Success Unscrambled Podcast

Fibroid Removal Surgery - My Experience Today's podcast covers a fair bit of detail over a three-day period following a fibroid removal surgery.  I go into some detail as to what it felt like and what I experienced over a 24-48 hour period.  I decided to be vulerable and give you women personal details of what to expect once you decide to have a Myomectomy. Of course there are many options available in the treatment of fibroids but I decided to have surgery because of the size and quantity of my fibroids.  Despite being advised to strongly consider having a Hysterectomy I opted for the Myomectomy for personal reasons.  I hope you find this coverage very beneficial.  I will be covering another 3 days next week. Hello, ladies. It's just hours following my fibroid removal surgery. My voice is sounding a bit raspy (from the respirator), so forgive me for that. I decided to record the first 24 hours following the Myomectomy for my uterine fibroids. I had a fibroid tumour in the uterus and I went in just after four, and it took about four to five hours. Back up into my room then just before nine. I just wanted to let you guys know what it was like. Well, it was easy before I went in. The last thing I remember before my uterine fibroid removal was that burning sensation of a liquid running into my hand, which I guess was the anaesthetic, general anaesthetic. Then they were waking me up and calling me. My consultant, she was calling my name and asking me how I was feeling. Time flew so quickly. It felt like it happened in an instant. Anyway, once I said I was fine, they wheeled me up into my room. I was more or less conscious of all the way as I was going into the lift and then coming out onto the floor. In regards to pain, it doesn't actually feel painful at all right now. They keep asking me if I want pain tablets or painkillers. I feel fine. I'm not free of pain. It just feels like someone just pressing down on my tummy. To me, that is not pain. Anyway, when I got here, I just wanted to eat, not because I was hungry, but because I was looking forward to eating food. They said they would try me on water first. Since I was normal, I took a few sips of water. Then I just wanted to continue that. They said if you feel nauseous, let them know. When I said I didn't feel nauseous, they said fine. They ordered some toast and apple juice from the kitchen. Within probably less than a minute of ordering the toast and apple juice, I started to feel nauseous. Oh, I just didn't know what to do. I was uncomfortable. My heel was in pain because of keeping my foot in one place. I wasn't able to turn left or right. Lying on my back was, room temperature was fine. I said, "Okay. Open the window because I just, I feel so nauseous." I felt like I needed to puke. When one walked in the door with the toast and apple juice, I was just like, "Oh, no thank you." Then the machine that they were using to monitor my life signals kept on beeping. I noticed up in the corner of my eye I was losing, or dropping, blood pressure every time it kept on beeping. The nurses kept on going to and fro and didn't know what to do. At least they played like they didn't know what to do. Finally, they put me in straps because my blood pressure dropped somewhere around the low hundreds, 111/58. I was just feeling uncomfortable. I couldn't keep quiet. I kept on shaking my leg because I just wanted to do something to keep me comfortable with myself. I kept on dosing in and out. People, nurses coming back and forth, in and out, what's they're doing, snoozing, staying awake, whatever. It's night time outside, so the light is brights and everything. I couldn't really sleep comfortably. Like I mentioned before, I couldn't turn. Anyway, when, probably an hour, my vital signals started to improve. Again, still no pain. I didn't actually puke. I just felt like I needed to puke, but that didn't happen eventually.

Uterine Fibroids Treatment Uterine Fibroids Treatment - today's podcast will continue from the first 3 days of my hospital stay where I spoke about my fibroid removal surgery experience.  This podcast I will cover the last 3 days of my hospital stay following the uterine fibroid treatment. Day 4 Hello ladies. It's day four. Well, today was a very interestingly tough day, for me, at least. The day started off with a visit from the physiotherapist. Although, they normally don't do physiotherapy visit for people who had a Myomectomy as their uterine fibroids treatment. My Gynecologist specifically ordered me, probably because of my past history with my pelvic floor muscle, but anyway. She came to me, went through a few things and then we had to do the climbing of stairs. Because she wanted to show me the technique of how to climb stairs when I get home because I have stairs in my house. Anyway, today I climbed two flights of stairs and when I got up, I was like, "Okay, how do I get back down?" Interestingly enough getting back down was harder than going up, which I thought would have been the other way around. Anyway, it was very helpful and very useful. She also gave me a leaflet on pelvic floor exercises, something I will address in another podcast for those who are interested. Next up was an echocardiogram. Yep, as soon as I got back to the room there was someone waiting for me to go to get an echo scan done. Went and got that done, and then I also had to get a heart rate monitor installed, I guess, is the word, or attached to my body for 24-hour monitoring timeframe. That, again, was a very interesting. Finally, while I actually was there, after getting my heart monitor scan, sorry, my heart monitor device installed, or attached to my body, I was waiting for the porter to bring me back to my room. I was given my patient chart, which I thought was an interesting read all together. Of course, some of the things I would have no idea what's happening in there, others I did. When I finally got back to my room, I took a few pictures before they took the chart away. If ever you get a chance to look at your patient chart, please do. It gives you a better insight as to what the doctors probably don't tell you in full detail, like the anaesthetic use, the exact start and end times of the procedure, the amount of blood that you lost, the results of all your blood tests, lots, and lots of information inside of that patient chart. Okay. Like I mentioned yesterday, I didn't have any appetite today, although lunch, I believe, was lovely. Anyway, when I got back to my room before I even jump to lunch, I had my breakfast, and I had to address the issue of still no bowel movement. A lot of people think that you should get a bowel movement a few days after, a few weeks later. My doctor, my consultant surgeon, wanted to get it going before I leave. I suggested, "Give me some prune juice," because I prefer natural ways of doing things as opposed to using meds. So I decided to try the prune juice first. Actually, while eating breakfast, like I mentioned, everyone in the hospital here partly gets blood thinners injection. So I got that done while having my breakfast like I had every other day. That made me feel a little bit upset and before I knew it, I had an unexpected increase in my body temperature. Excuse me. So I was given Paracetamol to bring it down. I'm sorry for the sniffles, but somehow I have runny nose today. So it seems like it's backward instead of forwards, but anyway. They checked again this evening, and it's high again, so I don't know what's going on, but it looks like I'm not going home tomorrow like I originally thought. Anyway, that aside, I struggled with the prune juice, and the water all day long. Just when I think I'm there, unfortunately, at 6 o'clock it just wasn't happening for me. The good thing today is, I sat out from my bed for six hours in the afternoon, which, like I said, was amazing.

