Is it Time to Hit the 'Reset' Button on Your Business?

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts Thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey, and on this podcast you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business that thrives. You guys, welcome back to the She's Crafted to Thrive podcast show. I'm so excited that I am back. I am so excited that you guys didn't leave and like never came back to listen to this amazing show. There are so many amazing women coming up for this year for the podcast, and I'm excited because this is going to be hopefully the first year that I'm not going to have to edit my own podcast episodes. So I just want to give a huge shout out to Pod Factory, who is doing the editing of these amazing shows that are coming out. And you might notice some changes, like some things that are going to be happening at some point. I probably am going to redo my intro, which— stay tuned for that. And you're going to hear some other cool little things that hopefully will just make this experience even better and more real for you guys and more connected. And you get to know me. A little bit more because now I have some more time on my hands versus worrying about the time it's going to take me to edit one episode. So speaking of episodes, I just want to give you guys like a teaser into the new season, like the new year going forward with She's Crafted to Thrive. We have guests that are from all different backgrounds that I just cannot— I cannot tell you how excited I am to have them. Some are my greatest friends, some of our clients, some of them are women that I have been following for a very long time and have just admired their journey, and they have so graciously said yes to being on the show. So we are going to have so much fun. People like Nidhika Chopra, who is a great self-love chronic illness warrior advocate, Lauren Freeman, who is also another amazing chronic illness advocate, my girl Alicia Chester, who is an amazing creative entrepreneur who's making the industry for little boys in style look super cute. Another amazing woman, Amber Travan. She is just doing amazing things for the chronic illness community. If you haven't noticed, there is a theme that is kind of shifting a little bit more heavily into this era of She's Crafted to Thrive. I am talking to more and more women that are unapologetically sharing their journey as well as living with a chronic illness or multiple, or living with different life hurdles and building a life that they truly love and helping others and being a resource. You guys are going to hear conversations from women that I've had on my free private Facebook group, Craft Your Clarity Collective, that is now called She's Chronically Crafted. Yes, have you? Okay, like, I can't— like, I can't tell you how excited I am because there are so many things that are happening. So that's just to name a few. The other thing is we're gonna kind of start like an inner series. I don't really know how this works, so we'll just have to work with me. But we have been featured in The Handmade Seller magazine last year, one of our episodes with Patty, who was talking about how to build a beautifully successful Successful creative business, and we did a little test run in her blog on the Handmade Seller blog, and it has been doing phenomenal. And because of that, we've decided to do a little series here where we're going to take some of the guests that have been featured in her magazine, and I'm gonna get a chance to interview some of those women and dive even deeper on their journeys of being handmade sellers. And what does that look like from, like, life, from health, from, like being creative, how to be successful online using Etsy and Shopify and all those different things. So that's going to be a new kind of series too, if you will. So I'm super excited. And this is the other thing I'm super excited about. 2020 is gone, right? But 2021 started off kind of crazy too. And here is my State of the Union, if you will, when I'm thinking about what to expect for your creative or your entrepreneur journey going on into 2021. What is going to be trending? What are things that are gonna light you up? What are things you're gonna see differently? And I can tell you right now, the thing that is already happening that I'm so excited about is that the filters are going away. And when I'm talking about filters, no, I'm not talking about Instagram filters. But for me, I kind of am because I'm working really hard not to use Instagram filters on my face because, you know, I need to love my skin that I'm in, and I'm working really hard to do that. And so I need to just be happy with all the flaws that happens when you have chronic illness and hormonal acne at issues like I have, I'm embracing all of that. That is who I am, that's what it is, I'm— that's life, right? And I think 2020 helped everyone kind of create that kind of experience. Like, all of the walls on how you have to show up so perfectly perfect, like your feeds on Instagram and your Facebook have to be so put together and your videos have to be so this— intercame Reels, intercame working from home on Zoom and kids screaming in the background and wearing PJs on the bottoms and a shirt on top. Like, the those— that's the world that we live in. And so I think as a marketing aspect of things, we're going to see that happen in a lot of different ways. People are going to be way more leaning into storytelling, way more leaning into being authentic and sharing what is really happening in people's lives. There's the medium of voice content like podcasts. There's this new app, if you haven't heard about it, it's called Clubhouse, which is like one of my new favorite places. It's got some issues for accessibility and things like that, but there are so many great things in there. But I'm not gonna lie, they need to figure out the whole accessibility thing because it is excluding a huge market of people that could totally benefit from it. So there are some pros and cons to that. If you want to know more about the Clubhouse app and you're— or if you're listening to this, you're like, girl, what is that? Just hit up my Instagram and look up Clubhouse and you'll see in the IGTV series I did a whole little section about what it is, what to expect, and like how it's changing. And it's new, it's beta, but it's very popular. But it just is to speak to what is going to be happening going going on in 2021, which because we're not, you know, touching each other as frequently as we used to since we're not having huge gatherings, which I hope you guys are being safe. I think 2021 is really going to be the year where people really find unique ways to connect and share their story and just be real. Because last year, all of the walls and innocence, all of the preconceived ideas of what life should look like and be like and be all perfect are gone. They're shattered. And what's cool about that is that some people realize, oh, It's shattered, but I can still thrive and I can still do me. I can still run a business and people will still buy from me. And I want everybody to lean into that. Like, that's what I'm so very, very excited about going into 2021. Like, you cannot believe how excited I am about that. I want to hear from you guys. I want to hear what kind of conversations or topics you guys want to hear about, would like me to talk about here on my solo cast, or different guests that you would like to see on the show. And if that is something you are willing to share with me, you know where to go, info@crafstedthrive.com. Shoot me an email and say, girl, Kita, I would love to hear from so-and-so, or I