Molly Hicks, Brand Strategy + Design

"You aren't trying to work with every single one of the 7 billion people on this planet, so stop trying to please every fucking person you see. When my clients first come to me--working with clients or in their business is a chore. 🙄 Working with their existing clients sucks their soul and leaves them drained 💸 Under valuing is usually a huge issue--not charging a rate based on facts but emotions 📚 Disctract from client work with course to feel like they "know enough" 🙈 Slip into depression, anxiety, and manic episodes because of overwhelm ALL OF THESE...are an ideal client issue. No joke! When you try and fit the mold of what "they" think you need to do, when you comprimise yourself, your values, your authenticity to accomodate the "others" you are digging yourself into the business hole of dispair. Are you letting guilt of not helping everyone dig you into the pit? It's time to give that guilt a giant 🖕--and find YOUR people. The people that light you up, make you get all twitterpated and excited. This is why everytime I begin to work with a new client we dig into WHO they WANT to serve. ❌ not who they currently serve ❌ not who their friend wants them to serve ❌ not who currently likes their posts ❌ not family members Who THEY WANT to serve. If you're still with me on this caption and you are realizing that YOU have an ideal client issue--THIS IS FIXABLE! ➡️ You CAN evolve your business ➡️ You CAN find new people who will fuel your creative soul ➡️ You CAN change what you've done up to this point AND you don't have to do it alone. Join me for the Finding Your Ideal Client Workshop and let's figure out your Ideal Client Issues together!

Sickness can really rock your business schedule. And if you have a younling like me, you know that sickness happens a lot. Let's not even mention SNOW DAYS! Ugh! So what do you do when your little is stuck at home without any concrete time to work? What do you do when YOU are the one who is sick? ONE | You rely on your automations. Seriously, this is the #1 reason that you really need automations. So that you don't need to stress out about if someone wants to sign up for a discovery call or is signing a proposal while you are out of the office. TWO | You send out an email to your clients. Get ahead of deadlines falling behind by letting your clients know that you are out of the office due to sickness. If you can give an estimate of when you plan to be back in, then do that. But if you really don't know, don't make promises that you aren't at least 90% sure that you can keep. THREE | Don't stress yourself out. This one I know is insanely hard. Your mind wants to be in work mode on your usual schedule. Trying to adjust off of that can be really hard. Especially when you are worrying about falling behind and all of this isn't planned. FOUR | Take moments for yourself when you can. Whether I take a bath when I'm the one sick, or get the younling to have some quiet time on the couch so I can catch a few winks. It's important to find those mini moments of "me time."

There are so many people out there these days trying to convince you to spend money that you don't actually have. "Take out a loan to hire me as a coach." "Use your credit care to purchase this Black Friday deal." 😏😏😏 I feel like it's become a message that you can spend without having a plan on where the actual money is going to come from. Or worse yet, go into debt trying to keep your business afloat. Let's put a stop to that this year. It is 100% better to scale your purchases and investments correctly with how much your biz revenue is actually scaling. Take your time and research and save for that business coach that you are in love with. Think you are ready for bigger systems? Find out the pricing and start making a gameplan on how that is going to fit into your budget. Watch for deals, and make sure that you can actually afford to scale this way! This goes for your team too. Don't just hire because it sounds like a good idea. Research. Plan. And don't hire until you can afford it. What other bad biz finance advice have you heard? ---- Resource RoundUp If you are at the point in your business where you need FREE resources to help you make shit happen--Check out my blog! If you are ready to invest in small increments, and are local to Lincoln?--Check out my Business Basics Workshops If you're ready to a moderate amount--Check out my group strategy membership, "Make Shit Happen Hour"

The new year is always when people scramble to make themselves more successful for the next year which is great--but kind of a little to late for some. 😬 It's kinda like your car's break pads🚗--sometimes they are new and working great, sometimes they get squeaky and need some attention, and sometimes they just need to be replaced!. 💥Same things go for workflows. 💥 Workflows--are any system or process you use to run the different parts of your business. YES--that means manual processes too! So that means you need to be making sure that you check in on your workflows and verify that they still work for what you want them to do. So, let's take a moment this month and double check what you already have done. And if you haven't set up your workflows yet, this is the time to start getting things together. NOT in the crazy months of November, December, January. WANT SOME HELP?! 👉 Grab my intensive 30 page guide to Client Experience (aka how YOUR WORKFLOWS make your client's feel) https://lnkd.in/gMcNrXGd

No--everyone's tiktok feed is not telling them they are neurodivergent and/or have some type of autoimmune disease. No--everyone's tiktok feed is also not taking about plant babies or dogs having existensial crisis and communicating with buttons. No--everyone's tiktok feed is not telling them they are obsessed with Taylor Swift. No--everyone's tiktok feed is not helping them work through their tauma. So no--not everyone's tiktok is just like yours....so what is TikTok try to help you know about yourself?