Endometriosis Symptoms Shownotes: Endometriosis Symptoms - Join me as I speak with Alli Leech about her 25-year struggle with endometriosis.  she will give you a guide to the symptoms, signs and treatment of endometriosis.  175 million around the world suffer from endometriosis.  You can check out previous podcasts around uterine fibroids treatment. Alvern: Hello ladies, Alvern here. Today we have a special show on where we'll be looking at all things endometriosis. And to do that, I have a special guest on myself. Her name is Alli and I'm just gonna let Alli introduce herself. Over to you Alli. Alli: Hi ladies. Thank you Alvern, Hi ladies, my name is Allie and I'm delighted to be part of this discussion in relation to endometriosis. I hope you find it useful and I am ready for all questions. Thanks, Alvern. Alvern: Brilliant. You're very welcome. Before we get into it, there would be some people on here who wouldn't know anything about that very big long word that you just call, so I'll let you start off by defining or giving your definition of what endometriosis is all about. Alli: Okay, so endometriosis is basically where the lining of your womb grows outside of the womb on different organs around your body. In my case, it is attached to the back of my womb and to my intestines and my stomach. I also have some down towards my hips. It is basically the lining of the womb. Doctors still don't know why, but it grows in these places and can cause a various amount of symptoms that can be quite debilitating. That's essentially what endometriosis is and every month it sheds the same way as the lining of your womb when you have your period and that can be a particularly difficult time for women who have this disease. Alvern: Perfect. All right, that actually sounds quite scary. I know a lot of women suffer from it around the world. Some of them don't even know they have it. So this leads me to the very next question. When did you realise you had it? Alli: I realised I had it, I was fortunate enough to be finally referred to a South African doctor called Dr. Kroon and before that, it had been 11 years of me trying to find out what these symptoms meant and I had been told by several different doctors, most of the Irish and that's important later on, it's just not particularly well-known in Ireland or studied by general practitioners. But, it was 11 years of me being told by different doctors that I had irritable bowel syndrome. That I suffered from Dysmenorrhea, which is painful periods and other doctors actually used the term, "ghost pains", which was almost suggesting that I was making it up. I knew myself that it's not normal, every month, to vomit with your periods. To get diarrhoea, bloating, constipation sometimes and vicious headaches. I knew, deep down, it wasn't irritable bowel syndrome, there was something more serious going on. It was only when I tried for a baby and after I was married for two years, so I was trying with my husband for two years to become pregnant and it was ... we had no success. I had never fallen pregnant so I went to get a referral to this very, very highly educated lady who was very focused on endometriosis symptoms and fertility issues. She knew, the minute I told her my symptoms what was wrong. Alvern: Perfect, wow. That is amazing. Then in terms of ... because you know this podcast I always try to help women ... Okay, there's other things that you get [inaudible 00:04:19] work like doing the right things with different skills and stuff like that but this, as far as I'm aware because I think one of my sisters actually suffers from this same problem or issue, it affects not only your everyday life but your work as well as, if you go to college, it affects college work as well. How, in terms of ... From your point of view, how did it affect you and how did it affect your work at present or even before you knew you had it? Alli: So that's a great question.

Portrait Photography, Maternity photography and newborn photography is the focus of the podcast today.  Speaking with Charlene whose photography work has appeared in the Ultimate Wedding Magazine. Alvern: Hi, ladies. Alvern here. Today, we are going to be looking at the topic of portrait photography, and to do that, I have a special guest on with us today. Her name is Charlene, and I am going to get Charlene to introduce herself. Over to you, Charlene. Charlene: Hi. Yes, my name is Charlene, and I am the founder of Honey Bee Lens Photography business. I've had my business for around about six years now. Alvern: Very good. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us today, Charlene. Charlene: Thank you, my pleasure. Alvern: Good, good. So, to kick it off, I'm just going to ask a few questions. In terms of the photography, obviously, business, or even just portrait photography as a whole. Obviously, you didn't start as a business, you probably started doing it as a hobby first. So, in terms of that, when did you get involved in photography, and why? Charlene: Yes, of course. My path and my journey in photography started when I was a child, when I was a teenager, really. I loved to study all the old photos in my home, and we had so many photos from retro photos from my grandparents to my siblings in the 70s and 80s, and myself included. I just realised that every single snap was capturing a moment in that one person's life, leaving memories to last a lifetime, really. So, it always fascinated me in that regard, and at around when I was 17, an option arose for me to take an extra A Level at my school at Banbridge Academy here in Northern Ireland, and I jumped at the chance to study photography. So, this was all before the digital age when all film cameras were around. I had many fun hours in the darkroom, developing my images. That was a lot of fun. So, that was really the start of it, and I just sort of went on from strength to strength. I've been a freelance photographer, a portrait photographer, and as I said, I'm the founder of Honey Bee Lens portrait photography. Alvern: Awesome. That's great. That's a really nice little background there, which leads me nicely on to the next question. Because of that then, that little background that you've had, would you consider yourself to be a natural at photography because some people have to study a lot of years for it. But would you consider yourself being a natural photographer? Charlene: Yeah, that's the thing. I honestly do think that it does come second nature to me, and I am ... Apart from my A Level, I'm all completely self-taught as a photographer. So, I definitely I'm a creative person, and I think that's reflected in my images, but everybody can photograph, so every individual's different. But I think it was natural for me, yes. Alvern: Cool. Nice. And what would you consider as your area of specialty, or areas, even? Charlene: Yeah. As I mentioned there, I'm a portrait photographer, but I do specialise in baby bump or maternity, if you want to call it that, and newborn babies. I also work with both families and children as well, so that's my specialty, in that field. Alvern: Good, good. What would you consider being your favourite? Every photographer has their favourite set of camera kit that they like to use. What would yours be? Charlene: Yeah. Definitely. Well, I'm a total Canon girl, that's for sure. I've used Canon since I was a teenager, and I just love the brand and I've stuck with it. That was my favourite camera. I currently use a camera the Canon 6D at present. It's a great camera. In terms of lenses, well, I've actually had a love for a lot of lenses. The Canon 1.4 aperture, effects 50 millimetre, is one that I use a lot, and I love that one for closeups, for instance, as I specialise in little babies. That's a great lens to use for close-ups of their features, so say, for instance, their toes or their lips.

Shownotes: A content marketing strategy is the focus of this Success Unscrambled podcast where we will look at article writing.  The podcast is broken down into 11 areas including: Website Hierarchy Keyword Research Article Length Call to Action (CTA) Article Title Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) A 6-24 month plan Frequency of Writing Images Taking Things Up a Level Social Sharing Hello, ladies. Alvern here. For today's podcast, we are going to switch things up a little, and we'll be looking at content marketing strategy. We will be focusing more on article writing. So, if you are planning or thinking of creating articles for your blog, today we'll be looking at that in a little bit of detail, just to give you a better understanding of how best to take advantage of content writing, or creating content for your blog. The five ... Actually, it's more than five, isn't it? There are about 11 areas we'll be looking at. In the podcast today, I'll be covering website hierarchy; keyword research; the length of your document or article; the CTA, or call to action; the article title; search engine optimization; the 6-24 months plan; frequency of writing; including things like photographs, or charts, or whatever kind of pictorial representation; taking things up a level; and then, the actual marketing, sharing it, or promotion, should I say. Sharing it on different areas of the web. Website Hierarchy All right, let's start on the first topic, which is website hierarchy. So, you decide that you want to start a blog, or you already have started a blog, and maybe you've thought about this before, I don't know. Just in case you haven't, it's really, really important before starting a blog, or even very early on after you've already started it, to think of the hierarchy of your website, in terms of from sort of a search engine optimization point of view, or from the whole business strategy point of view. What is the focus of the website? You could be deciding to create a news website. Then, probably, there isn't a specific focus, but you probably have several subcategories or categories across that website. However, if it is you deciding you want to go into your specific niche or sub-niche, then sometimes you want to carefully consider because it affects you or the website. Maybe not in six months' time. Maybe not in 12 months' time. But in maybe 36 or 72 months' time down the road, where you realise that there isn't a specific focus for your particular website or blog. The reason for that is, if there is no specific focus, then in terms of driving traffic to your website, when people get there, they probably wouldn't know exactly what it's about, especially when it comes to blogging. Of course, things like podcasts, you don't have to do that too much, because it depends on the type of podcast that you're running. But anyway, let's not dive into that, get distracted. Let's not get distracted. Say, let me give you an example. Say, for example, you decide you wanted to be in the dog training niche, or you wanted to be in the DIY niche, or, say, for example, garden furniture niche, or outdoor gardening, or cosmetics, or makeup. Whatever your niche is, your broad niche, it could be even relationships. Whatever your broad niche is, there's a very big, broad niche, and you can't really do everything on a broad niche. So, you may want to sort of focus down into a much more narrow, focused niche. So, say, for example, dog training. You want to decide to focus on golden retrievers, or Siberian Huskies, for example. Or if you wanted to do things on pets, or fishes as pets, instead of focusing on all types of fishes, like catfish, and all different kinds of tropical fishes, you wanted to focus, maybe, only on koi, and your garden pond, how to take care of those. If it is, for example, you wanted to look at the relationship niches, a very big, broad niche.

