Last month, I was interviewed by Jessica, co-founder of GlobetrotterGirls about how I quit my job and started my business, minimalism, travel and my journey to location independence. She asked some great questions and got some VERY passionate answers out of me. I’m honored to share the full 50-minute audio recording of our conversation with you! (Just press the play button below.)
Here’s what Jessica had to say about our podcast interview:
When I first started my business back in 2008, it was as a side hustle in addition to my full-time nonprofit job. I had been blogging for less than a year when people began asking me to come and speak at conferences around the country. That’s when I knew I could actually make some extra money from my ideas and expertise. I quickly realized that if I just did a few things consistently to market myself, that people would keep contacting me for business. Five years later, I’m still enjoying a thriving speaking career as a significant part of my business!
What I’ve noticed among my fellow women entrepreneurs however, is that we often get stuck on the marketing part when trying to get our business off the ground. Sometimes, it’s a lack of knowledge, but more often it’s really a lack of confidence. We get stuck because we’re holding a subconscious belief that we shouldn’t be charging for something we love doing so much that we’d do it for free.
If you find yourself in the “stuck” space, here are three things you can start doing TODAY to bring money into your business right now. Sometimes, it’s the simplest baby steps that make the most immediate impact!
When you’re first starting out, it can be really scary to actually make the big announcement that you’re open for business. It’s so frightening for some women to put themselves out there, that many never do this step! Most of us would rather be subtle about our marketing and have customers magically flock to us every day. Of course, this doesn’t happen. And as a result, many women fail to make sales on a consistent basis, let alone during the first few months of their business.
Duh, right? Yet you’d be surprised how many women entrepreneurs have a hard time asking for money, let alone asking for what our time is really worth. According to research by negotiation expert Linda Babcock, women are two-and-a-half times more likely than men to feel “a great deal of apprehension” about negotiating. This is very common in salary negotiation and also shows up in how we price our expertise, services or products. When you’re getting your business off the ground, it can be easy to fall into the mindset that you have to offer all your services for free.99 or at a deep discount to get some experience and encourage word of mouth marketing. The problem with that is if you provide too much value to your customers for free, they won’t be as likely to pay you when you start charging for it!
While women dominate many social networks online, we really don’t use the tools as much as we could to promote our businesses and engage with potential customers. This is one of the things that really frustrates me because there’s so much potential for our businesses on social media if we use it correctly! If you’re already on Twitter and Facebook, you probably tend to use it for personal use rather than as a marketing tool because you’re afraid people will unfollow or unfriend you. But social media offers an enormous opportunity for marketing your business for free or low-cost. And the sooner you take advantage of it, the more income you can bring in. Fun fact: more than 90 percent of my business comes through my blog, Twitter and Facebook!
If you’re not making any money in your business right now (or not making as much as you want to), don’t agonize over it. Worrying doesn’t help you move forward. Simply ask yourself, which one of these steps can you take today to start turning things around? I’d love to hear about where YOU are in the process of starting or building your business right now. Please leave a comment below and join the conversation – our HBW Community is becoming a great place to connect with like-minded ladies, ask questions and get support 
Rosetta Thurman is the Founder of Happy Black Woman, a supportive community that helps women create their ideal lives through personal development and entrepreneurship. Follow Rosetta on Twitter.
Join thousands of women who have completed the only online course that gives you all the tools you need to get unstuck, set clear goals and rediscover who you truly are. Learn more about my 31 Days to Reset Your Life program here.
This is a guest post by Vernetta Freeney, one of the most active and effective networking women I’ve ever met online. Please welcome Vernetta to the HBW Community!
As I write this for you, I can honestly say I am in a happy place in my professional career. But it hasn’t always been that way. In fact, the last two years have been one of the roughest stretches. Let me take you back where my transition began. In 2010, I was a first grade teacher. I loved my job. My kids were amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better year. But rumors started to circulate that things in education were changing and they would never be the same.
I didn’t worry because I’d always received better than normal evaluations. The next semester, I was told that I needed to be careful. My name was on the chopping block. I was alarmed because again, I had great evaluations and my kids always performed well. Well, I received the letter stating I needed to schedule a meeting with my principal. I was struck with confusion. We met and he said a lot of untrue things. Many believed that he and his supervisors were upset at a blog post I had written in 2009. To be honest, if I had to do it all over again, I still would have written the blog post. Anyway, I had my union rep on campus come with me to the meeting. She looked shocked as well with what was being said. I resigned from teaching during that meeting with tears in my eyes. I rushed out and locked myself in the restroom and cried. I could not believe that after nine years in education this was how it was going to end. I finished the year per my contact.
