Val  0:06  
Hey, it's time to crank up the truth. I'm Val Selby. And over the decades of working online, I've learned a most important lesson: mindset owns your business. If procastination, impostor syndrome and a lack of focus have been blocking your biz, and I'm here with Val Full Volume, ready to help you see choices that you're making, get ready to own your personality, and use your expertise to create the business of your dreams. Now is the time to make changes and live your best life. So let's get to it! All right, welcome. Welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're back for another week. And I have another guest. Yes. So I will talk about pod match later. But that is where I am just on a roll with finding these amazing women that are coming to me to have the conversation. And today is one of those that I am like really looking forward to when she contacted me. I have Sasha Willis here. And we, we haven't talked before the recording because I know I get a bad habit of doing that. And I need to record the conversation. But I have a feeling we've got a similar mindset. And all you ladies listening. You are in for it today. Thanks for being here, Sasha.

Sasha  1:25  
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation.

Val  1:29  
Me too. It feels like it's been forever since I've, I've talked about this. But I feel so strongly about it. So. So it's perfect for today's session. Could you just let listeners know just a little bit about you, please?

Sasha  1:41  
Sure.  So, I, again, am Sasha Willis and I am a business strategist. My business is called Strategy by Sasha, where I help creative women entrepreneur grow and scale their business by putting strategy in place, action planning, goal setting, and all things that nature. I have my own podcast. I have two podcasts and I have a podcast network, so I do a lot of different things as well, but business strategy and helping women in their business is what I love the most to do. And so that's always what I start with.

Val  2:11  
Nice. So I should probably do a disclaimer that I just had a giant coffee.

Sasha  2:16  
I have coffee right now.

Val  2:18  
I know. I'm gonna counteract your counteract. I'll lift you up is what I mean. I'll lift you up. You need the coffee, 'cause yeah, my listeners know what happens when I had coffee and it's like, ah, I'll record about five more sessions today. I would like to tackle a word with you. What does strategy mean to you?

Sasha  2:37  
So for me, strategy is about the plan that you have in place for your business. And I think the reason why I work with creative women in particular is and it's everything from like graphic designers to those who maybe have creative mindsets, but not necessarily like our artists or anything like that is because they are really good at their craft, but tend to suck at anything backscene behind the doors business, like they don't really know how to get from point A to point B. And so strategy for me is about putting that in place. It's like where do you want to go and your business? What are you trying to get to what are your goals with your business. And then let's make an action plan and roadmap to actually get there. So that way, you're not just, I will just see if this works. And oh, I have an idea for a new product. And I will try that. And we'll see if that works. And oh, it didn't work because I only promoted it for one day. And I didn't really have a launch plan behind it. And I just like throw it out there and see if something would take and so like all like getting rid of all of that. So that way you can also take a step back from your business. Because when you approach business that way, you're just kind of a little bit all over the place, your business is running you and you're not running your business. And then you tend to always be in your business. And I'm a big believer in boundaries as well, including in my business. And so I like to turn my computer off and focus on my family and friends and having good strategy allows you to do things like that.

Val  4:00  
Yes. And you are 100% describing five year ago me and beyond that as well. But definitely five years ago, I was I really was figuring that out when I had, you know, a coach that I was working with. And she's just like, why are you doing this yourself? You know why? And I'm like, I don't know. And it's because it's like all the ideas are just popping all the time.

Sasha  4:26  
It kind of structure is hard. And I like to say that I'm the rare creative I have I've had creative businesses I used to do stationery design for weddings. I did event styling and you know the pretty dessert tables. I did that as part of my business back in the day. And so I am creative by nature, but I'm also super tight a so that the idea of being unorganized and like not knowing what comes next is I just can't work with that. And so like it just causes a lot of stress and that's also something that I don't do. So, I want I want one means to like, feel like they can have freedom in their business and not feel like you know, they have all over the place without tempering down on, you know, the ideas and like, I want to do XY and Z. It's like, yeah, we can still do all that. But just like, let's, let's put a little paper in place and a plan in place. So it makes sense.