Shownotes: The How to create a Facebook business page is part one of a 3-part series.  In part one we will look at the preparation involved in getting ready to create a Facebook business page.  So we will be covering: Niches Goal of the page Artwork Post or content Alvern: Hello ladies, Alvern here. As I mentioned there we're going to look at how we're going to create your Facebook business page for business or maybe you're doing it for a hobby and how to create it perfectly and effectively so that you can actually get results and then how to get your first 100 followers on that Facebook business page within seven to 14 days. Okay, even if you're driving or if you're stationary and you have a pen and paper or you can just download it and listen to it over and over again. Like I mentioned this is part one. Part one we're going to look at the niche, decide on the goal of the page, consider artwork and then looking at your post, posts for your Facebook business page, queuing that up, alright? Niche Let's start with a niche. I don't know where you are in your business or doing your hobby or what is the reason why you would be interested in creating a Facebook page. Just to give you a little bit of background, one of the things I do, you can probably call it a side hustle, I don't know, I have so many side hustles, I managed Facebook pages for businesses and I manage all my own Facebook pages. The success I've been having around Facebook page is generating between 100 to 20,000 followers or Facebook business page likes for the pages that I manage so I decided to share knowledge that I have based on that particular experience so that you too can start experiencing some success with regards to whether it be a hobby, side hustle or for your business as well. Alright so I guess I'm going to start with a niche or niche, some people call it nitch, some people call it niche. Essentially what a niche is, as I explain it in my previous podcast where I looked at content marketing strategy, a niche is really a way of dissecting the way you approach the different verticals or different specialities in the business world. An example of a niche or nitch would be politics or insurance or dog training or it could be in a very broad sense fashion but as you can imagine fashion is very broad so you'd have to break down that fashion view into we call sub-niches or specialist areas. For example you have ladies handbags, that's a good niche to go into but then you have sub-niches of that so you have ladies handbags leather, ladies handbags designer, ladies handbags eco friendly like cotton handbags, recyclable handbags, you have all different sub-niches and you can break that down even further as you can imagine. You have things like purses and all sorts of different names now I can't even remember, clutch and all the different kinds. Within the whole handbags niche, we know fashion niche we have handbags, in the whole handbags niche you have sub-niches and of all the sub-niches you have sub sub-niches as you'd like to call it. The reason why you would want to look at a niche for your Facebook business page is because it sort of helps you to build a tribe or a following. That is of course if it is you want to be able to manage followers because it's one thing to get a page and get 20,000 followers but are you the type of person why you see yourself managing or contributing to a tribe of people, being the leader of a particular tribe. That's what you'd have to look at when you think of creating a Facebook business page. You don't have to have 20,000 followers or 100,000 followers, you can have a small amount, like 1,000 followers and manage that small tribe. Ask yourself the question, would you like to be the leader of a tribe and can you talk about this niche that you want to go into or if it's part of your business can you talk about it for a very, very long time to come because you need to be able to contribute conte...

Show notes: Niche research for Facebook Ads is the focus of today's podcast.  We will be covering research using Facebook for Business, Amazon, Clickbank and a number of other areas. Alvern: Hello ladies, Alvern here. Today we are going to be looking at niche, niche, or niche research. Like I mentioned in the last podcast, where we discussed the things that you need to do before creating a Facebook page or should I say, creating a Facebook business page. All right, so for niche research, I believe you're going to break down the presentation, or the topic into two parts. This is going to cover part one. I didn't actually realise how much can be covered, based on I would say, my past experience and what I've learned in the space over the last 10 years. Today we're going to be looking at niche research using Facebook, Amazon, Clickbank, and a few others that I'm going to mention. Then next week, we'll be looking at five other places that you want to do your niche research, in order for you to make the final decision as to whether to go down the roads between two or three niches, or even sub-niches. You're really going to niche down like I said last time, you can have a very broad niche, but you want to make sure you narrow focus on that specific niche. Why Niche Research All right, so before we lose where we are, why you would want to do niche research, that's one thing I probably didn't mention last week or the week before. One of the reasons why you want to do a niche research, or well, actually a few reasons why you want to do niche research. Number one, you want to validate the reason why you wanted to go into that niche. Get validation from what's happening in the marketplace at the moment. Number two, you want to get a better understanding of the lingo used in that space, because in order for you to create the ads on Facebook, or maybe another social platform, you want to be able to know what lingo to use, so that you can actually speak to your audience. Number three, apart from the lingo, you want to be able to understand what are the popular items that people are interested in, in the particular niche. For example, if it is you want to get into cycling, but not just the broad area of cycling, because you have mountain bikes, you've got road bikes, you've got dirt bikes. You want to, say you want to niche down into road bikes. You want to find out all about the different types of care that are being used in that particular niche. For example, you've got winter cycling gloves, summer cycling gloves. You've got winner socks, summer socks. You've got all different types of pedals. Using that particular niche, you've got different gears, 8 gear, 16 gear, et cetera. But you get what I mean. Then you have all the different trips, the different events that happen every year. Some people take part in just the regular road races. Then some of them get involved in triathlons. You want to be able to understand what's happening in that niche, in a much deeper sense. Number one to see what's happening, so you can sell products in that niche, if that's what you plan to do, and engage your audience. Or if for example, you wanted to write a book about something that's happening in that niche. Whatever that main goal is, you want to do the niche research. Make sure you can actually talk about this topic for a very long time to come, in say 5 to 10 years. You can keep going on and on because it's something you're passionate. You understand how your audience feel, what they react to, what they're passionate about, et cetera. All right, so that's 'the big why' about the niche research. Now you sort of know the reasons why you want to do niche research. What we're going to do is look at where you go to do your niche research. One of the first places, because you're focusing on Facebook, one of the first places you want to do that is on Facebook. Like I mentioned last week ... Well,