During the summer, I began to seek options on what to do next. I had no Plan B. That was a big mistake. I could not find another teaching job. All of the districts were tightening up due to budget cuts statewide. I eventually found a contract position teaching English as a Second Language to corporate employees in the oil and gas industry. Since it was only contact work, I had so much time on my hands. I would go to the public library between students and just read. I would read anything related to business. After losing my job the way I did, I knew I never wanted that to happen again. I knew my only option was to be an entrepreneur. But I had no clue what I wanted to do. So, I would read books on things that interested me in hopes that maybe I found something I could pursue as a business.
In August of 2011, I came across Happy Black Woman. I saw she was doing her 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge. I waited until September to start with the next cycle. By this time a friend and my mom said I should start blogging again to occupy my time. I think I was annoying them because I was extremely bored with so much time on my hands.
During the challenge, it just struck me. All of the exercises Rosetta had us doing really helped me see that I should start my business now and not wait. So one night around midnight, I was up Googling adjectives I thought described women. All of the clichés were taken. The word “gamechanger” just came to me out of the blue. It had to be God. So I Googled the word. The only things that came up were athletes and Nike. I thought to myself: women are gamechangers. Well, that’s how I got the name for my blog, Women Are Gamechangers!
My blog originally started off with the intent to share stories of everyday women. Eventually, I was asked to do work and get paid for it so I filed as an LLC. I began to start changing the direction of the blog from just telling stories and sharing empowerment messages to focusing more on business. Attending events, I noticed a lot of women weren’t handling themselves effectively while networking. I read a book by Vickie L. Milazzo called Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman. I had heard both she and Stedman Graham speak in 2011 at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. The last chapter in Vickie’s book was called “Fusion.” She wrote about how she helped connect her friends to each other. I realized that I had been doing that for as long as I could remember! So, I created a networking event called “Fusion.”
This was the direction I knew I wanted my new business to go in. I learned a lot of lessons in 2012 as a full-time entrepreneur. The most important lesson I learned was not to do something for others even if they were paying me just because I was good at it. I needed to do something I was passionate about. Towards the end of 2012, I reevaluated my goals and direction for Women Are Gamechangers. I shut everything down. I needed clarity. All of this was still new to me. I was so used to working in a structured system that I had not created a system for Women are Gamechangers. I created one during that time I shut my business down.
This year, I am more focused and determined to build Fusion into a national tour. I am starting with six cities. But I would never be in the happy place I am today, doing what I enjoy if I did not go through the traumatic experience of being forced to resign from the job I thought I loved. That led to a new door being opened that fits my skills, interests and talents much better. Being an entrepreneur is not easy. It probably never will be.
But I am using the skills and talents I have to make a difference in the lives of women and getting paid to do so.
Vernetta R. Freeney is an award winning business blogger and entrepreneur based in Houston, Texas. Check out her blog, Women Are Gamechangers and her upcoming 6-city Fusion Tour for women entrepreneurs.
Last night, I received an email from a woman I’ve never met before in my life. As far as I know, she and I have never even corresponded virtually, so her communication was that much more confusing. I deleted the email almost as soon as I read it, so I’ll have to paraphrase the gist of it here.
Rosetta – I think you could use this advice. I would never hire you to speak because you look very unprofessional in the photos on your website. Your skin looks ashy. I like natural hair, but yours looks unkempt.
You need a power suit. Would you really show up at a corporate event in that multi-colored skirt or is this just the standard for nonprofits??? Honey, you need a stylist.
And then, she signs her name to this nonsense, including her contact information as the CEO of a staffing agency in Beverly Hills, CA. Really? I’d hate to see how her business is doing if this is how she spends her time.
There’s a lot I can say (and could have said to her directly) about this email, mainly that 1) I would never want to be hired by this person to do anything ever and 2) I love the “unkempt” look of my hair, which is kinda why I wear it that way and 3) Even if I did hire a stylist, you’d never see me in a “power suit” because I hate suits. I don’t even know what to say about the ashy part except WTF.
But the real lesson in this exchange came through the feelings it brought up for me. As soon as I read it, I felt a surge of adrenaline and a string of curse words began forming in my mind. Mind you, I rarely get angry anymore but I have to admit that my first thought was:
Who does this b***h think she is?
It took me a few minutes to realize that on the other side of the country, there was a random stranger on the internet asking the exact same thing about me.
Who does this b***h think she is…marketing herself as a speaker? Who is she to promote herself online, especially looking like that? Why does she think she’s worthy of a successful business when she doesn’t even look the part?
