I’m a big believer in contributing way more than we consume and I've consciously been cutting back recently on how much I’m consuming so I can silence the noise more and get back to doing the work that I feel inspired to do. But one area where I’ll happily give a few hours to each week is podcasts; I may be a little biased as I’m also a podcaster, but I really do believe that audio content is currently where some of the most insightful, game changing, and original ideas are being shared in the creative and small business world online.

And today I want to share with you five of my favourites that I think you will love too.

Way back in January I shared five of my favourites, which I still love (especially Being Boss, if you’re not listening to that one definitely head over and check it out now), but these five are more recent discoveries that I get crazy excited to listen to each time a new episode goes live.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST THINGS I’VE LEARNED THIS YEAR IS THAT YOU DO NOT NEED A HIGH TRAFFIC WEBSITE TO BUILD A PROFITABLE ONLINE BUSINESS.

This time last year I thought my Google Analytics were the bottom line when it came to defining the potential success of my online brand. Now a year later I very rarely check my analytics, unless I want to find out more about certain conversions and which pages are attracting more visitors, and when it comes to assessing the health of my business, tracking my page views is at the bottom of my list. And today I want to share in depth why this is and how I’ve built a profitable online business without relying on traffic, because I see so much in my clients and community online how much anxiety there is around website traffic and how much that anxiety can hold you back from making big and beautiful things happen online.

If you’re anything like me, something you probably say on a daily basis is: I just don’t have enough time.

When we’re hustling hard to create a life of creative and financial freedom for ourselves, showing up for our business every single day, and making a daily commitment to doing the work, we can sometimes struggle to carve out time to do everything we want to each day. We sacrifice self care, passion projects, and time with loved ones in the hopes of just keeping our head above water with our work, and what we find ourselves with is burn out, resentment, and a life that’s nowhere near as dreamy as we want it to be.

Being a freelancer is awesome. There’s a reason so many of us are saying no to the traditional 9-5 life and choosing the road of self employment instead. From the lack of a ceiling on our earning potential, to the fact that we can shape and define our own routines, it’s a pretty awesome way to make a living. But we also have to wear many hats; the list of things we need to do each week to stay on top of our clients, finances, systems, and marketing strategies is enough to leave anyone feeling overwhelmed from time to time. 

THAT’S WHERE TODAY’S EXERCISE COMES IN. 

After a year so far of some serious hustle, I’ve found myself feeling a little scattered and in need of a little time out to reevaluate things and touch base with my business and freelance life. Like with any job, sometimes it’s far too easy to just get stuck going through the motions, and I’ve put together an exercise to help me find some focus, clarity, and lose that scattered feeling once and for all. And if you’re struggling with that scattered feeling too, I’ve broken it down step by step below so you can take the time to get your freelance life together and touch base with where it is you want to go next.

Sometimes there are guests on Make It Happen that I get super, super excited to interview.

Today's guest was definitely one of them.

Halley Gray of Evolve + Succeed is without a doubt one of my favourite people on the internet. She's witty, wise, and super, super smart when it comes to business and marketing and she's always bringing fluff-free and super valuable insights to the table which have led me to so many a-ha moments along the way. And that's exactly why I asked her to come on the podcast today, as I just know her insights and knowledge around marketing and positioning yourself online as a leader and an expert will be super valuable for Make It Happen listeners too.

In this episode we talk about how to become a leader in your industry, reasons why your marketing may not be working and what you can do about it, and how you can avoid the bulls*t online so you can thrive instead. This one definitely will work best with a pen and paper to take notes as you listen as Halley shares some seriously good stuff with us today.

This past weekend, Maya Elious and I hosted a live workshop all about building a profitable online presence (the replay has expired but if you want to hear us talk all things business you can in our episode of Make It Happen here) and the idea for this workshop came from a conversation we were having around the struggles we see many of our coaching clients go through when they’re trying to make big and beautiful things happen online.

Here’s the thing: you can create all of the courses, eBooks, paid-for workshops and services in the world, but if you don’t have a community who is invested in your brand, who cares about your message and your voice, and are ready and waiting to dive into working with you, you’re going to struggle to build something profitable and sustainable along the way.

Creating the products is the fun part. Packaging up your services and products and thinking how much money you could make and how that could change your life is a daydream every budding online entrepreneur finds themselves lost in from time to time, but sometimes you can get too lost in the dreaming and scheming stage and forget to focus on building the core foundations that your online business needs to survive and thrive.

Making a living as a freelancer and creative entrepreneur can be tough. When you first start out you’re usually just happy to be making any amount of money from the work that you feel inspired to do, but at some point you’re going to start to crave a stable and consistent income and to alleviate the stress and anxiety that can come from being in charge of your own paycheque.

My biggest goal when I first started my creative coaching business was to create a full time income from my work, and down the line what I've really started to work towards is stabilising my freelance income so I no longer feel trapped in a cycle of feast and famine where some weeks I feel super stable and on top of things, and others I worry if I’m even going to be able to afford food the next month.

And thankfully that’s exactly what I’ve done. Alex and I are finally moving into our (super tiny) apartment in just over a week and my biggest goal since we paid our deposit was to stabilise my business income as much as possible so we can feel financially prepared and can avoid those sleepless nights where we feel wracked with fear about money. 

HERE’S THE THING ABOUT STABILISING YOUR INCOME AS A FREELANCER AND CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR; IT HELPS YOU BE BETTER AT YOUR JOB.

Because terrible business decisions are made when they come from a place of desperation, and when you have your money matters together you can then just get back to doing what you do best. So today I want to dig into the things I’ve done to stabilise my freelance income, and some ideas you can explore too if you’re struggling to break free from the feast and famine stage. 

This episode of Make It Happen was definitely one of my favourites to record so far.

I invited Jess May onto the show to talk all things relationships and business, and she's hilarious and crazy insightful and smart when it comes to nurturing a game changing relationship alongside a game changing business. Jess is a relationship coach and she works specifically with creative entrepreneurs and business owners to help them balance it all without sacrificing any of it.

I like to think that I have two great loves in my life; my better half Alex, and my creative coaching business. Balancing the two can be super tough sometimes; nurturing a relationship when you're both busy building your dreams (both your shared dreams and your solo dreams too) is a huge balancing act, and I really loved having this opportunity to chat with someone who completely gets what I'm doing right now. We talk about the benefits focusing on your relationship has on your business, how to get your partner on board with your business goals, and how to balance it all along the way. I love this episode and I think you will too. It's a little different than what we've done on the show before, but it was great to talk about the non-business side of running a business for once.

There is one simple thing that has played a huge part in helping me to build a profitable and sustainable client-based creative business:

Word of mouth referrals.

My own online presence, content marketing, and business strategy have played a big part in helping me to move forward in my business, but word of mouth referrals have been able to have an impact in a way that I could not have made alone.

Somebody else saying how awesome you are is so much more powerful than saying it yourself.

The thing about cultivating game changing word of mouth referrals though is that, a lot of the time, they can feel completely out of your control. I didn’t realise how much of a game changer they were going to be for me until 30-50% of my client bookings each month started to come from referrals from past and current clients. You can’t force your clients to rave wildly about you to anyone who will listen, but what you can do is run your business in a way that is authentic, delightful, and ultimately a word-of-mouth machine that turns paying customers into lifelong brand ambassadors (and if you’re lucky, returning customers at some point too).

So if you're looking to cultivate word of mouth referrals to help you build a sustainable, thriving, and booked-out business, I have four key steps for you today to explore that could be the things you need to end the feast and famine cycle that you may have found yourself trapped in.