Shownotes: Facebook Business Page Market Research is the topic for today's podcast. We will look at the Google Keyword Planner, Books and Magazines then close with tradeshows and farmers market which is a wholesale element. Alvern: Hello ladies. Alvern here. Today we'll be looking at your Facebook business page market research. Last week, we had part one, so today will be part two. Last week was Facebook business niche research, so the Facebook business market research. Alright, so, in the breakdown, I'll be covering five different areas, and I'm really, really hoping that I don't go overboard, in terms of time. We may have to do a part three, depending on how quick this goes, but hopefully it will only be one part, as opposed to having a third part. Alright, so, the five areas I'll be covering today are AliExpress Express, forums, wholesale, books and magazines and the keyword planner. Google Keyword Planner So, let's start with the keyword planner. The keyword planner is the Google Keyword Planner. You would need to login to access this one. Essentially ... I remember, a few years ago they had it that you can just access it without having to login but now you need to be logged in to access it. All you need to have is a Gmail account or your own business account that's linked to your Googlemail, for example. When you look up the Keyword Planner, you have the option to go to the Google Keyword Planner. Sometimes, when you login it takes you straight to the section to run campaigns and ads. Just ignore that, and at the very top, I think maybe it's the right hand corner, you go in under the tools and you see the keyword planner there; you just click on that. What it does, essentially, it allows you to research how many times specific keywords are being searched ... well, probably not specific keywords ... general keywords. Because you have your narrow keywords, you've got your broad phrase search. We just realised I've probably never covered over a topic or podcast going on ... explaining the whole idea of keywords and all of that, so I might actually have to do a podcast on keywords. A keyword is, essentially, a word that a user would put into the search engine, or Google search engine, or Yahoo, or Bing, to look for something. So, say for example, you want to look ... a storm is coming, and say the storm was called Peter, and you want to see information in the news or articles or blogs written on Storm Peter. You just type in Storm Peter, which is your keyword, and the results will come up in the search engine results pages. This is for all the search engines, or even if you would look in some sites they have Google assisted search as well. If you have exact matched keywords ... so if it's, for example, Storm Peter, or you want to see if Storm Peter is going to be hitting Miami for example, you would put in Storm Peter Miami; that's also an exact search. Or if it is you have a more broader search like, damage done by Storm Peter in Miami, the keyword there is obviously Storm Peter, which is the exact match, but this is a phrase or more broad search. That's why they call phrase match or broad match. But if you just type in the two words, Storm Peter, that's an exact match. Alright? Alright, so, the Keyword Planner helps you to look at keywords searched, obviously, using the Google search engine, and how many times those keywords are searched every month. It isn't really 100% accurate but it's more or less there. It's a good indicator. And the reason why you want to do this is just to see, for example, you decide, like I mentioned in previous podcast, you wanted to go into, for example, the DIY niche, and you want to see how many people are searching for a phrase 'how to restore a farm house,' or 'how to restore an antique wardrobe,' or something like that, or '1960's or 1950's wardrobe,' to be more specific. So, 'how to restore a 1950's Edwardian wardrobe,' for example.

Show notes: Niche market ideas is the focus of today's podcast.  The areas we will cover include wholesales (2nd part), forums, AliExpress and Pinterest.  If you find the content valuable remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the links with your friends. Niche Market Ideas Alvern: Hello, ladies! Alvern here. I'm so excited to meet you guys on the podcast today, after being a little bit sick last week. So very excited because it's part three on the niche research series. And most importantly, it's the final one. But I have so much exciting stuff to share with you today, I hope you really enjoy it. So today we'll be looking at niche market ideas. And the areas we're gonna be covering is the second part of wholesale, we're also gonna be looking at forums, be covering over AliExpress, and then finally we're gonna finish up with Pinterest. So, let's jump right into it! Thomasnet.com So, under wholesale, we have the second part, I'm going to be looking at two websites. The first one is called ThomasNet.com. So that's ThomasNet.com. It's quite a popular site if you are a person who wants to create your own physical product or you want to sell products directly from the distributors or from the wholesalers themselves, or, should I say manufacturers themselves. It's a really really popular site. It has been around for a hundred and twenty years, but you probably never heard of it because you would never be interested in developing your own physical products. So if you want to create your own, for example, something that needs to be cast in a mould, a fitting, or some sort of a little metal hanger, or, you know, anything like that, this is the perfect site to go to. You can go in and have a look at manufacturers; there's manufacturers across the range. Like I said, it's been around for over a hundred and twenty years, and they cover six million products. I'll let that sink in for a second. Six million products. And if it is, you'd think you can't find anything on there that you'd like to either resell or a manufacturer can actually take one of their products and customise it for your particular market niche, then, I think rethink this all over again. There are over half a million suppliers on there, and they have their own product catalogues as well as you can list cover supplies on there. So, that's a good website. You can come up with a really big search bar and all you need to do is put in whatever idea. So, say, for example, the hanger. So if you, for example, you wanna ... Decide you want to go into creating these lovely hangers for women only. That will be space-saving hangers, or hangers that's eco-friendly, or, you know, hangers for scarves, or whatever it is. You just type in hangers there, for example, or clothes hangers. And you see the manufacturers who make the normal standard hangers, and then you can go to them and say, "Well, I have an idea for a prototype, of XYZ hanger, maybe hangers for knickers, whatever it is you want to do hangers for. And they will be able to create a prototype for you and then come back and let you test it in the marketplace. There are also suppliers of weight-loss products there as well, so if you want to create your own weight-loss concoction, tablet, capsule, whatever it is, you can find them on there as well. So, really really brilliant site if it is you want to be selling physical products. Thomann.de The next one up is Thomann.de. So, I'll spell that; it's: T-H-O-M-A-N-N-dot-D-E. And for those who prefer the phonetic alphabet, it's Tango-Hotel-Oscar-Milo-Alpha-Nico-Nico-dot-D-E. It's a German website, and what it's popular for, it's considered the largest online and mail-order retailer for musical instruments. So if it is you're into music, or maybe you're not into music, you probably have a family member that's into music, and you're just inspired to sell musical instruments, including the mics and mic stands and amplifiers, and ...

Shownotes:  How to create a Facebook page that rocks is the title for today's podcast, it is part 2 in the series. the four areas we cover are creating the Facebook page, geting your custom URL, getting your first 100 followers and using 3rd party software to automate the posting process. Alvern: Hello, ladies. Alvern here. Today we are going to be looking at how to create a Facebook page part two. If you have been following along, we did the part one about three or four weeks ago, and I decided to delay part two because I wanted to make sure that I dxplained the whole niche research process and resources that are available for you to do a proper niche research, because it's so very important that you do sufficient niche research before you create a Facebook page. All right. The areas we're going to be covering today is the actual creation of the Facebook page. Then we will be talking about your custom name or custom URL. We will then head over to how to get your first 100 followers on your Facebook page. Then we will be closing off by looking at third-party software that you can use to manage your posts daily. Let's jump right in. Facebook Page Creation You've done all of your niche research. If you didn't get a chance to follow along on the part one, I will actually include a link here as well. You've done all the niche research. You decided on the goal of your page, your Facebook page. You've outsourced or even created the necessary artwork for yourself. You have at least a month or two months of posts lined up. You have all of your content ready, basically. If you are having difficulty sourcing images at a low cost, I discovered in the meantime, from between my last podcast and this one, this really, really cool resource where you can actually get over 400,000 images that you can access for as low as or for under $30 month. They not only have images, but they have lots of other resources on there, as well. I include I link to the page. I have a page there that will actually give you details on that, so I'll put a link here as well. Alright. If you missed part one, please, it's important that you go back and get all of your content ready before you even click the Create Page button, or at least before you publish it ... Publish the page to the public. Because if you don't have the necessary ... Or it's not up to scratch then the results that you would get wouldn't be as good as if you had done everything and making sure you result in a really good quality Facebook page. Having a Website is Imperative Alright. You've all the information gathered. You've registered a domain name. I think I mentioned this in the last one. I'm not 100% sure. The joys of taking long to do the part two. Before you create a Facebook page ... Well, it depends, really, on what the goal of the page is for. If it is ... The only thing you're going to be using is the Facebook page for ... I'm trying to think what you can do. An isolation of any other external resources. Because mainly, if you have a website, it will really help. Probably something I probably need to talk about. You got all your information, and what you would need to do then, if you don't have an existing website and what you plan to do is sell products or services, or anything like that ... Just remember that one of the most important or best piece of advice I can give you from my over 10 plus years experience doing this, is to please, please, please don't grow your community or your tribe 100% on the Facebook platform. Because you have to remember all of the content belongs to you. You're putting it on the Facebook platform. The Facebook platform does not belong to you. You may generate a really beautiful Facebook page, and you have all of the updates and videos and stuff that you put on there. But do have everything hosted on your own website, as well. So that, say for example, Facebook changes their terms and conditions, all of your efforts,