It’s easy to forget the truth that some women derive a sense of confidence from comparing themselves to other women they deem inferior.
In fact, some women will be triggered by your very presence.
When you look back and observe your own behavior, you will see that you’ve done this before in some form. I know I have in the past and I’m not proud of it. You see a public figure or celebrity or successful businesswoman and start snarking on her looks and behavior.
Who is she to have money and fame and power and happiness when she looks/talks/acts like that? And why haven’t I achieved that level of success in my life yet when I’m just as talented/pretty/ambitious as she is?
It’s hard enough for women, especially black women, to put ourselves out there in the first place without the verbal abuse we throw at each other. I get enough emails and work with enough coaching clients to know that this is true. In my own life and business, I struggle with forging my own path, promoting myself and offering my services to the people who might need them. In the back of my mind is always the question:
Am I worthy? Is what I have to offer good enough? Do I really deserve this life?
It’s in those moments of self-doubt, even in the midst of adversity that I can hear that still, small voice rise up in my heart to answer:
Yes. Yes you are. That’s why I put you here.
That knowing is what gives me the peace to immediately delete any messages I receive that do not add to my life and work. You’ll never find any flame wars on my blog, Twitter beef or drama on my Facebook page. Of course, I enjoy honest discussion and I appreciate hearing constructive criticism from friends, family, colleagues, clients and others that know who I am and what my work is about. But random strangers on the internet telling me how I should dress and wear my hair? Not worth the back-and-forth exchange. (I mean, what did she think I was gonna reply? “Thanks for the feedback on my appearance, I’ll try to change it for you?”)
Before you judge someone who’s actually making that leap to walk in their purpose, take a moment to think about why their appearance or behavior is triggering you. If you’re honest with yourself, it’s probably because you want to be doing more with your own life and feel frustrated about that.
And before you rush to respond to someone who’s judging you, get centered in compassion so you can remember that they’re coming from a place of lack and projecting that onto you. Understand that their discomfort with your presence is not your problem.
Then press “delete.”
This is a guest post by Sydelle Moore, CEO of Sydelle Cosmetics. Please welcome Sydelle to the HBW Community!
Transitioning into thinking of yourself as an entrepreneur forces you to reevaluate a lot of the basic things you’ve been taught and tests your resolve. The first step to starting any new business is mental preparation. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned from my experience starting up Sydelle Cosmetics.
We as women can sometimes be overly cautious, but don’t let caution stop you from taking action! Get started now. Don’t use the planning phase as a stall tactic to prevent yourself from creating samples, or promoting your services. Entrepreneurs sometimes become mired in research and lose confidence along the way. Don’t do that.
Get out there with something so that people can give you feedback early on. Having real feedback from real people who aren’t your friends and don’t care about your oh-so-sensitive feelings is a great tool that you can incorporate into the business planning process and it is usually free or very inexpensive.
No, I am not encouraging you to recklessly avoid doing your due diligence. I am asking you to expand your definition of research into the realm of reality ASAP. Learning about customer behavior as soon as you possibly can will tell you fairly quickly whether your great idea is a dud or a stud.
If you hear a particular comment, question or concern at least three times then it is worth addressing. You can add a note to your label or even change the product, but you can’t dismiss anything after three different people have brought it to your attention.
A customer recommended that we make a solid version of our Pampered Pits natural deodorant. Her one, off-hand comment gave me the idea to produce a great, new product that will hit shelves in March 2013 and helped me keep a customer. Every customer makes a small investment in your business. Don’t ignore the opportunity to turn them into partners.
If you can’t do math, but your accountant can; then your accountant will be rich and you won’t! Remember all those episodes of The Cosby Show where Dr. Huxtable gave Theo and Cockroach the facts of life with monopoly money in hand? All of those lessons are just as true today as they were during the heyday of the Coogi sweater.
You don’t need to be paranoid, but you do need to be able to check your accountant’s math, your suppliers’ math and even your clients’ math. If you’re an entrepreneur, you can’t spend so much time focused on your craft that you neglect the math. Do math. Do math often. Do math with confidence. Do math when you don’t want to. ALWAYS do the math!
We spend a lot of time and effort teaching young ladies not to undervalue themselves before they start dating. Many of those rules are helpful in business as well. Know what your work is worth before you begin negotiating.
