Little Better: Cultivating human connection in business

This week’s podcast episode unlocks a key to being successful in business that you may not have heard before: cultivate human connection. How? Listen in to discover more!

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Do you struggle with motivation as a small business owner?

Maybe you find it hard to sell your products with conviction?

Or perhaps you find yourself scrolling social media, because that’s the easiest way to get what feels like connection?

I want to offer one guiding principle to help with all those questions – and many more.

The answer? Cultivate human connection.

With the vast majority of businesses now doing most of their business online, and that tricksy little global pandemic, many of us are craving human connection.

Rather than going to an office, doing errands in small communities, and having close-knit friends and neighbours, we’re on t’internet pretty often. This is fairly tough for us primates, who like eye contact and scent and loads of other biological factors to feel trust.

It’s no surprise we turn to social media for a quick fix. It’s not the same, but it kind of meets the craving. It doesn’t fully satisfy it, though.

When you take the time to cultivate connection with humans (and sometimes pets), it recalibrates your brain. So spending quality time with family and friends outside your business will help your business, because you’ll feel more connected.

It will also help you to feel motivated and sell more, in the background.

But here are some specific ways to cultivate human connection for your business.

To build up motivation:

You need to have a business squad.

I’m a big believer in finding the right support for you in business. That’s not necessarily your closest family or friends – unless you’re really lucky!

Instead, boost your motivation by cultivating connection with business besties – people who get what you’re doing, can cheer you on, and support your success.

I created the Better Business Collective for this exact purpose.

To find confidence when selling:

Cultivating human connection in your marketing makes it easier to sell, no matter what you’re selling.

See your customers as real humans, with real aspirations and needs and wants and problems. Be human, invite in their humanity too.

Show your human self, or at least content with humans in.

Rather than getting stuck in “buy my thing”, step back and consider what it gives another human in their everyday experience.

This will give you language and confidence to step up and share, and I promise it will feel good, too!

So go and book a coffee date with a friend, hug your kids or pets, and start finding that business squad.

Little Better: The Five Minute Pricing Hack Your Business Needs

Today on the Better Business Podcast, I’m bringing you a quick pricing hack for your products!

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I’m so excited to share this five minute pricing tip with you! It comes from my years of experience working with small businesses selling online.

This profit-generating tip is great for online retailers who want to make sure their products are profitable, but don’t have time to do a deep dive or a full pricing review.

Here’s my top tip for pricing your products quickly:

Put your prices up by 20%.

About 80% of new clients need to put their prices up by 20% in order to be profitable and run a sustainable business.

Chances are you haven’t accounted for inflation or rising material costs, so you at least need to put your prices up by 4% (the current inflation rate in the UK).

The longer it is since you last raised your prices, the more you need to raise them.

Don’t put off having a profitable, sustainable business!

And of course, if you’d like a full product pricing calculator template, you can find mine inside Pricing For Profit (And Sanity).

Did you do this pricing hack? Let me know over on Instagram.

A Little Better: Are You Trying To Sh*t Miracles?

Pre-S: Looking for the How To Find (And Keep) Your Focus workshop? Head here.

Does your to do list require miracles to get ticked off? My wise sister’s advice is for you in this week’s mini episode!

Today’s Little Better episode is my first sweary podcast episode. I mostly try to avoid swearing because as a podcast listener, I sometimes listen with my kids around, and I want you to be able to listen whenever works for you, too.

But I couldn’t get around this one: we need swearing!

So if you’re up for that, let’s dive in.

Beyond swearing, this episode is about the need to focus in business so that you can actually make progress and see the success you’re dreaming of.

A few years ago, I had a photography studio in addition to my coaching business. I had a talented team, and we produced product photos and content for product-based businesses. My incredibly talented sister (now a fancypants producer for Adidas), Holly, was the Studio Manager and we had such a blast working together. 

In her wisdom, and with her deep wit, she said something to me that I’ve never forgotten.

She said, “Are you trying to shit miracles today? It really seems like you’re trying to shit miracles.”

My friends, she was right. The to-do list wasn’t realistic. It was based on the idea that miracles would appear from nowhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in magic and miracles. Daily. Regularly. Unexpectedly.

But basing the success (or even viability) of your business on overcoming the odds, being superhuman, isn’t the way to go. If you need a series of miracles in order to get through the day or week, you need to take another look.

There’s a reason I don’t have a photography studio anymore.

Since then, I have honed and developed a talent: focus and flow.

Focus: to dial in on the things that move my business forward and have greatest impact.

Flow: to allow the things that trip me up or ask me to shit miracles to flow away.

I’ve always been kinda good at prioritising. These days, it’s the first place I start, and it’s a huge part of how I help my clients and Collective members.

The first step is to realise that focus is your friend.

Focus allows you to create a meaningful, profitable business with your sanity intact. By reducing your focus to 2-3 key projects, you actually increase your productivity overall. Focus means you can complete projects in a way that feels really good and has desired results, rather than being all over the place with 10,000 things you’re kind of doing half-heartedly.

Focus allows you to be all in on the things that matter.

Ready to learn how to focus? Curious about the systems I use to keep me focused? Want to stop waiting for miracles just to get through the day?

Join me for a free workshop on How To Find (And Keep) Your Focus As A Creative Business Owner on Friday 10 September, 10:30am GMT.

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Enter The Forge

Life's too damn short to chase someone else's definition of success. I'm here to give you the courage and tools to forge your own path.