Shownotes: Today's podcast will look at writer's block and what can be done to significantly reduce this challenge for bloggers, writers and podcasters by as much as 99%.  Interested? Listen to the podcast to learn how you too can have an ocean of content for your blog. Writer's Block Be Gone! Alvern: Hello ladies. Alvern here. Today we're going to look at how to never experience writer's block again. I know that sounds like a really big claim. As you know by now I do podcasts as well as blogging. I've been doing that for probably 10 years now. I have a bit of experience when it comes to blogging, and maybe I'm gifted. I doubt it very much, but there are always ideas rolling around in my head. For those of us whenever you experience a block. A writer's block, it can be very difficult as to what you need to write next. Sometimes it takes me 15 minutes to write good details in words, because it's just rolling, and rolling, but for those days where you just need a little bit of help to really give a rich, valuable content, you may want to adapt or adopt. 1. Mindset These are a few methodologies. I have here eight of them, and I'm hoping I'll cover them within the 20 minutes that we have allocated. I promise not to rush. I'll have to do it again or divide it into two sections, which I know you probably don't like, but we'll see how it goes. Okay so let's get talking. First, on the list, I have mindset. My thinking behind this is as you can imagine for someone like me who I have to produce a podcast every single week. If I want it to be successful I need to adopt a certain mindset. Even if I decide I want to blog even. That mindset is I have to get it done. I can not give up. I have to get it done. I started this journey, and I wouldn't stop until I die sort of a thing. It depends on where you are right now in your journey. We, women, have all sorts of things happening in our lives. Could be your children, or partners, or careers, whatever that may be, family situations, stress, all of that. It depends on where you are right now, and what goals you have written down. I guess what I'm trying to say is make sure you have set a goal. You start with the end in mind and say okay. Especially when it comes to mindset. This is what I want to achieve in two years, three years, five years, 10 years time. This is what I want to achieve. I set the goal. So say for example I said I want to have a podcast series with 200 shows in it. Yeah. Podcast with 200 posts, or 200 podcasts. Interchangeable these phrases, but you get what I mean. You set that goal. Altogether 200 podcasts, or say 500 podcasts. If I do the calculation with it being once a week, it will take me roughly 10 years to 500 podcasts. Now, that could be a very long time, but I need to pace myself in the very beginning and say I'm going to do it once a week. In order to increase that amount of time. Say five years I need to be doing podcasts twice a week, and I have to ask myself do I have time twice a week to do a podcast? Yeah. Within that goal setting you've developed this long-term strategy of where you want to be, and in six months time, 12 months time, 24 months time, etc. Make sure it's something that is sustainable. You can be talking about something that's a fad. Trying to think of a really good example. I don't want to say something that would actually not be a fad. Let's see. What was a fad a few years ago that is no longer in existence now? Maybe you could have written something like ... Oh, it just came to my mind, and it just totally went. That wraps every ... Of course all the photos. Something that's temporary. Something that you know that probably wouldn't be in existence for pretty long time to come. Like the hat for example. Vines. Those videos. If you want to write about Vines for a long time to come, especially when it's something that just came, and now it's no longer in existence then it's not something sustainable.

Shownotes: Build a Brand for Your Blog How to build a brand for your blog or business is the focus of today's episode.  I will be covering 7 key areas that you need to consider before getting your logo designed or any artwork completed. Hello ladies. Alvern here. Today we are going to be looking at how to build a brand for your blog or business. The areas we'll be covering would be the business mindset, your audience, we get a little bit into personas, the actual customer experience, design, the marketing plan and then finally we're gonna close off with the customer journey. All right, so let's jump right into it. Business Mindset In terms of business mindset, which is the first area we're looking at, it's just the mindset of the business. Obviously, you have your particular mindset of a long-term strategy of how you're gonna work, but this one is a mindset from the ... I prefer to call it the business mindset from the business point of view. Why, what do you do as a business? Why do you do what you do? What value are you bringing to your customers and what are you going to improve for them and for their lives? In order to build a brand, you need to know the lifetime impact you're going to have on them as a customer. What is the character of your business? Probably you think that's a little bit weird because a business doesn't have a character, but actually, it would include something like culture. What is that work ethic that you want to build a brand around for your business? So, when your customers interact with your business or your readers interact with your blog, how would they describe you in one word? Are you fun? Are you professional? Formal? What is the character of the business and then another thing to look at then, would be your customer ... Sorry, your narrative statement. Who you are as a business and how you can communicate with your customers. A narrative statement is, again instead of saying the character of your business in one word. You're seeing who you are and what you do in probably a Tweet. 140 or 100 characters. I'll give you examples of a few of them that I picked out for this particular episode to help you build your brand. One of them, the examples I wanna give here is existing brands on the market and what it is their one-liner says about them. I work my way from the top. I have Apple. I am doing this search live so I went and looked at the Apple website and they're featuring their iPhone X, which as you know launched only recently and it says here, "Say hello the future." What does that say to you when you go to the website and it says, "Say hello to the future." The likes of Burberry, I went on there and they, instead of having sort of a one-liner phrase, when you go to the homepage, they just have a sort of an iconic photo of the people who they represent or who their typical customer would look like with their clothes on. It's a headshot of a model and she has really cropped blonde hair with, I don't know how to explain it, but a trendy outlook, but that one photo says a lot about Burberry, who they represent and what it is, the experience they want the customer to have from visiting their website on the first impression. Next up, I have Harley Davidson. They've got several different phrases, but on the one that I went and then had a look at, a specific phrase, it says, "This will leave a mark." Then I went to Issey Miyake, just in case you don't know what it is, it's a brand of perfume. Men and ladies and in this particular one, they were featuring their latest I guess perfume or cologne for men and the catchphrase on there is, "Designed by water." And then finally up, we have here Michael Kors. Again, just in case you don't know who Michael Kors is, it's a really, really popular brand for handbags for ladies among other things and the catchphrase as soon as you enter the site on the landing page it says, "What she'll love." Or you know, a sort of a long way of saying,