Val  5:16  
Yeah, I know, for me, one of the things that I held on to tight was, you know, I'm a creator, I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. You can't just bog me down with today, I have to do this, this, this and this. And I held on to that, so damn tight. And I know, you know what happens, everybody, you know what happens when you hold on to that. So damn tight, you don't make any money. But you're creative as hell, you are creative.

Sasha  5:43  
And I hear it all the time, like one of one of my best business friends. And one of my clients is a graphic designer and she struggles with like, you know, I need to have an admin day because I need to, you know, do these things in my business. But, you know, sometimes I don't feel inspired. Or sometimes I get really inspired at like 11 o'clock at night, and no one is telling you like, you can't work when you are inspired, or you can't do those ideas. But it's also like setting the time aside to run your business. Because if you're not running it, like you're not going to make any money, you're not going to have the right pricing structure, you're not going to know who your target audience is, what problem you're trying to solve. You're just going to keep putting things out into the world, and probably being disappointed and maybe feeling a little unworthy when it's not responded to in the way that you thought that it would be. But that's because you're not connecting the dots for people to find it.

Val  6:35  
Yeah, cuz we can be artists. But if we want to be business owners, we have to tell everybody, it's not 2002 anymore, we can't build it and they will come. And that happened for well over a decade, guys. We have to mark it. And you know, that's gonna lead right into the CEO mindset that you're talking about. Because I know that that was a big switch for me, was being stuck in that creative mindset of I'm creating, and I love doing this. And it's so much fun. And, and all of that, too. Oh, well, you know what? I not only want money, but I need money. I'm not getting any younger, I have goals.

Sasha  7:17  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it is a it's an important switch that needs to be made. If you're running a business, if you're just doing a hobby. And you just want to create, there's nothing wrong with that. I also am a big believer that not every creative outlet that we have, not every hobby we have has to turn into a business. But if you are trying to make it a business, the number one what differentiates a business from a hobby or a nonprofit is that it's profit motivated, we can have other reasons why we do it. You know, we want to be fulfilled, we want to help people. But it underlying means business means profit. And so you have to be able to take a step back and work on your business instead of just solely in your business, doing the things that will help create profit and money for you versus just day to day grinding that we do when we're just straight working in our businesses.

Val  8:07  
And no one thing I learned as well, was that when I did have more of, you know, use your word strategy. I don't think I've I don't think I feel like I have a strategy quite yet. So we probably need to have that conversation off.

I'm feeling resistance to that word. That's why I asked you to describe it. So it's so stupid, how we can have a word pop up. And we're like,

No, I've really lost my train of thought. But having a little bit more of a plan or strategy in there has left me so much more mental space.

Sasha  8:49  
Yes. Yeah. And that when people don't realize that, like, when you have a strategy or a plan in place, it actually most of time will give you the freedom to be more creative in your business and to have more spaces where you can be inspired and working your business that way because you are working with a purpose to get someplace. So if you know, the easiest example I always give, you know, let's say you want to make X amount of dollars a year and you just work backwards from that. What does that look like? Okay, I need to get five clients a month. Okay, what does that look like? Oh, I need to you know, do my social media this way or I need to send X amount of emails, okay, what does that look like? And it's literally just working backwards from the goal so that you always have that, that you're working towards something and you don't feel like you're just all over the place, not knowing what's coming next. I mean, especially like I used to have a product business I made I hadn't launches every probably two or three times a year. And it was okay I know I'm dropping new new stuff in March. So that means December I need to start creating and I need to figure out what I want, you know, to put out what do I want my shirts to say? What do I want my mugs and like giving myself the creative freedom to do Do that. And then okay, I need to start my email launching in February and start building up hype format. And it doesn't stop the creative aspect of the business. But it gives you like a longer view frame of like you're working towards something, you're not just again, just throwing things out there and hoping that they stick, you're doing it with intention. And then it makes you feel better when you're like, hey, like, I work towards a goal. And I hit that goal. And because I had a plan in place, and that plan made sense, you know, it wasn't just I think this will work. But maybe I'll try this. And oh, that didn't work. So maybe I'll try this. And you can do that we have shadier, but what most of the time we're doing that we're not giving things enough time, or we're not thinking it through long enough for to see if they're actually working, we're just jumping from one thing to the other, which confuses our audiences, like they don't know what it is where it pitching, they don't know what we're selling what we're making. And so the the plan allows the time to be creative, but also like, gives you a roadmap to get

