Behind the Brand | 4th Quarter Business & Blogging Goals + A Special Announcement!

It’s the middle of October already ??…say whaaa??? Yeah! I can’t believe that there are only two more months lefts in the year and 2016 will be here before we know it. October is a super special month for me, because I had my son in October. He will be two on the 22nd, so I’ll be spending some time planning a birthday celebration for him…and enjoying his new baby sister! Yep everyone, I had the baby and she’s a GIRL! I didn’t want to hold out and have you wait until the end of the post, so that’s the big announcement.

Before I jump into all of the ‘behind the brand’ jazz, here are the deets on her birth:

I had Éva Madison (pronounced Ava) on September 30 at 11:07 P.M. She was originally due on October 6, but she wanted her own birth month and decided to come about a week early, which was fine by me! The delivery went extremely well…and fast (and natural ??) and we are doing great. Éva weighed in at a solid 7lbs even and measured 19″ long and is just a doll. She’s nursing like a champ and cute as a button. I’m no longer outnumbered, so my husband has his little roll dog and I have a new little gal pal. We feel so blessed and can’t wait to embark on this new adventure as a family of four.

Okay, so now with the quarter of the year officially here, its a crucial time for me to make some goals to set myself up for success for the rest of the year and start preparing for next year.

For me, its even more vital that I do so with having a new baby, because my momentum will inevitably slow down as I focus on family and the more personal side of things. The thing is that even though my momentum will slow, I don’t want my consistency to waiver.

Consistency is key, and I want to insure that I’m putting out the same level of quality content, and even better, as I’m putting out now. If you’re received my most recent mailing, I expounded on a previous post I wrote on how to blog when you don’t feel like it. I felt the need to repurpose that post, because it is more relevant to me now than ever. I even updated the content upgrade, so if you’re on my list then you received it too!

I’m so passionate about helping creative souls, who are trying to run a business and blog on limited resources, I need to be able to insure that I’m holding down my front first. The way for me to do this is to set strategic goals, implement systems, and set priorities that will result in growing my business and being profitable.

[Tweet “Grow your brand by setting strategic goals, implement systems, & set priorities.”]

Here’s how I plan on doing it:

1. Stick to a solid editorial content calendar

2. Incorporate more multi-media on the blog

3. Remain active on social media

4. Finish Build Your Best Team e-course

5. Create a new email challenge

6. Take the Branded Bliss Podcast out of hiatus

7. Get back to posting 2-3x/weekly on the blog

8. Revamp services to better fit my current business model and lifestyle

9. Send out more exclusive and extra content to those on my email list

10. Create a new lead magnet for email list signups

I’ll be sharing more on the status of each of my goals over the next 3 months in my weekly mailings.  If you would like to follow along (and grab the Building An Authentic Brand Guide before it goes away — more about why its going away later.) sign up here!

I’m super stoked to be sharing new content and content better geared toward my businesses purpose. As I’ve been on somewhat of a maternity leave, I’ve had a good bit of time to assess where my business is and to reassess where I want it to be. Truth be told, it definitely not where I want it to be, but I know why and that’s the most important thing in pressing forward and getting it there.

Sometimes we have to be stopped in our tracks by life (in my case a pregnancy, new baby, and everything else that life has thrown at me lately) for our purpose for what we want to accomplish to become clear. Previously, I  thought I needed to do what everyone else was doing in my niche, but when I wasn’t getting results, I kept wondering why. Well, now I realize that it isn’t meant for me to be doing everything everyone else is doing.

I’ve had time to stop and think about how I can best run my business so that it fits my lifestyle better. This was something that I didn’t take into consideration before. Offering design, branding, and one-on-one coaching services were the things that I saw everyone else doing that I thought I should be doing too, in order to be successful. Well, those things don’t exactly fit into my lifestyle. What I am passionate about (and have always been since I was a child) is teaching, and I know I can better help people on a larger scale by offering more community based services and products, like courses. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner, but sometimes our judgement and even creativity can become clouded when we act too hastily or aren’t keeping our eyes on our own paper enough.

Putting my head down, analyzing my business, and brain dumping has been the things that have helped me to determine the direction I want to take my business, the goals for it, and again…a much more clear and defined purpose. Purpose is one of the main components of a brand, and without it, you don’t have much of a brand. Knowing who, why, and how you will serve is so important when it comes to your brand resonating with others and them in turn supporting it.

You need both a sense of community and knowledge of how to best serve it in order to garner trust and build a successful brand, which in turn will result in a productive and profitable business. This is my goal goal going forward; to build a community in which fellow creative souls can learn how to run a productive and profitable business.

[Tweet “You need both a sense of community and knowledge of how to best serve your audience.”]

I’ll be creating products specifically for those that want to run their business better and for those who want to create a business from the start that is productive and profitable. I also want to my community to know that despite where you’re at in your life, that you can do it, you can own your own business. I’ve had to run my business on limited time and resources and it is possible, and not only do I want to take others on my journey of growing my business, but I want to especially help those who are in a similar situation start and grow their businesses.

Related: Why You Should Diversify Your Service Offerings

In addition to helping fellow creative souls with entrepreneurial endeavors, I want to help those who simply want to blog better.

I started blogging in my senior year of college, back in 2007. That means, if I do the math correctly, that I’ve been blogging for a grand total of 8 years. More specifically, I’ve been blogging consistently for 3 years and earning an income, creating a community, and gaining a following for almost 3 years. I started off chronicling my pregnancy with my son and talking about my journey in becoming a mother. In March of this year, I transitioned away from the mommy blogger/lifestyle niche to the creative business/entrepreneur and design niche.

One of the reasons I rebranded was because I was no longer passionate about what I was blogging about, and I found myself blogging about everything else under the sun in addition to motherhood.  I found that I could better serve my audience by writing about what I was interested in and wanted to teach and share, versus what was going on in my life at the time. Recently, I’ve found a way to still incorporate some personal things about what’s going on in my life (typically shared with my email list community) with my business and blogging strategy posts.

Related:  Sometimes Its Just Time Pt. 1 | Sometimes Its Just Time Pt. 2

Its taken several months for me to figure out a way to do in which I’m comfortable with, but nonetheless I’m happy to be showing a bit more of a human side of myself again. It feels great to be able to share things I’m passionate about on the business side and personal side again with my audience. If you struggle with this yourself, no worries, you’re in the right place for getting the resources to help you overcome it.

Telling your story and striking the balance between how to share personal stories with business insight can be difficult, especially when you’re new to doing so or don’t have a defined target reader. This is all the more reason it’s so crucial to know whom you want to serve, in addition to how and why. I’ll be sharing lots of strategies in the future for how to determine this, so keep on the lookout!

Related: Best Practices for Blogging for Your Business | Why I Hold Back & How I’m Working Through It

To be honest, I have way more than ten goals for my brand for this quarter and remainder of the year, however accomplishing goals can’t be done in one day.

I’m taking a step by step approach so that I can insure I dedicate the proper time and effort into accomplishing them. It helps to have a few strategic goals, rather than a lot of broad goals. In running a business, I’ve realized that broad goals, and even a broad mindset doesn’t exactly results in positive or successful results. Being strategic and having a legitimate strategy in place is what actually gets you where you want to be.

Related: Business Growth: Slow & Steady Wins the Race

Let’s hear it!

What are your goals for the rest of the year? – Do you have a specific strategy in place for your brand?

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