Shownotes: How to start a successful blog in 10 days or less is the focus of this episode from concept to go-live and everything in between. Listen to learn more. 00:09 Hello ladies out here are you guys doing today. 00:16 OK. 00:17 So today we're going to be looking at how to start a successful blog in one week or less. Let's get right into it. OK, I have a lot to cover today and I don't want to have it running for a long time. So what I'm going to do is I'm also going to put or set up a course or starting a blog course video course that is and I'm going to invite you to pre-register for a course when it's ready I'll let you know when it's done. How does that sound? OK. Right. So how to create a successful blog in one week or less, let's get right into it. 1. Mindset 01:08 So you know I always see this but having the right mindset about getting into blogging is so very important because sometimes it can take you 12 months to 36 months before you realize the gains of the effort that you put in. So, in other words, this blogging thing is a long-term project it's not something that you sort of do it for five weeks and then that's it. It's a long-term project. Just like podcasting, I guess. So having the right mindset and the ability to do it on a frequent basis is so very important especially for your audience. 2. Passion 01:57 In order to start a successful blog you first need to know what you're passionate about because you would need a big reason why you would continue to do day after day or even week after week or month after month generate or start a successful blog for your audience. And if you were doing that or writing a blog on something that you're not passionate about you're going to run out of speed in a matter of days or weeks because it's just not something that is has a building fire in your soul that would want you to write passionately about it for a very long time to come. 02:41 I myself have been blogging for probably about seven years and different blogs I can start a successful blog and in no time at all with my eyes close so to speak. But it takes commitment. You would have the odd time when you probably wouldn't be able to produce the content. So what I would advise is that you do well to avoid that is to create a few blog posts in draft mode so you can actually schedule several posts just in case you come up to a busy time. Or you have an emergency in the family or whatever it is. You can actually rely on those. All right. I don't want to spend too much more time yakking unnecessarily. So here we go. 03:36 Also you need to decide what or how much time do you have to commit to blogging so you don't have to do it every day. But you know once a week is nice once every two weeks is nice as well. It all depends on you and the audience. All right so mindset and passion. That's the first topic we've covered that now. 3. Niche Research 03:57 Next topic is research that sorry niche research. So although you may be passionate about the subject depending on what you want to blog about. For example, I'll give you a good one. Social media say for example you decide you want to blog about something like social media. And as you probably know or maybe you don't know this so many things change in the social media. In the last seven years, lots of things on Facebook has changed in LinkedIn and in all the different platforms that people use for social media. 04:36 Things change in a matter of months or weeks. They've got a new version or they've changed the type of videos they change the size of the post, they change everything. Ever. Ever so often. 04:49 The only thing that's consistent probably is the name. All right. So I covered niche research already in one of my previous podcasts I would invite you to go and listen to that one because it goes into a lot of depth about how to go about doing your niche research. I think it covered three different episodes on niche researc...

Hello ladies, how you gals doing today? Today's podcast episode looks at the top 20 tools used by successful blogs and how we can use them to our advantage. I have broken down these 20+ tools into 5 categories including: a. Writing/Creation b. Design c. Plugins d. Engagement e. Video A. Writing/Creation When it comes to writing or creating a blog post I am not referring to your blogging voice or creative flair I am more looking at the tools that you can use to polish or enhance the piece that you created. Here are six tools that are used on successful blogs to achieve results: Google Keyword Planner I have used this for many years to help me create content for blogs, videos, podcasts and even books. It would make sense for you my fellow blogger to use this one to complete some research especially since our blogs don't exist in a vacuum but because we depend on the Search Engine Results Pages to display our blogs when someone is searching for one of our relevant keywords.  this keyword tool is great for getting keyword ideas, monthly searches and the level of competition by other businesses for these keywords broken down by country or city. Wordtracker This tool is very similar to the Keyword Planner except that it gives what I called the commercial intent ranking of each keyword. This would be good for a business selling products online. Buzzsumo This precious tool is good for giving content creators an idea of what is popular right now so that you and I can take advantage of the latest trends.  You can also connect with key influencers so they can help you promote your relevant content.  See an example in the screenshot below: The statistics they have on influencers are nothing short of amazing. It is looking at someone's bio or clout before you meet them in person.  See screenshot.   Hubspot's Blog Topics Tool I find this very handy as it allows me to take one main topic like Facebook Marketing and break it down into several segments so that I can have content ideas for several months completed in just one click of a button. CoSchedule's Headline Analyzer As the name suggests this handy tool helps you to do a proper analysis of your headline before you hit the publish button so that you can take advantage of the best headline possible for your post. Check out the score for this blog post below: Grammarly After you spend so much time writing and editing your blog post the perfect 2nd pair of eyes would be using a tool like Grammarly to double check or even triple check that you have used the correct grammar all the way through. I have it switch on even now as I am writing this post. B. Design Next up is the design element and I have 5 tools to share with you that successful blogs use to improve the user experience. Smartmockups This is a tool that is definitely too cool for school as it lets you do mockups of your products, books, software or almost anything you can imagine.  It is super amazing because it allows your prospects to experience the product somewhat even before the click the buy now button.  Here is an example for you: Photoshop or Canva These two design applications are great for so many things. Canva is free and you can design all your social media covers, posts and pins in here but if you would like a more professional finish as well as the freedom to really customise then take a look at Photoshop. Creative Market As the name suggests this a market for creative people as it offers you the ability to buy templates, fonts and creative packages to save you time and the stress of starting your projects from scratch. Thrive Themes To round off the design elements I will let you in on one of those well-kept secrets when it comes to themes for your Wordpress.org blog.  Thrive themes offers really professional looking designs so that people like me can crank out eye-catching blogs and landing pages from the readily available theme templates as ...

Here are the deets about how to start a podcast from someone who has done it from trial and error.  I wanted to find out for myself rather than copying someone else's choices. Yes, I made mistakes but you don't have to at all.  The truth is I love adventure. It feels like it was yesterday when I took the plunge into the world of podcasting.  I do remember always wanting to get started but I felt that I needed all the professional equipment to get stuck in.  I investigated all the bits and pieces of technology and started to save but that all fell to pieces when I found out that I need to have major surgery. How on earth am I ever going to achieve the goal of starting a podcast with all these obstacles that keep popping up? Two months before I began I decided to do some heavy reading on how to start a podcast.  There is a lot of material available as well as several different blogs. Almost all the 'experts' advise on getting a microphone so I had my eyes and heart set on the beautiful Rode Podcaster.  Have you set your eyes on this beauty?  Hmm!  They all suggest getting a mic stand and pop filter to reduce the spittle and have P and S sounds. You may be surprised to learn that as of this writing, episode 22 I still have not obtained a microphone. Shocking! I know so how on earth can I do so many episodes without a professional microphone? Well, stay tuned to find out more as my journey was not an easy one but it surely is worth it as I am really enjoying every moment. So, if you need to know how to start a podcast here is the 7 really important steps that you need: Mindset Niche Research Frequency Equipment Podcast Hosting Marketing Design Let's do a deep dive into each of these items to get a better understanding of what is needed for you to become successful. 1. Mindset . Picture this, you get all excited and jump in then by episode 4 you realise that actually, this may not be for you after all. Think about the amount of time, energy, preparation and savings (not too much) you would have invested at this point only to leave your listeners wondering what on earth is going on?  So, the right mindset is super duper important if you really want to know how to start a podcast. Just like a blog a podcast would need dedication, passion, interest and long-term input in order to reap the fruits of your labour. 2. Niche Research Can't I just see how it goes? Do I really need to do niche research?  Hello! Of course, you need niche research, how are you going to know what your audience wants, where they hang out and how are you going to last 5 years finding topics regularly to talk about? No matter how passionate you are about a topic niche research will help you to structure your podcast episodes in such a way that you are adding value to the lives of your audience.  I already covered niche market ideas for your business in a previous podcast to check that out for the details on how you can conduct some niche research. 3. Frequency How often will you be producing an episode is the question you need to address very early on if you want to know how to start a podcast.  The reason is that a podcast is a series of episodes so the moment you create one then you would be expected to continue with the series. Do you have the time to create a podcast episode every day? Every week, 2 weeks or month?  This is going to be very important as it also helps you decide how much monthly hosting you would need to make your podcast always available to your audience. Also, as I already mentioned in a previous paragraph you will need to take the time every week or month or day to create the content and do the post-production for each episode. 4. Equipment The most important items when you want to know how to start a podcast are the pieces of equipment and software needed to record each episode as well as the bits for post-production.  I most say in the early stages I hated post-producti...