Val  10:57  
there. Yeah, definitely. And I had an item blog way long time ago, and, and I constantly felt exactly we were talking about with the switching back and forth, because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted it to be. And, you know, it was it was busy mama, but I didn't talk about parenting or any of that. So I struggled with that. And I struggle with this. And then it's like, oh, can I really be me? You know? Or, or do I have to be what you know, PC and not not swear, you know, all of that. I don't like you said confused the heck out of my audience. You know, like, like, my friends that were in the audience are just like, Okay, what's happening this week.

Sasha  11:38  
Now more than ever, like, the one thing I appreciate about the time of where we are, is that we have the ability to be authentically ourselves and our business. And people connect to that, like it's an I encourage that with people's businesses. Like if you curse and you're a busy mama, and like, you know, it doesn't have to be everything that you talk about. But don't be afraid to talk about those things. It's to shy away from it, because that's part of who you are. And more more people will want to know who the person is behind what they're buying from, you know who they're working with. And when we can I call it the like no trust factor. You know, when you build that, you know that they like you, they start to trust you they feel like they know you, that's when you start making connections. And when people are more willing to become like your super fan, and no matter what you put out there, they're going to support you and buy from you and all of that stuff.

Val  12:25  
Yeah, exactly. It's really hard to be marketing. When and I don't say it you figured out who you are. Because I mean Goodness gracious, we're, we're figuring out exactly who we are. But being authentically you at the moment of of what you are and bringing it to your business and and not being afraid that you know, you're not for everyone.

Sasha  12:46  
Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that i The biggest misconception that a lot of people make in businesses, you know that all money is good money, they have to work with any and everyone willing to pay them that's definitely not true. You it is okay to have your people that you know you connect with and you don't have to be for everyone, you know, that's just like life, like you will not be someone's cup of tea. And that's okay. But the people who do like love you like they will show up for you. They're going to support you, they'll shout your name from the rooftops, they'll recommend you to everyone and anyone under the sun and so connect with those people don't don't worry about the people who you don't connect with.

Val  13:23  
Well, in it's it's hilarious, because I mean, the people we're not connecting with It's only us judging whether they are going to have that feeling. Oh, no, we don't know. I mean, I assume that I always tick off all of the religious people, you know that? Don't I have a whole group of you know, a whole bunch of them that I talked to all the time. And they're just like, Yeah, we don't really like your swearing, but we love you. So

Sasha  13:50  
yeah, some people might have deal breakers that we think are something else. But it's really you know, XY and Z. And so they'll still be there. But the people who you know you, you don't need to waste your time trying to talk to people who who just aren't going to vibe with whatever you know, your personality is or where your authenticity lies, like there's no sense in and trying to, I think censor ourselves just to make money. Yeah.

Val  14:15  
And I think in trying to do that that's when the word strategy and plan makes us bored as creatives because we're trying to be what we expect the public to want us to be. And then I'm like, Well, I know from years years past experience, and I go to write the blog posts and I'm like I was like, I don't

Sasha  14:39  
it doesn't have to be that way right though. I think that's the perception of it. But when you're when you find a good business coach our shot is just that you can work with like I'm, I'm gonna tell you to work exactly within how you function and how you work. So if you know for my graphic design friend client, she she I love her to death but she can't. She can't focus to save her life. Like, she definitely can't plan things out past, like, a couple of weeks. And I know that about her. She has big, like, overarching quarterly goals. But if you ask her how she's gonna get from A to C, it's her mind just doesn't work that way. So we just break it down. Okay, so like, what's your focus for this week, like, think about having a topic every week that you want to focus on, uh, you don't need to know, like, what the content around, it's going to be, you just need to know that you need to have like to call to actions that are this, and you know, one call to action that's going to be that and then when you are in your creative space, you know, the week before the day of, and you are gonna, you're ready to create for that week, at least you know what you're working towards, you know, you don't, you don't have to try to force yourself into this box of like, oh, I, you know, I have to be rigid, and I need my CEO day to be on a Monday because that's when people are serious. And, you know, if you want your CEO day to be on Wednesday at 3pm, and only for an hour, if that's the only time and that's the capacity, you have to focus on things you've been, it's cool, like, work with how it works for you. But still have a plan?