Other people will negotiate with you over the price and that is their job. Don’t haggle with yourself. You are the business owner now and you have the authority to set limits. Educate yourself and set a price that is fair to you and your customers. It is smart and acceptable in most industries to include labor, research and development as well as other hidden costs that impact your business. Prices should reflect not only how much it costs to make the product, but how much it costs to run your business. Charge a price that won’t leave you in the position of giving away all of your hard work one handshake at a time.
When you worked for someone else, you spent 60 hours or more each week cooped up in an office eating lunch at your desk.
Now that you are on your own, it is not a good time to rest your weary bones. Every phone call you make, every email you type and every unglamorous, messy or unpleasant thing you do is for YOU. Don’t shortchange yourself with a lack of effort. You are accustomed to trying hard for others. Now that you are working for yourself – try even harder.
Just like a budget forces you to look critically at your spending habits, writing down how you spend your time makes you accountable as well. When you’re an entrepreneur, input doesn’t always equal output. Finding out which things weren’t the best use of your time is a lot easier when you have a written log of your activities. Make a schedule and review it regularly.
What lessons have you learned so far in your journey to start your own business?
Sydelle Moore is the founder and CEO of Sydelle Cosmetics, maker of the wildly popular Pampered Pits natural deodorant. She is a happy black woman who lives, works and speaks in the Washington, DC area about women, entrepreneurship and self-esteem.
Check out Sydelle’s website for more information about her business: SydelleCosmetics.com.
“Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.” – Natalie Goldberg
I love talking about the possibilities of entrepreneurship and the freedom it can bring into your life. But I also believe it’s just as important to talk about the pitfalls as well. Today’s post is about my own pitfalls and the most painful year I’ve experienced in my business so far.
2011 was not a very good year for me. I had just quit my job the year before and was riding high off my first year of self-employed success. In 2010, I’d brought in a hefty income from my business. But in 2011, I made about $20,000 less. I lost a big consulting contract and I didn’t know how to immediately replace that money.
For the first time in years, I felt lost in my career.
Without the structure of an organization giving me a steady direct deposit, I didn’t know what my worth was anymore. I wasn’t sure what my true value was in the marketplace and that scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t used to that feeling, that knot in my stomach that appeared whenever I thought about where my next check was gonna come from.
This wasn’t me, man. The Rosetta I knew had everything planned out in advance. She had always been a high performer and an overachiever. Why should this business thing be any different? I was used to being successful at everything I did. But as a result of making one decision to quit my job, I felt like I had forfeited my identify in many aspects of my life.
Slowly, I began to fall into a depression over a period of several months. I noticed that I stopped going out as much as I used to. I wasn’t taking care of myself very well. There were weeks when I didn’t clean my apartment, when I just let the dishes pile up in the sink. I just didn’t have the energy to do much more than sit in my little makeshift home office in the corner of my studio, doodling in my notebooks trying to figure it all out.
During that time, I probably had some good days, but most of them were pretty rough. I felt unsure of myself all the time, which I wasn’t used to and definitely didn’t like.
I felt like I was failing.
The only thing I knew for sure is that I didn’t want to stay there, in that place of fear. Here’s some things I did that helped me push through the mental roadblocks to get my business back on track. If you’re feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place right now, they might help you, too.
I didn’t have money to pay a therapist, so I sought out other resources to help me stay motivated as my business took a nosedive. What I kept coming back to during that difficult time were written and verbal affirmations like this one: Fear flows through me but it is not me. I am bigger than fear. I am beyond fear. Fear does not define me. I am not fear. I started choosing an inspiring quote or mantra to repeat in the mornings (that I often posted to Twitter as well). I began to read the daily passage from Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening (a fantastic book that I continue to use as part of my meditation practice). Through ongoing positive self-talk, I was able to shut off my stupid lizard brain long enough to remember that I still had something of value to offer the world.
In June 2011, I decided to try something new on the health front by embarking on a 21-day cleanse that required me to eliminate meat, dairy, sugar, caffeine and alcohol from my diet. All the good stuff LOL. During the cleanse, I began to get my energy back in a big way and started cooking for myself regularly again. A few months later, I made another big change by moving out of my apartment to reduce my living expenses, experience alternative living arrangements and save money for a trip abroad. This decision not only helped me do all of the above, but also inspired me to simplify my life and make room for other parts to emerge.
In late November 2011, I took a business trip to Honolulu, Hawaii to speak at a conference and decided to stay there for almost a month. It was a good opportunity for me to be out of my normal environment. I spent a lot of time on the island pretty much just doing nothing. Thinking, reading, eating, going to the beach. And writing. Lots of writing. My trip to Hawaii helped me get back to my center and reconnect with the vision for my ideal life. When I got back to the mainland, I was able to get out of “stuck” mode and start translating my deepest desires into actual plans for my business.