Hello ladies, in today's episode we will be looking at how one work from home Mother went from failure to astonishing success. Motivational Humourist Meet Sasha, a Motivational Humourist and a Facebook Business Strategist.  She is a Mother and she got the opportunity to fulfil a dream of hers to become a well travelled motivational speaker.  She then had to give that up as she needed to work from home full time due to a change in her circumstances. She created the title of Motivational Humourist herself and her explanation of that title is that she loves empowering women to discover the self-confidence that they lost along the way and she is doing this through laughter as she believes that laughter makes the soul sing. You can find the joy that you thought you lost. She has over 200,000 engaged fans on her Facebook Page and many other business owners keep asking her for help so she turned that into a work from home business as well. How It All Started Her journey started like many of us where she worked in corporate America and other office jobs for 25 years before she decided it was time to pursue her dream of becoming a motivational speaker.  While doing this her Mother became ill so she needed to find a way to work from home and care for her Mother and daughter. So she started off with coffee mugs which she took to a trade show.  On the day of the show, it was raining which did not deter her as she had a tent (marquee).  However, at the end of the show, she did not sell a single cup/mug so the show was a failure and she needed to find a way to get rid of these mugs. 12 months prior she started a Facebook Page for fun where she posted funny quotes and interacted with her fans.  Following her demise at the trade show, she decided to post a photo of one of her mugs and asked anyone who is interested in them to private message her. Her Work From Home Success Story She sold 10 in the first 15 minutes and all the mugs were gone in less than 2 days.  In the following 6 months, she kept being sold out of stock.  So far this was working out as a great work from home idea. Facebook algorithm changed over the next 3-4 years and she needed to pivot her business because selling those mugs were becoming less successful than when she first started out. She eventually almost closed her e-commerce store as she only continues to sell one or two things including the unbreakable token. She has now moved to digital products which she likes much better than shipping and managing physical products. What She Enjoys The Most She has built a tribe of mainly women, there are some men on there as well.  These women know that it is a place that they can come to so that they can laugh, feel motivated, become inspired they can even nod their head in agreement at something someone else has said. These women visit the page every day so that they can be reminded that they are worthy, they are enough, they are good and they can tackle their journey, however, they want to whether it be one step, one mile, one footstep at a time while they work at home. She gets feedback from her fans all the time via messages and emails to let her know that her Facebook Page has made a difference in someone's life. While only in her 20s she happened to be at a conference where she realised that she had to sleep through the first half before she had the opportunity to get on the dance floor.  Little did she know that it was at this conference a seed would be planted that was pivotal in her making a decision to realise her dreams 25 years later. Sasha's Guilty Pleasure Once a week she and her daughter go to a local barbeque restaurant and they get something called Hill Billy Fries.  See photo below and listen to the podcast for a detailed explanation. The best place to find Sasha is via her website at ScatteredSasha.com or via her facebook page which is Facebook.com/ScatteredSasha.

Show notes: How to build self-confidence is the focus of today's episode and with us, we have Ruth-Ellen from the Confident School. Hello ladies, have you ever wanted to know how to build self-confidence after a major setback?  We have a special guest on today and her name is Ruth-Ellen. Ruth-Ellen is a Sales Coach and her company is called The Confident School.  She believes that selling starts and ends with confidence.  When you believe in yourself, you can then sell your products and services to anybody. Ruth-Ellen's Major Set Back Ruth-Ellen goes on to share her life story about when she self-experienced a major setback and she found herself lacking lots of confidence.  This took her by surprise as she has 20 years experience in sales and winning multi-million pound/dollar deals the last thing she expected was a loss of self-confidence. Her divorce completely changed how she interacted with people. It changed who she was to the point where she did not know who she was after a while. She went on a journey of self-discovery to find herself again.  She wasn't sure which part was truly her and what about her was part of the failed relationship. The situation was very grim as at one point she had nowhere to live.  Her husband at the time kicked her and the kids out. As a result of that, Limiting Beliefs and Self Worth She set up this service to help women who need to know how to build self-confidence either after a major setback or who just generally want to build self-confidence. Ruth-Ellen enjoys most seeing that lightbulb moment in the women who she assists with coaching.  Women generally have 'limiting beliefs' and feel that they are not enough, they don't get enough money because they don't feel worthy when major setbacks happen in their life they almost lose hope. Your bank account has nothing to do with your self-worth.  She gets them to the point where they stop seeing themselves as just a number.  She then takes on other aspects of coaching including things like objections. How To Build Self-Confidence Program Ruth-Ellen digs a little deeper into the how to build self-confidence coaching program.  It is a 90-day program where she starts at the foundation of what's happening in that woman's life.  At the outset, she has a real conversation with her clients to find out what is really going on. This initial conversation normally does not address business concerns but life from a personal point of view.  Once these details have been established Ruth-Ellen together with her client then looks at how these personal concerns may be affecting the performance of her client's business. It affects the way they see themselves as well as the way they see their products and services. It is sometimes heartbreaking for her when she hears the way her clients perceive themselves as individuals. The program itself is done in sprints where she does a call via Zoom every 2 weeks with her clients.  Homework is given after each call.  Homework can include creating a landing page or writing 100 reasons why that person is the best at what they do. As part of this how to build self-confidence coaching program Ruth-Ellen has this 'complete-delete-repeat' cycle where clients are encouraged to remove the unnecessary aspects of their lives and/or business.  She helps them get rid of what she calls 'Mom guilt' and focus on the tasks that are going to make a difference. For Ruth-Ellen's client's transformation will not happen without implementation.  There is no point talking about strategies if her clients have not implemented what they learn into their business. Homeless and Pregnant At 20 Ruth-Ellen attributes her drive and motivation behind the how to build self-confidence program to unpleasant experiences in her life when her Mother kicked her out of the house and she became homeless at the age of 19.  She then got into a toxic relationship.  Listen to the podcast to learn more of her sto...

