Probably one of the toughest realizations about becoming self-employed is realizing you can’t do it all.
Ashley Johnson shares why it’s so important to build your business around your strengths as she has done over the past couple of years.
She’s the founder and CEO of MouthMarketing focused on designing marketing strategies to help her clients generate warm sales leads using LinkedIn. (And of course, connect with her on LinkedIn😉
There are several great lessons from our conversation including:
- Why your clients are buying you as much as your product or service.
- How to know when to leave your full-time job to work on your business full time.
- Why she’s such a big believer in hiring coaches and taking courses to help her build her business.
- How to invest in yourself.
- The criteria she uses to focus her ideas.
Life Skills That Matter In This Episode
- Self-directed learning.
- Build community.
- Embrace discomfort.
How Ashley Works and Thinks
- Wake up time: Around 6:00am.
- Core work activities + habits: 1) LinkedIn lead generation for the business. 2) Public speaking at conferences and other places to spread the company message. 3) Going on sales calls and interfacing with clients.
- Ideal work environment: Normally, between 10:00am and 2:00pm, often at networking events later in the day.
- Regains focus by: Walking away and going outside, without her phone, for about 30 minutes.
- 90-day goal: Getting ahead of clients’ holiday prep and doubling the client base again.
Inspirational Quotes
“Even when I was in outside sales, it really boiled down to relationships and whether or not the client liked you or the lead liked you.”
“A great deal of my former employers, whether I was fired or laid off or I quit, they’ve all ended up being clients or working with me in some capacity because it’s not that I didn’t do a great job, I just wasn’t employable.”
“Creatives in general, we tend to gravitate towards entrepreneurship because we’re constantly thinking of new ways to do things.”
‘The number one rule that I have is: I’ll go with whatever idea can help the most people.”
Coaching Advice
To find a coaching practice that fits your needs, Ashley recommends the following steps:
1) Understand your personality and find a coach that can read your feelings well.
2) Find a group or coach that can effectively hold you accountable.
Resources + Bonus Materials
Related Episodes
Nathan Kaufman: Become Your Own Boss After Getting Fired