would love to see some other conversations around how maybe I run my business as a business coach and how do I, you know, specifically help my clients. Like, I can talk about different topics like clarity and marketing and storytelling and the power of influence and networking and conversations and questions, whatever. So I want to hear from you guys. And here's something else that's super new and exciting that hopefully we'll be launching in the fall of this year, is that She's Crafted to Thrive is going to be starting a curated box. Oh my gosh, you guys have no idea how long it's been since I've literally dreamed of having a curated box for the longest. Actually, it was kind of like something I've wanted to do since 2009. Can you believe that? Here we are in 2021 and I'm talking about, yeah, this thing that I've been thinking about and playing about in my head. It's finally, I'm doing the work. So if you are a handmaker, a designer, and you have things that you make and you would like to be added into our curated She's Crafted to Thrive box, please reach out to info@craftedtothrive.com to tell me more about you. And I'll send you a like really great questionnaire that you can fill out. It's simple, take less than 2 minutes to see if this is something that you would like to be a part of. We're building the Crafted to Thrive brand, y'all, because it's growing and we need to share it, right? We need to share that as women, as people in general, we all have stuff— good, bad, ugly, not so pretty, gorgeous, wonderful, exhilarating, sad lives— and we need to share all of it, right? We need to share all those aspects and really be there for each other, share our tools and tips and our journeys and how we can, you know, continue to build a life that thrives, right? And so that's what we're really leaning into this year. I am so excited because now we're going to have 4 episodes a month. So it's not just 2 because I have someone editing. You guys, you cannot— I don't think you guys can get how excited I am about having someone edit my podcast. I'm just super excited. So there's that aspect of things and that will give me more time to really hone my craft as an interviewer. So I'm I'm just excited about that, and I hope you guys are too. I'd love to hear, like I said, from you guys. And this is gonna be it. This is like the State of the Union. She's Crafted to Thrive is gonna blow up this year, and so is your business. So here are 3 things I think you should really focus on this year to really take hold of the trends that are happening. First, I want you to look back at what is already working in your business. Like, I want you to look at your analytics. I want you to look at what offers are really driving traffic to your site. What things are people asking asking you about constantly that are creating sales in your business, and I want you to double down on those things and then figure out a way to be creative with them to take hold of maybe some of the trends that are happening. I want you to repurpose your content. You're going to see a lot of people doing this more and more because they have recognized the power of time and also the fact that we are not all seeing all of the things all of the time. So think about one or two new ways that you can repurpose your already created content to reach a different and more expansive tribe. And number 3, like I mentioned, the audio world of this medium— audio is going to be growing. I, I was listening to Danielle from Tell Publications. She's a PR rep and she's also the friendship coach, which she's amazing. She mentioned, and I didn't even know this, that Netflix is starting to come out with a beta of just like the audio version of Netflix, which is insane. But they would know, right? Because how many people are using their app and how many of us, you know, understand Netflix. So it just to me tells us that if you aren't into audio or doing anything with audio, maybe figure out a way to definitely capitalize on video using Reels, using lives, getting on YouTube. And you guys, there's some really cool things now that are happening with videos that you can repurpose. Again, going back to that number 2, repurpose some of your content that you've already created. Maybe create pins on Pinterest or create blog posts that are featuring different videos that you've done live on Instagram or Facebook. You You can also strip the, the audio from a video and upload it and create a podcast. So there's so many different ways for your business to grow. So your state, the state of the union when it comes to marketing your business is to be able to diversify your content, diversify your reach, and really have fun with it and kind of take away some of the filters, the mask, if you will, that we've all kind of, you know, a lot of us kind of struggle with, right? You know, I think the pretty feeds are going to be there, but they're not going to be as pretty as as prior to 2020, because people are like, look, we want real, we want raw, we want, you know, the nitty-gritty. We're tired of fluff. We just want value. And that's where you want to kind of lean into for 2021. But thank you once again for joining me here on this show and listening. We are going to be releasing a new episode every Friday for the next however long. That's the plan. We're going to have 4 episodes every month, you guys. That's going to be bomb diggity. They're going to be solo casts with me and then guests will be there as well. And stay tuned for learning a little bit more about the subscription box that is going to be really amazing. And there's going to be a discount for my listeners and also an affiliate program for that. So I just want to create a community. So if you're on Instagram and you're not following me yet, please find me @CraftedToThrive. If you are on the new app that I'm, you know, kind of —driving into these days. Clubhouse! You can find our club called She's Crafted to Thrive Club on Clubhouse. We have conversations so we can go back and forth and ask questions about business, life, chronic illness, and everything in between. You can join us there. And I do a live every Monday on Instagram to answer business questions. And what else am I missing? And there's so many new things that are happening, so you just have to stay tuned for what's to come. Our next episode is going to be featuring some amazing people, and I just cannot wait to share with you guys. So anyway, lots of excitement, lots of new things happening, and I cannot wait to hear your feedback. Please go to iTunes and leave a review for, for us, because I'm gonna start featuring those here on the show as well. I'm gonna read one at some point during a presentation or during an episode. So I cannot wait to see what you guys think about all of this stuff. This awesome new stuff that's happening here on the show. And I just wanna say thank you. I just really wanna say thank you for coming along my journey, sharing this podcast with your friends, your girlfriends, your family, your sisters, your brothers, your mothers. Thank you for sharing it with everyone. And I really do appreciate the support. And I think the ladies that have been on the show, they have really felt the love and everything from the things that you have shared with us on the reviews and reaching out to them on Instagram in their DMs friends. So keep doing that, keep showing them love. All right, you guys, have a beautiful day and come back next Friday because we'll have a new episode. I haven't decided who I'm gonna have first, but you'll know, you'll know soon. All right, like I love to end every show, just remember that yes, honey chile, you are crafted to thrive.