Val  16:02  
Yeah, yeah, it makes it a lot more fun. Because it's like, Well, for one for making money, it's a hell of a lot more fun. Because then there's a little bit of money to outsource some of the stuff we really don't want to do.

Sasha  16:18  
And I and that's the biggest thing about when we start having a plan and you start consistently getting money, I'm a big proponent of paying someone to do any and everything in my business that I do not like to do. And it really allows us again, to be more creative and focus on the things we want to focus on in our business like you, if you're a graphic designer, and you have a plan in place to get number X number of clients, you know, at some point, you can take the projects that don't really light you up and give them to a junior designer, you know, somebody who's you contracted with and only work on the designs that really make you excited, and that inspire you, you have that freedom when you are working to build something in your business, as opposed to just being all over the place. Yeah,

Val  17:00  
just throw spaghetti at the wall. Yeah, and I know, for me, there's been so many times that I still do battle it, of taking a strategy or taking a plan. And when it doesn't work, that doesn't mean that it was horrible. It just means I have to change something, versus doing a whole new plan.

Sasha  17:19  
Yeah, the good thing about any strategy, any action plan, you know, they're always going to be working progresses, that, you know, it's Oh, anybody who made a business strategy plan action plan in March of 2020, it got thrown up and ripped apart. And we had to start completely over. Because nothing that we had planned for was gonna work when you know, when COVID hit. And it's the same thing every day in our business, like even I mean, as we record this, like there's a bank failure having and Silicon Valley right now, like, that wasn't, you know, maybe people want to see you or, you know, now they're, they're not getting paid right now. And, you know, they're trying to work through that, that wasn't in anyone's plan, right. So you have to be flexible, and what you're doing, you have to, and I always encourage, like, at least on a monthly basis, like you have your goals that you're working towards every month, but at the end of every month, go back and look like, you know, what worked, what didn't work, you know, what did I enjoy doing? What did I enjoy doing? What should I do more of? What do I not want to do at all? You know, we can say oh, I want to I think I want to talk to my people more on my email list. I want to do an email every week. But then that whole month, we're like, dreading having to write this email every week. And so like, at the end of the month, did it did I really see was it you know, where my clicks better? Was my open rates better? No, then maybe I can scale it back. So maybe let's just try twice a month. Or you know, like, it doesn't have to be so rigid and set in stone that it doesn't allow us the flexibility to change. And the good thing about being our own business owners is we get to decide what works and doesn't. Yeah,

Val  18:50  
yeah. And and another beautiful thing is there's so many ways to be out there marketing, that we don't have to mark it the way we don't want to mark it, you know, like, you know, my my IG friends, my Instagram friends are always like, I don't like it. And when I've tried to use it as a mode, of course, I've had no success because I don't like Don't waste my time. I don't want to be there. There's other places to go and be

Sasha  19:17  
I literally made a real yesterday for Instagram because they just wrote out like their broadcast feature. And it was like, you don't have to do it. Like just because they throw it out there doesn't mean you have to incorporate it now and so your social media strategy and you know, figure out how you're going to make content for that. Like if you don't want to do it. You don't have to do that piece of it like you. You don't have to be on Instagram you can be on if you love being on tick tock, tick tock. If all your people are on LinkedIn be on LinkedIn like you don't just because people say oh, you need to be on Instagram. They don't it depends on your business. It depends where your people are. So and it and that's why having a strategy in place it's there's certain business practices that people will say you know, you should do in your business and they're not right wrong, but you should make it unique to your business, what works in your business works in your business, it might not work in other people's business and vice versa. So you don't, you take what works and you keep that and you improve on that. And if something doesn't work, if you don't like it, if you're not seeing any sort of return on it, that from all the time and energy and money you're spending into it, then you don't have to do it. Especially if

Val  20:23  
you get to the point where you're you're doing the thing that is working and expanding on that. If you do want to do Instagram, then hopefully start making enough money that you're like, Okay, well, I'm gonna bring in a pro, this is gonna make it all look better, like I don't want to, and then we'll test that. Exactly. I think that that was one thing that I had to learn for sure was, you know, I, for one, you can't be everywhere. No, absolutely can't be anywhere or you will not be working your business. Now. You're just a social media manager.