Show notes: Business Goals with Pamela Lewerenz is the focus of today's podcast as we spend time with our special guest and explore the story behind Brick Wall Coaching.  Having 30 years experience in business under her belt Pamela gives advice on how to transition from full-time job to full-time business, the secret to her success as well as her favourite guilty pleasure. Hello ladies, on today's episode we have a guest with us and her name is Pamela Lewerenz.  Our focus will be on her interest in business goals and helping others. The Story Behind Brick Wall Coaching Pamela is the founder of Brick Wall Coaching where she is a Business Coach and Mentor.  She works a lot with startups and people rebranding their business. .  As a result, she decided to open up a sister business to focus on Business Coaching. The problem she faced is that she did not have a name for this new sister business and she was at the stage of panic as she found herself hitting a brick wall.  That is when she had the aha moment and realised that she can use that name for her business and so Brick Wall Coaching was established. What Business Goals Does Pamela Do? Essentially what she does is online business management and administration with small businesses and Solopreneurs.  She works solely with businesses that have less than 10 people/employees. Policies and procedures implemented Calendar and email management Time management Productivity Setting Business Goals Achieving Goals In terms of logistics, she does run an online business but she does meet her clients in person. She would meet them in groups of 10 people to make the workshops workable for the business. Why She Has A Passion Helping With Business Goals When asked why she is in this type of business, Pamela talks about her passion for volunteering in the community when she was a teenager.  She really enjoyed reaching out and helping people.  She also has a business background where she did administration and management for 30 years. She really wanted to own a business that she can call her own and she spent some time thinking about how she could bring those two passions together and helping people in the business world is what really made sense for her to do. She designed it in such a way that she can travel and take her business with her wherever she goes. She really enjoys working one on one with people. She likes collaborating with them on goal setting as she likes looking back on what happened, what was good and what was not so good then move forward with them.  She works a lot with startups and they need a lot of step by step instruction.  She likes doing this the most as it helps with business goals. Pamela is on the east coast in Connecticut and her clients are as far away as Canada and San Francisco.  Her clients are mainly based in the US and Canada. What does success mean to her?  Success is based on personal opinions and choices.  So success is different for every individual.  It could be buying that house you always wanted or that car you always wanted or even achieving some business goals.  It could also mean working 30 hours a week and getting to enjoy your family. Here is an infographic that outlines the benefits of business coaching from Legacy Biz Leaders.  From Visually. What is The Secret to Pamela's Success? When asked what inspired her to be where she is today Pamela came up with an unexpected answer.  Both her parents are entrepreneurs.  She also has two sisters and two brothers that are entrepreneurs.  So it is something that is 'in her blood' if that is possible.  She kind of wanted to achieve this as one of her business goals due to the strong influences she had from family members. She has 5 children so she needed to raise them and make money to live on.  Now that her children are all grown up the idea of owning her own business has always been there.

On today's episode I have a surprise guest with us.  Her name is Tasha Booth from TashaB Solutions. She is an Online Business Manager including a Pinterest Virtual Assistant and Business Strategist. She helps online businesses, authors and bloggers with the back ends of their businesses like digital marketing and any kind of technology needs around Wordpress and SquareSpace. Pinterest Virtual Assistant + Online Business Manager She helps online businesses set up and grow their Pinterest accountants to drive traffic to their sites.  She has a team of five subcontractors to include; Graphic designer Video Editor Social Media Manager Facebook Ad Specialist She has a lot of fun helping her clients.  She loves the fact that she gets to learn something new every day.  She enjoys seeing progress in her client's business and enjoys helping people and seeing their business grow knowing that she and her team are a pat of that dynamic. As a Pinterest Virtual Assistant she has clients in 6 different countries and all of the work is done online.  She is based in the US and she has clients in 10 different states.  She is focused on curating a relationship with each and every client.  They all have her phone number, her email address and they know that she is okay with them contacting her via these methods.  It helps them to get to know her better so that she can serve their business more efficiently. She started out almost by accident as she was already a blogger and pretty comfortable with Pinterest and Social Media Marketing when she saw many businesses looking for Pinterest Virtual Assistants.  Since she had existing student loans to clear she decided to do this part time and her business grew and grew to the point where a few months ago she needed to quit her job and do her business full time. Her Mother has been and continues to be her role model and biggest fan. She has always trusted Tasha, advised her to go with her heart and to trust herself.  Her Mother has always given her permission to just jump and do things without feeling like if she has the wrong answer. The Best Advice The best advice that Tasha has received to date in business is to create standard operating procedures before she thinks she needs them for her Pinterest Virtual Assistant business.  One key reason for this is to increase efficiencies around how things are done and to reduce bottlenecks in workflows. Her Mother has always said to whom much is given much is required so she always tries to find ways to give back, to help others who are not yet at the point of success where she is presently.  Having her business has helped her to do just that and to be a mentor for others. She mentors via one on one coaching, she also help other people who have just started on the Pinterest Virtual Assistant path and they are looking for advice on how to improve their craft.  People also request her assistance via social media. One Thing Impacted Her Life to Date She was married to an amazing guy for a little over 10 years.  He was amazing but they were not amazing for each other.  "You're great, I'm great but we're not great together".  It was so hard but it was a turning point for her where her life didn't have to look like anybody else's neither did she have to validate her choices with anybody else.  She can steer her boat a different way if she knows deep down that it is not going the way that it should. Freeing herself to say that this is not what it should be and freeing him to be okay with this decision was a huge for both of them. When is Best to Take the Leap Tasha decided that it was time to take the leap when the income from her side hustle, Pinterest Virtual Assistant, outpaced the income from her corporate job. It was getting harder and harder to jungle and manage both.  It was also not fair on her husband as she was spending a lot of time at night, on weekends and on early mornings.

Are you busy, ambitious and looking for a way to curb emotional eating for good? On today's podcast we catch up with Alegra Loewenstein.  She is a Health Coach specialising in helping busy women to get rid of the guilt around eating showing them how to eat what they want and lose weight naturally in the process, no counting and no restrictions. How To Curb Emotional Eating Her approach to eating and losing weight is very different to the conventional way of thinking.  She believes that for the vast majority of people you can eat whatever you want.  This can be achieved by listening to our bodies and respecting it. When we are tuned into our bodies we will eat when we are hungry, stop eating when we are full and as a result our bodies will get the exact amount of food we need to be our best and look our best.  Our bodies will actually get rid of the excess weight naturally. She says that you can curb emotional eating by learning to eat the right amount of junk food that is satisfying, feels good and taste good but when it stops feeling good you will stop eating it.  We get into this trap of not listening to our bodies at all which is the catch with all the other advice we get from various sources. If you are measuring what you eat based on a certain number of calories then you have just totally ignored anything that your body has to say about it.  For example, you may have just finished exercised and you are very hungry but you will stop eating when you reach your allowed quota, like those 100 calorie snack bags. She has met a lot of women who are under eating during the day with 100 calories here and 200 calories there and by the end of the day their bodies are telling them that it is so hungry.  When added to the stress of the day many women just go to the kitchen cupboard and eat the entire box of cookies. There are so many weight loss diets on the market but the truth is what works for one person does not work or the next person.  If you feel good eating two meals a day and you feel fantastic you should do it.  If you are suffering and totally not enjoying yourself by eating two meals a day then she predicts that diet will not work for you. In the beginning, when you try to curb emotional eating it is not going to be easy because we have trained ourselves to count calories, to eat the wild berries from Amazon so we have to literally un-train ourselves.  As women we are ambitious and busy so we are not always going to be able to pay attention to our bodies so we have to do a little bit of planning to get it right. Why Do You Do What You Do She really enjoys helping women let go of the old story, where we have to starve ourselves and eat things that taste like cardboard, punish ourselves to achieve a health goal. She's helping women to stop feeling guilty about their food and stop feeling like the only way to win is to eat these horrible things and to starve themselves.  She really wants to help them transform their relationship with food.  She is really good at helping them. She gets to work with so many amazing women.  They get better at doing what they do.  Food feels like a friend to them.  They are turning to food because they feel bored or stressed or they have a project to complete and going to the fridge and eating a slice of cheese is so much nicer. Who Was The Role Model In Your Life She really does not have business owners in her family.  She always had the idea to own her own business while growing up.  She wanted to have a candy store at one point when she was addicted to sugar even tea shop on another occasion. When she heard about being a Health Coach she immediately thought that she would be so good at that without knowing what a health coach actually does. She grew up eating healthy because her Mother was immune to the fads, she cooked wholesome foods.  She wished that she had a more open conversation about food while growing up so that she could have avoid...