Author Archive
9 years ago this morning, I became a parent for the first (and only) time. The last near decade as this little human’s caregiver, guide, and support staff has simultaneously been one of the best things I’ve ever done and easily the most challenging. If you’ve been around here for a hot minute, you know that I draw business metaphors from all aspects of my life and where I learn the most about my business is from the farm…and my kid. The lessons we learn in one place in our lives, are often lessons we need to learn throughout. […]
Last week I posted a reel on Instagram that stirred up a lot of conversation in my DMs so I thought I would write to you in case you also had questions. Here’s the part that prompted the conversation: What does a strong foundation strategy look like? ️⭐ A clear methodology ⭐ A strong ideal client ️⭐ Offers that serve you and your clients ⭐ Copy that matches who you are with what your clients need If you have those, the rest becomes much much much easier. Apparently this touched a nerve. My DMs started flooding with questions about METHODOLOGY. […]
I was a website copywriter, brand voice strategist, and business partner to incredible designers for nearly a decade. If I learned anything during that time, it’s that one of the things we business owners want is a business that looks amazing. We want our businesses to be sexy. We want people to want them. That’s us being really typically human. Humans like beautiful things. And – when I asked you if your business is sexy, the answer I REALLY REALLY want for you is… NO. No, it’s not. I want you to tell me: “Helen, my business is stable, […]
Have you ever been in the position where you want to do renovations on your house or apartment and you start planning it out but then realize that there are cracks in that load-bearing wall…or the corner isn’t square…or if you attempt to do the thing you want to, you’d be opening a Pandora’s Box of renovations until you die? I hate to break it to you, but your business is like that too. As entrepreneurs we LOVE the new thing. We are bursting with ideas of how we can help/serve our clients. We’re “what if” people. We see possibilities. […]
Last week I sat down for a date with my monthly calendar to pencil in changes, client scheduling, and to generally take a peek at my capacity for this month. We talk about planning quite a bit in the Motorcycle Club and the nuances of figuring out a system that works for you and your brain. This is what works for me: Plan the big goals for the quarter then every month. Go through my monthly calendar to see how those goals look on a day-to-day basis. THEN every week I update my calendar so that it includes the […]
We love Halloween in this house. Since moving to the country, the way we do Halloween has changed. We put up decorations and we carve a pumpkin but since we don’t receive trick-or-treaters, we get our costumes on and drive up to our closest town. Yesterday, we were zombies. We let our kid stay up late, eat a bunch of candy, then get up in time this morning for school. In telling you this, I’m reminded of a conversation I was having with a client recently. This client is facilitating a workshop for an organization today. Over the last […]
Up here in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting darker and colder. Of course, on the farm we experience this in many ways: we’ve harvested the remains of the garden before they get nipped by frost, the chickens are laying fewer eggs, dog walks are a bit faster and brisker, we’re spending less time on outside projects and more time inside. These are seasonal ebbs and flows. We can lament the coming winter. We could complain that the growing season is coming to a close. Or we could allow the seasonality to be what it is, working to […]
You don’t need to stay the same. You don’t need to keep doing what is no longer serving you simply because that’s what people expect. You don’t need to be what you’ve always been. You don’t need to hide yourself in costumes that aren’t yours. You don’t need to mask (or unmask) simply because people have made assumptions about you. You are allowed to grow. You are allowed to change. You are allowed to be you. You are allowed to experiment with your services, your offerings…your life. You are allowed to have fun. You are allowed to make mistakes. […]
One of the things I love about being an entrepreneur is that I’m able to bring my big ideas to life. I’ve always been an ideas person. I think you can probably relate. In fact, I was saying just over the weekend that there are kids who have a tendency to ask “What’s that?”, there are kids who have a tendency to ask “Why?”, and there are also kids who have a tendency to ask “What if?” What if…I streamlined my marketing down to one or two concepts? What if…I added this particular service to my roster? What […]
Let’s face it. Running a business can be hard on the heart. Especially if you’re neurodiverse, HSP, emotional, or empathic. It can seem so easy for others to shrug off a failed launch, a challenging client experience, or a mean social media comment. So often, we see other entrepreneurs sharing a Behind The Scenes story that’s supposed to be honest and vulnerable but it really comes off more as “but look at me now” than “…and that sucked“. When the truth is, sometimes it just sucks and there’s no fancy spin to it. When all we see is what […]