Every. Single. Person. Is. NOT. Your. Ideal. Client. So you don't need to market to every single person in the universe, you need to market to your ONE person! If you haven't figured out your ideal client yet, what's holding you back? Are you scared of limiting who you can work with? Are you unsure of what you actually want to do with your biz? 🚨 Newsflash 🚨 You will actually make MORE money because you will be talking exactly to who is ready for your services about YOUR specific services. AKA no one is lost and confused about what you are doing anymore. You will know what you are doing and for whom. Your potential clients will weed themselves out accordingly because they know exactly what they can get from you. Pre-qualified clients?? That's the best things in the world!

When working one on one with people, and in my workshops--people truly struggle when trying to come up with positives about themselves or their business. It's not that possitives don't exist--rather they aren't the items that take up the majority of your headspace. As a business owner, you are trying to problem solve, put out fires, and just plane old survive the human experience. So when I change the questions and reflection excercies to things that you hate, or things you no longer want in your biz--voila! The flood gates open and the activity becomes so much easiser. If you've been trying to find apprecitiaton or positivity in your biz and you're just frustrate--start with a list of things you hate and things you love will start to pop up with them.

"When running your business feels like it's sucking the happiness from your soul--somethings off! It really doesn't have to be that way. I'm not saying that there aren't sucky days, or small chunks of the year when you need to work a little more. I'm talking about changing the WHO you work with. Almost always when talking with clients who--frankly--hate what there business has becomes, it's because they are working with people who tear them down. The fix?! Identifying their ""IDEAL CLIENT"" or rather figuring out what the best personality, mindset, life circumstances and characteristics of the clients they WANT to work with. AND where on that person's journey they want to help. If up until now you've taken every client that comes your way because you thought you couldn't say ""no""--here is your permission to say no to the people that you know are going to make your life a living hell! And if you're needing an example of what this could look like, I'll share mine (and if it's describing you--let's chat! 😉) ✨ Entrepreneurs who are ready to expand their biz ✨ Are stuck in the hustle of running a biz--and hates ever minute ✨ CUSSES A LOT--like a lot a lot ✨ Is 100% NerdAF ✨ Probably Neurodivergent (ADHD, Autistic, Tourrettes, etc.) ✨ The ""normal"" biz advice doesn't really work ✨ Needs someone to help with figuring out next steps ✨ Wants to start avoiding the rabbit wholes (or at least minimizing them ✨ Has tried tons or marketing ""frameworks"" and none of them worked or fel right There's a whole bunch more, but you probably get the point. Let's practice together--post your ideal client below! As you read other's comments if you think of someone that would be a perfect fit--be sure to tag them!"

I hate to break it to you--but until you know exactly where you want help, and how you want that help to be provided, no virtual assistant will cut the cake. It's really important to look at your own business and procedures PRIOR to hiring someone. Here are some things to help you get started: 💥 Make a list of everything you do in your business 💥 Mark the things you HATE doing 💥 Mark things you HAVE to do Now those tasks that you HATE (and don't have to do yourself) are the list to hand over to a VA. Your next step from here is writing down and building how-tos so you can provide a virtual assistant the exact task and process you want acoomplished. Need help making how-tos try these tools? ✨ Loom -- Record a video of yourself doing tasks ✨ Otter.ai-- Record audio or video of yourself talking about your biz--and then have it process a transcript for you. ✨ ScribeHow--Record you doing a task, and it will create step by step instructions with pictures and gifs!

If you are evaluating your pricing -- don't make it a guessing game anymore. You don't need to worry about underpricing your worth anymore. You don't need to worry about overpricing your market anymore. You get to grab my Charge What You're Worth: Billable Rate & Product Pricing Calculator. You get to finally be comfortable in the prices you are putting on your website and never again doubt that your numbers aren't serving you or your clients. Reach your goals and escape the trap of the #hustleentrepreneurlife. Overworked and underpaid is NOT a good look for anyone! GET STARTED ON YOUR PRICING JOURNEY--> Register for my next Profitable Pricing Workshop Grab the Charge What You're Worth Calculator in the shop!