthed another baby in process…omgosh…TWIN babies that is!
• Take 15 min each day to build Twitter following. Totally nailed this one and saw an increase in my following and engagement.
• Write weekly journal entry. Here I am writing this entry! Check!

Goals from previous week I did not complete or did insufficiently:

• Share two people’s posts that I feel brings value to potential clients/day on Twitter
• Reach out to 5 people regarding websites.
• Layout content schedule for this with in CoSchedule. I REALLY need to get onto this. Although I did do some planning, but only did it for a few days out at a time. NOT good. I need to get my game together on this crucial part of my online business.
• Reach out to people regarding small business networking. Conferences? Local networking? **Learned that this may not be a good idea until I figure out who my target audience is.

Plugins discovered:

• Sumome – tool to grow Email List, social sharing and analytics. Lots of different parts to it. LOVE this plugin! Wow! Easy to install, customize and integrate with WordPress.
• Uji Countdown – HTML5 Customizable Countdown Timer – saving this one for when I hold Webinars or online instruction.
• WordPress Backup to Dropbox– Testing this plugin out to do my daily backups for my website. It’s a pretty light site a the moment so I’m hoping this will hold me over until I can find something different. Meanwhile, it was very easy to setup with Dropbox. Successfully did database backups.
• Wordfence – wordpress security protection from hackers getting in your site.
• Login Security Solution – help protect hackers getting in through the login. Force users to use stronger passwords, including yourself to keep your site safe from hackers.

Think I’m going to create a page with all the plugins I find useful as a resource page that I continually update.

Next week’s goals:

• Create podcast logo.
• Set up account with iTunes and Stitcher radio.
• Create Plugins resource page/post.
• Record, edit and post podcasts 1-3.
• Meet with business coach.
• Review strategy recording that I had with business coach and write a blog post about it.
• Layout content schedule for this with in CoSchedule.
• Create a website resources page.
• Create a resources link on my website.
• Finalize Opt In page and see if its ready to implement.