Welcome back to the show all you lovely listeners! Today we have a great guest who we cannot wait to share with you. Taylor Slango is an online business coach who helps women looking to grow their empire without compromising the things that are important to them! Her focus is on helping clients align their energy and strategy, in order to have more fun, make more money and ultimately make more sales! She started her business just one year ago and has since scaled to six figures and managed to leave her 9 to 5 in under 12 months. Impressive, right? This path is exactly what we will be talking about today!

We are sure you all have a million questions around this transition. What it looks like, what to watch out for, how to know you're ready, the mindset to aim for and so on. Do not fear, we cover it all! We think the fact that Taylor is so fresh into this journey herself makes this an amazing opportunity to get her perspective! Taylor will also be at our upcoming summit, which we hope all of you have your free tickets for and if you do not yet, go get them! Her presentation is titled, 'How to Plan Your Next Sold Out Launch Without Stress, Overwhelm or Burnout'. This fits perfectly into today's conversation and we think you all need to hear it, so join us as we dive in!

We did a survey to find out where you guys are currently at in your businesses, the areas you are struggling in, what kind of profits you are making and where we could come in and offer some guidance. What we’ve noticed from the feedback and about the industry in general is that there is an epidemic going on – one that involves the side hustle! So, we thought we better address this topic, not to pigeonhole you, but rather to give you the facts we’ve gathered. 

The survey is technically still live, and the report is automatically updated, so you can keep checking in to see how the data shifts. In our email correspondence to you, we will link the survey and the results page for you to access easily. What do other similar surveys say? Where are most of you in your businesses? What kind of money are you making or hoping to make? We get into all of these questions, revealing some super surprising results! Join us to find out what your sisters said about their side hustles!  

Today we are talking about what it means to become a full-time creative entrepreneur. Scary thought? Maybe, but we’re here to tell you that starting your own business does not have to be the insurmountable project it is often believed to be. Yes, it can be riskier and less stable in many ways, but what we are going to tell you today is really going to surprise you, and hopefully encourage you to take the leap of faith toward becoming a full-time creative entrepreneur. 

Ultimately, our goal is for you to create for yourself not only a job but a sustainable income so that you can provide for your family while also enjoying the lifestyle you want. We share with you a bit of background about our early lives and how it shaped our desire to work for ourselves and talk about the different pressures and circumstances that influence your perspective on entrepreneurship. We also talk about getting to your success point ASAP, what you can expect in terms of free time as an entrepreneur and why this is all 100% within your reach. So, get ready for some encouraging insight!  

On today’s show, we will be answering our most frequently asked question: “How did you get from point A to point B?” We will be sharing what to do, when to do it and how to do it all in your first two years of business. These steps got us from zero dollars to nearly half a million dollars and we want to give you a step-by-step breakdown of everything we did along the way. Even if your goal is not to make half a million dollars, the strategies we implemented and the lessons we have learned can definitely be applied to any business goal. Whatever your ultimate goal, the strategies and order we did them in are the same.

Inside this episode, we give you a business roadmap and the eight main steps we took to reach our goal. The order of these steps is key and that is exactly why we will be sharing them in detail with you! To give you a little taste, here is how we are going to break it all down. 1) Build Your Foundation, 2) Craft Your Message, 3) Nurture Your Dreamies, 4) Streamline With Systems, 5) See The Big Picture, 6) Create Sustainability, 7) Formulate A Passive Business, 8) Reach Those #Squad Goals. Okay, are you ready? Let’s get started!

Hey everybody and welcome back to the Strategy Hour Podcast! Today we are very, very excited to have Jane Lu as our guest. Jane is the founder of Showpo and has been in Forbes, Cosmopolitan and won numerous awards for her business! What started as a small clothing store in her parents garage in 2010 has grown and grown to the huge online store that is today. Their goal is to reach $100 million in revenue by 2020 and boy do we think they will achieve it! Jane is so inspiring and we love the way her brain works, she makes fast decisions and is such a visionary; qualities that have taken her company to amazing heights.

In our conversation Jane breaks down the milestones, learning curves, mistake, strategies and almost every important step in the process, so get ready to take some notes! This episode is a great insight into the turning points that any business faces and how to ride them out to success. Jane admits that some of the strategy she now espouses she has only seen in hindsight, quite an achievement for a business that now has 150 staff members and started with two racks of clothing less than nine years ago! Now, let’s get into the show.