Sasha  20:55  
Big difference, because this is also what I mentioned, my reel that I think people forget, there's a big difference between being a business owner and a content creator. There are two different roles, like unless you are an influencer, or like you make money from the content that you're creating, you don't need to be everywhere. You don't have to be posting 50 million times a day and showing up in stories and doing reels and on Tik Tok and LinkedIn, you don't have to be like that you have to get to market your business. But you don't have to create content in the same way. And I think it's the lines can be confused and blurred sometimes.

Val  21:26  
I don't even think sometimes I think you are 100%. Right? It's, and it's because when we decide, oh, we want to go to Instagram, oh, we want to go to Facebook groups, we go and find the person who's an expert at it. Well, that is literally what they're an expert at is growing their Instagram, not their business of this other thing. So absolutely. And yes, and thinking about, it's going into mindset change for for thinking like a creator like, you know, hobbyist. I know, I didn't really think of myself. I guess maybe I just didn't come out and think of myself as a hobbyist or anything like that. Well, except for way back, I absolutely can look back and know that I was a hobbyist, because I was just always in learning mode 100% in learning mode, but this this switch really started happening. Like I said about five years ago when I started thinking of myself as a boss. Yeah. And the boss mindset and people I know that there's a lot of women, hopefully, you know, whenever I'm listening, but if you are then listen to me read harder. The whole boss mindset and boss girl and bosses and boss that and I know I had, I felt resistant to that for quite a while too, because I like whatever. And then all of a sudden I was like, Oh, wait, I get it. Yeah,

Sasha  22:41  
I don't subscribe to like, you know mompreneur or like boss lady. Because I am very much like men, you're not a dad printer, if you're like a dad who writes like, there's not that equivalent. But there is a mindset shift when you decide that you want to do things in your business, and you're going to put a plan in place to make your business successful. And I think it happens when we decide like, I'm not just going to wing it in my business, I'm not just going to, like, you know, hope I get a client here or there and then do the project. And then hope I get another client here or there. It's when you start saying, Okay, what do I need to do in my business to actually have people find me, and so that I'm not doing all this effort where I'm trying to do lead generation and hope, you know, get referrals and things like that, where people are, you know, they can search for like graphic design, or they can search for, you know, web designer, and like my stuff comes up? Or like how can I educate people in a way that shows who I am. So they would want to work with me when they are looking for someone to do something like this for me. And so I think that shift happens when we start when we really sit down and we're like, No, I, I, I'm tired of being stressed in this business. Like, I want to do something that makes more sense or not do this business. Right? Because I think that's pretty much most people decide one way or the other, they get to like, no, I need to, like put some strategy in place or this business just isn't going to work anymore.

Val  24:08  
Because business is not all fun. No, it's not we have to do stuff that we prefer not to do. That's why it's a business it's still work. But it's still workable. We can love

Sasha  24:19  
what you do in your business, but you're not gonna love all of it. Like you still the when we have to like figure out our accounting like that's not fun. But it tells us a lot of information. When we look at it we can tell like where money is coming from and what product is or service that we offered makes us money versus something we might be throwing out there really isn't making us money. I've seen that happen all the time where you're like, Oh, I'm gonna focus on pitching X, Y and Z. You go and you look at finance and you're like you're actually making more money from this service. And you know, maybe if you put more effort into marketing that like yeah, that's where you need to focus on but we don't want to do the you know, the boring work or you know, the not fun work of doing that and When we get to a point where like, No, I have to do these things, it makes running the business. I don't want to say easier, because business will will always be challenging, but it makes it make more sense. And it's, it's easier to make decisions in our business when we have more information about what we're doing in our business,

Val  25:19  
for sure. And especially even for those that are plan averse, that are like, you know, don't really want to do the plans. I know, when I started working on my 90 Day plans, I actually ended up feeling more creative, because all of a sudden, everything was towards that goal. Everything I did my emails, my social media, everything was leading to that goal. And it was just, instead of feeling like I was just like, oh my gosh, this is all I can do. All I can talk about, it was just like, oh, this is what I get to talk about for three months straight. That's what we're gonna do. And it's so easy.