That year, I had to try really hard not to apply for full-time jobs. And believe me, I looked! I even got a few casual job offers through my network. The fork in the road was clear; I knew could always go back to a 9 to 5. Instead, I promised myself that as long as I kept getting enough clients to pay my bills, I would stay in business. Still, it seemed like I kept asking myself the same question. What do you love doing the most? The answer kept ricocheting like an echo in a deep cave: writing and teaching. If I’m honest with myself (and with you), I can admit that my answer has not actually changed much since I was in the first grade and the teacher used to ask us what we wanted to be when we grew up. In 2011, I taught my last course as an adjunct professor and began to teach more of my own workshops online. I rededicated myself to building my business around doing exactly what I loved. And when 2012 rolled around, I had a rough plan for how to make it happen.
As a result, 2012 was my biggest year ever in terms of paid speaking engagements, book sales and online workshops.
Now that I can look back with some perspective, I know that I had to go through that year of feeling lost and being stuck to get to this point. I had to be reminded that I already have everything I need to be successful.
And that if I will just trust the universe and stay committed to my purpose, it will take me where I need to go.
Have you ever felt lost or stuck in your business? What eventually helped you start moving forward again?
When I work with business coaching clients, every week we get together over the phone to talk about one aspect of building their business. At the end of each call, they identify some homework to complete during the coming week.
What I’ve noticed is how effective this method has been so far in helping people stop procrastinating and stay productive. Having a concrete task to do each week encourages you to keep moving forward in your business little by little. I call this taking consistent baby steps. There are a lots of things you can do to get your business off the ground, but knowing what you need to do doesn’t matter if nothing ever gets done. Here are a few baby steps you can take today. And I DO mean today :)
When I first started working for myself full-time, I reached out to several other consultants who I had been friendly with in my role at my day job. They were all happy to chat with me over the phone or meet for coffee so I could learn about their path. Chances are, you have at least one friend, college buddy or even a casual acquaintance who is a business owner. Now is the time to reach out to them to ask them about their journey – what they did to get to where they are today? Caveat: if this person is a career or business coach, please don’t ask them to coach you for free or to “pick their brain” on every little thing you have questions about. They probably get that all the time and it’s annoying. Simply ask if they’d be willing to share with you how they got started in their business. Sweeten the deal by offering to take them out to a restaurant for lunch or dinner – your treat.
In 2013, every business should have a website. Clients and customers now expect you to have a presence online. And I’m so thankful for advanced technology because now, you don’t have to pay an arm, a leg and a kidney to get your website designed. The easiest, cheapest, fastest way to do this is to set up a website using simple blogging software. You can literally get your website up and running in minutes – for free! – using a blogging platform like WordPress.com or Blogger.com. If you still don’t have a web presence yet (or know you need a more professional-looking one) download my free ebook, The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Blog that walks you step-by-step through this process.
When you’re just starting your business, it’s important to connect with as many potential clients and customers as possible. Jump at the opportunity to attend networking events related to your industry. It’s one of the best ways to find clients and make industry contacts that may hire you at a later date or recommend you to their colleagues. You may have to pay a fee to attend conferences or events, but they are usually well worth the price. You’re paying to chat with a roomful of your target clientele or potential collaborators. And remember, just one new customer may enable you to earn back the cost and then some! You can find local events and conferences though your city’s newspaper, chamber of commerce, Meetup.com or even Eventbrite (just type in the name of your city).
Which one of these baby steps do you need to take today to get your business off the ground?
P.S. If you need some one-on-one support to help you move forward, check out my coaching options to see how we can work together.
Last night, I taught a free teleseminar called Launch Yourself: 4 Steps to Start Your Business in 2013. The one-hour call was an introduction to my new course starting on January 22, Launch Yourself: A Roadmap for Introducing Your Business to the World.
Today, I attended a half-day workshop hosted by the Virginia Chapter of the National Speakers Association. The workshop was called “The Story Finder: How to Create New Stories in 10 Minutes or Less!” and was presented by a fantastic speaker named Ed Tate. As a first-time attendee, I only had to pay $47, yet I easily received at least 10 times the value of the workshop fee. Not only did Ed give us concrete tools to create compelling stories for our speeches, but he also dropped some valuable knowledge about the speaking business itself. I took so many notes today, my head is spinning LOL.
Rosetta Thurman is a nationally-recognized author, speaker, mentor and coach dedicated to helping women create their ideal lives.