Can you believe we have made it to Episode 300 of the podcast? How is this possible? We are so grateful to have had all of you along for the ride and cannot wait to do the next 300! As we go into our third full year here at TCC, we wanted to celebrate another milestone besides that one. Some time during the last six months or so, without us even really being aware, we made our first million! We know, this sounds crazy but it’s true!

Welcome back to the show, all you biz badasses and money queens! Today we have a great episode in store for you that you are most definitely not going to want to miss! Our guest is Jereshia Hawk and she is here to tell us about how she switched from a big corporate job to selling her services online and increasing her salary in the process! Jereshia was working on huge, high profile engineering projects when she left her job and during this first year of going solo she managed to double her salary! Sound amazing? We think so! She has subsequently taught her strategies to hundreds of people online and helped them get going on their own road to success.

A lot of what Jereshia teaches is a little different than the majority of information that is available online. She has a focus on grassroots growth that we just love! It was such a pleasure to have her on the show and the conversation is motivating and really informative for anyone looking to get out of their day job and start their own little thing. This topic is really near and dear to our hearts as Abagail started out on her own, selling services when she quit her corporate job and so much of what Jereshia says rings true for us. For a great conversation with a massively inspiring person, be sure to get it all on the The Strategy Hour!

Today on the podcast we have our work husband, Parker Stevenson. Parker is our bookkeeper, our CFO, business adviser, our friend, our friend-enemy and everything in between. You have probably heard us mention Parker throughout this podcast series. He is like the Where’s Waldo? of TCC and an absolute hoot. Today, we are revealing the mystery of Parker Stevenson and are going to be talking all about scaling a service-based business. Instead of teaching you sexy bookkeeping things, Parker is actually going to talk about his own business and give you a peek into some of his own business strategies.

Parker went down the same rabbit hole many entrepreneurs do, where he thought creating a passive online course program was going to be the solution for his business growth and scalability. But you’ll learn in the episode, how they decided it wasn’t going to work for them and why they decided to scale the service side of their business instead. Parker has a wealth of experience and is here to share with you why service-based businesses are severely underrated. If you are a new business owner or in the process of re-thinking your current online business model – this is definitely an episode you won’t want to miss!

Hey everybody! Welcome to our round up of the lessons we learned in 2018! As usual we learned a lot, if not more during this last year, so we have so much to share with all of you. You also know we love reflecting and reviewing and this podcast will basically be a fleshing out of all the important steps we took and progress we made in our business. We are hoping that you will follow along with us and do the same sort of thing with your biz! Hopefully ours will give you some ideas of how to reflect on the past year and the important points that came out of it.

A quick reminder that if you have been enjoying the podcast over the last 12 months (or more!) to leave us a review online, or tag us in your Instagram post or story. We love hearing from all of you and this is a great time to show our mutual appreciation. We love to repost and share content from our listeners, so get going with it! In our talk today we cover scaling, pivoting, hiring a CFO, summits, Traction, refueling creativity and much more. Are we all ready? Good! Let’s get into it!

Welcome back to the show! Today’s episode of The Strategy Hour Podcast is a breakdown of our recent amazing and wonderful Boss Project Summit! This was pretty much the biggest thing we have ever done at TCC and it has just wrapped, so what better to talk about than that? This behind the scenes look at the summit and the statistics that came out of it is just a taste of things to come. The few days over which we held the event had a massive impact and we had fun and made money and we cannot wait to share more of the in depth information we have gathered.

Bear in mind that it is still early stages in terms of the outcomes, which we will continue to collect and collate, but there is definitely more than enough to talk about today and give you the inside scoop after all the madness! We would be remiss not to send out a big thank you to everyone who made the summit possible and we are eternally grateful to our sponsors, contributors, the participants, and each other for bringing this great thing to life! We have to admit that we are already thinking about next time and how we might make it better, stronger, and more of everything it was this time!

Welcome to another episode of The Strategy Hour Podcast, where we give you the tools, tips, and tricks to get your biz hopping and popping! Today on the show we are joined by Michelle Evans who is going to talk us through her journey of giving up a secure, well-paid job at Microsoft to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams. This obviously has great relevance for most of us as we have either made the switch or would still like to. It is just a part of doing this thing we do! Michelle now runs her own marketing company helping business owners achieve their dreams and coaching them towards the kind of success they hope for.

In our conversation, we go through this all important process and how it played out for Michelle. Her story is really inspiring and has lessons in it for all of us for following your own path and playing to your own strengths. We chat about what led up to the decision to leave and then the all important action steps Michelle took following her departure, which led to her paving her own way ever since. Michelle gives us great strategy pointers and you are not going to want to miss those so stay tuned right to the end of the show!

Thanks for tuning in to another amazing episode of The Strategy Hour Podcast! These are definitely our favorite episodes to bring today. Today on the show we are breaking it down and showing you the behind-the-scenes of the creation and the progress of our very first online virtual summit, The Boss Project Summit. The Summit will run for four full days from November 6th to the 9th, 2018. We have 40 different speakers, including keynotes and breakouts and we have divided each day into four themes throughout the summit. So as you can see, we have a ton of great stuff planned for y’all!

Now before we jump into this episode and all the things that are happening, if you have yet to sign up, get your booty over to the Boss Project Summit website and sign up. It’s totally free and we are so excited for the 5,000 people who have already signed up! So if you want to hear about why we decided to do a summit and what lit the fire for us to take on this new project, you’re going to want to go back and listen to Episode 270. However, that episode is definitely not a prerequisite for jumping into this one, so let’s get started!

On this edition of the The Strategy Hour we have a very special guest, Christine McAlister, founder of Life With Passion and author of the new book The Income Replacement Formula. Christine’s business is dedicated to helping hopeful entrepreneurs transition from their day jobs to owning the business of their dreams, and boy, do we love her for it! It is a challenge that almost all business owners have to face and doing it correctly can be so tricky. That’s why Christine’s service is so important!

During the episode we go over the steps that Christine lays out in her book and she details each step with great information to get you started and excited about this shift. We talk mindset, marketing, visibility and much more that you are not going to want to miss! Our guest has one of the longest and most diverse lists of achievements we have ever seen: Olympic broadcaster, horse mother, raising service dogs...amongst other things! So do we even need to say how excited we are to have her here? The point of this episode is to start you on the path where you can quit the slog and start working on your passion full time. Let’s jump right in and get started!

Welcome back to the podcast all you beautiful business unicorns! Today we are doing the monthly round-up and recap of July and we’ll be looking forward to August, so jump on board with us as we take this fun ride. We will mostly be talking about the funnels we have implemented and these helpful changes that we made to our website that have continued to improve our engagement and sales. We will carry on implementing more funnels as time goes on but mapping these ones out and seeing the positive results has been so exciting that we could not resist sharing these successes with y’all!

As our business has grown it has become more and more complex to understand and map the journey our customers and new visitors make within it. It is, as always, vitally important to have a handle on these dynamics and it is always exciting to understand what efforts yield results and where you may be able to improve. It’s so invigorating to see how these funnels impact our programs and we can’t wait to see the growth in sales continue into the future! At times reflecting like this can be be tricky or difficult and we may not alway give ourselves a fair review, but please remember how important it is! When we see the numbers across the last few months, it makes it all worth it!

On today’s episode of The Strategy Hour we are tackling a very important subject and a problem that is very close to home for most business owners, including ourselves here at TCC. We are going to be looking at the two schools of thought that might be holding up your business’ progress. With the rise in entrepreneurship and self-made business owners there has been a natural growth in literature and thought on the subject. So much of this has been helpful and inspiring in many different ways but there are also ways in which it can be stunting you and your work.

The first popular school of thought we look at is the “hustle ‘till you die” attitude, which has been popularized by many successful entrepreneurs and has so much influence over the way go-getters portray themselves at events and online. We at Think Creative Collective know the value of hard work and persistence but attaching someone else’s or a collectively held image of blood sweat and tears to your own life can have devastating effects on your health, family life and of course your work. The second thing we look at is the idea that hiring and outsourcing is the direct line to success and credibility. After unpacking just how damaging these two ideas can be to you and those around you we look at ways in which you can avoid these problems, taking only the necessary pearls of wisdom from the philosophies and finding your own, healthy pathway to success!