Sasha  25:57  
It relieves so much stress that I don't people, I don't think people realize that it just takes away. So much of uncertainty when we have something that we're working towards. And like I said, you can always be flexible in it like you don't feel like 90 days even as a stretch to you know, I don't know how I can plan for something 90 days like that just seems still too constrictive to a month, like come up with a plan for a month of like, what you're gonna talk about social media or what you want your email go to be or what you want, you know, your profit goal to be or how many clients you want to get like, pick something that is reasonable, doable, and then work backwards to figure out how you can get there. And it does make it it makes what we do with a purpose. And we don't feel as stressed out as lost as confused as trying to, it can be discouraging, sometimes when we you know, if you don't have a plan, and you're trying to figure out what's working, what's not working, and everything seems like it's not working, then that's discouraging in your business. But it's probably because you don't aren't you probably aren't really focused on what your goal is or where you're trying to go, or you know who you're talking to, or things like that. So as soon as you start getting clear about those types of things, it takes a lot of stress away.

Val  27:06  
Yeah, yeah. And that I mean, all of that, that you just talked about just totally leads to burnout. Yeah, it absolutely leads to leads to burnout, because we're just working so many hours, because we're doing all of the things that you know, even when we're thinking that we're being creative, because we don't have a plan. We're not being creative, because we're doing so many different things, that we're not usually creating other speak for me, I know, when I was in those points, I was not creating new products. I didn't want to hold a workshop. I didn't want to hold anything. I'm just like people no go.

Sasha  27:39  
Most of my clients come to me when they're there. They're just like item that I'm burnt out with my business. I, you know, it's frustrating. I don't know what I'm doing. I can't seem to be talking to people, or maybe I'm not charging enough. And, you know, it's all of that surrounding that has led to burnout and it makes business not fun. And when it's not fun anymore, then for that, I mean, it's never going to be not work, but you should enjoy it. And it's not fun anymore, then why are we doing it? Yeah,

Val  28:08  
I need to do in 2020 I wish I would have found you at the end of 2021. Because I just went through all of this stuff. And I just had to switch on my own and figured out, you know, everything that you're talking about I did alone? Well, I mean, I had my accountability buddies, and, and all of that. But, you know, for me, I just taught myself a lot of things. But like I said, I wish I would have taught myself a lot of that stuff. And so then I just brought my clients along with me. Yeah, as I was going through it. But everyone, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Exactly. I love the reinforcement.

Sasha  28:48  
And it's easier when you have someone because a lot of us feel alone in business, and we don't know what we're doing. And we don't the people who are looking at we might feel like so ahead of us in their business, and how did they get there and we feel like we're down here. And so sometimes just having someone who has been there in their business and can kind of say, hey, like, you know, I can I can at this point with my business, I can look very easily into other people's businesses that Oh, like, your problem is probably XY and Z and if you do like these little tweaks here or there and you just kind of stick with this or do that it'll make a big difference in your business and just having that person was like oh, like I didn't think about it that way sometimes we're too close to our business to see what are our options are and how we can make changes and so just having someone who can kind of say like hey, let's let's walk through this together and what makes sense for you and what makes sense for your business and what kind of life do you want to have with your business? Do you want it to be a full time business or are you just going to keep it as a part time business? So you know, on the side like there's a lot of ways that we can work through that but having someone to help also makes you less stressed?

Val  29:51  
Oh, absolutely. And having you come in with the fresh eyes even and be able to look at stuff and and be like okay, well have you tried this? Well, you know, If I might have asked it I don't. actually perfect. Oh, I love it Sasha. So is there anything else that you would like to leave my listeners with?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai