Camille: Welcome my two new faces.
Camille: Well, Katie's a returning face, but we haven't seen Katie in a while, so Hi Katie. Thanks for doing the pod with me today.
Katie: Yay. Hi everybody.
Camille: George is very busy on vacation, but I don't think I'm gonna miss him too much today.
Nancy: Say that about a brother, you know?
Camille: That's right. I know. So today I'm super excited that Katie is here because she actually brought our guest in today. Nancy Queen is here. Welcome Nancy.
Nancy: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Camille: Nancy is an author, a YouTuber a creator, instructor, and the founder of Noble Knits.
Camille: Now Katie, how did you discover Nancy?
Katie: Back in the day I was actually working at a company that wholesaled yarn, and maybe you didn't know that there are companies out there that sell yarn to knit with to other shops to sell. And one of those yarn stores was Nancy's store, Noble Knits.
Nancy: We've known each other for, it's gotta be like 10 to 15 years. And through a lot of changes.
Camille: Wow. I didn't realize you guys went back that far. I guess, you know, knitting it's a small world. All the worlds that we think are big are actually small, right?
Nancy: Yes.
Camille: Welcome to The Belief Shift. The show that explores. What you really need to know about building a successful small business.
Camille: I'm your host, Camille Rapacz: small business coach and consultant who spent too much of her career working in corporate business performance.
George: And I'm George Drapeau: your co-host and her brother. I'm a leader in the tech world bringing my corporate perspective, but mostly my curiosity.
Camille: Together, we're exploring beliefs about success and how to achieve it. But mostly we're bringing practical solutions so you and your business can thrive.
Camille: So Nancy? Tell us your business story. How did you get into being a business owner?
Camille: What was your journey like?
Nancy: Well, really, I started my business a little over 20 years ago. I had a background in fashion and I worked for a sweater manufacturer. I worked for a lot of retail companies.
Nancy: And I thought, I'm just gonna be a stay-at-home mom. But I needed something in addition to that.
Nancy: I actually was stock trading and my husband's like, you're awful at it. Invest in yourself. So that led me to designing some patterns. And it happened that I put an ad in the back of Vogue Knitting Magazine and publisher saw it and said, Hey, would you like to do a book?
Nancy: I actually had been wanting to do a book, but I didn't know who to call. So I, that was how I got my first. Book deal was with this publisher.
Nancy: And I had started making little pamphlets and sending them to yarn stores because back in the day, this was really before you could send emails that people would actually open.
Nancy: I would mail them a little pamphlet with all the things and I would sit there with my CD ROM of the yellow pages looking for different yarn shops and that's how I got my list of stores that I would send out to. And that really picked up.
Nancy: And then I met a neighbor who happened to be the founder of Q VC's son, and he's like, you have a great story.
Nancy: You should put products on qvc. And at the time when Q V C would buy, you would have to have $160,000 worth of product in their warehouse two weeks before you went on air.
Nancy: And it was like deep, like, it wasn't like 50 different products. It was like four. So you had a lot that you were housing.
Nancy: I took a business partner and he said, you know, we're housing a lot of yarn with these patterns and little kits that you're doing, and now we're doing this thing for Q V C. Maybe we should open a yarn store. And I'm like, well, that sounds amazing.
Nancy: And then my husband got a job in Northern California. And was like well, I don't know how we're gonna run the store from 3000 miles away.
Nancy: So we decided with my business partner to move everything into a warehouse and close down both stores, and transitioned to being an online only.
Nancy: I had the Online store for about 12 years, and then it just got harder and harder.
Nancy: And so we closed the online store and I was like, okay, what am I gonna do with myself now? And I totally pivoted my business and focused on just being a content creator rather than being a salesperson.
Nancy: And that's where I am today.
Nancy: So if things have just kind of evolved and it was like, if there's an opportunity out there, I kind of roll with it.
Nancy: I truly believe that you have to open yourself up to all of the possibilities that are out there because they're things you would never have fathom that could happen.
Nancy: So I would say if I had to round up my business life, it's really all about pivoting and being able to make those pivots when the opportunities arise.
Camille: wow.
Nancy: You got more than you probably wanted to hear.
Camille: No, that was fantastic. I loved hearing all of the iterations that your Yeah. Business journey has been through. I think sometimes we don't recognize that what we're doing is we're keeping up with the innovation that continuously happens in.
Camille: Because that's really what all those pivots were about. Right. Exactly. Well now this, this has changed in the environment. Yeah. So I gotta change my business to adapt to that. Yeah. And also your own life and what was happening in terms of, well, I can't manage that if I'm gonna live here. And so there's all these just real life things that you were responding to.
Camille: Yeah. And I think people confuse that sometimes with, willy-nilly making random decisions in your business. No, you were focused on how to make it successful at the next level of work.
Nancy: When I remind myself that it's all focused and really nicheing down to what you really need to be doing and cutting out the crap, that's where I'm successful. Hmm.
Camille: That is such a fabulous lesson for people. Yeah. Because it's so hard to do sometimes. We're bombarded with so many things we're supposed to do Yes.
Camille: In these small businesses. And it's hard to just, I gotta focus on this, and if I do and I get good at it, it will have the payoff that I'm looking for. But it does require my focus. I can't just start a blog and then hope all goes well. Right, right. Yeah. You do have to put some energy into all of these things, and then I think you have to pace yourself as you do it.
Camille: Right. So you, you focus on that and then you get that going, then you can tackle the next thing that you're trying to get good at. Yes. And the next thing.
Camille: Which kind of brings me to the question of something that I see. That comes up with some of my clients when I talk to them, is just the challenge of learning or keeping up with the technology.
Camille: So you have had to definitely transition from, you know, brick and mortar into online and then into this version of your business. Was that ever a challenge for you? Like, oh God, now I gotta learn this new Facebook stuff for it?
Nancy: You know what, I actually look at those things with excitement. I feel like I'm always testing, testing, testing to see what's gonna resonate the . Best.
Nancy: And it's frustrating when they change things, but then I'm like, okay, I gotta do it and what can I do to get through it and own it.
Camille: I wanna know what your perspective is on this. Having gone through all of these stages of just social media. Let's just talk about just like the technology of like Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest and this, you know, change that you're talking about.
Camille: Isn't all social media getting harder to make money from?
Nancy: Yeah.
Nancy: In fact, this is the point that I wanted to make. Okay, this just happened to me the other day.
Nancy: I had been sick for like two weeks. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm back at it. What should I be doing? First I felt like I had been outta touch for a week or two and almost like a whirling dervish.
Nancy: Like I just didn't know what to start with because I wanted to get back into all of it at the same time.
Nancy: So I sat down and did an exercise, which I'm like, what I need to do this on a regular basis. I looked at all of my main ways of generating money and listed them all out for the past year and looked at where am I generating the most dollars?
Nancy: Is it affiliates? Is it my YouTube income? Is it my ad sales on my blog? Doing that exercise was like, well, this cuts out the crap and lets me know immediately where I should be focusing my time and energy.
Nancy: A year ago I decided, you know what, I'm gonna open up another website called Shopping on Champaign. I've got both of these things that I'm doing and I love both of them equally. When I did the same example that we just talked about where I looked at all my numbers and broke it down, it's completely the opposite on Shopping on Champaign.
Nancy: Now my focus is really spending most of my time for Shopping on Champaign, on YouTube, and most of my time for Noble Knits is on the blog. And I really love doing both activities.
Camille: What I love about this, and I think there's so important for small business owners to understand and continue to seek to understand, which is that you figuring out that there were different channels that were primarily feeding these different businesses.
Camille: Yes. One might assume, oh, they're pretty similar, so it's probably the same, but the fact that YouTube was the primary one place for your audience for one of them, and then the blog is where your audience primarily comes at it for another. , I think that's so important for us to just sit with for a minute.
Camille: Yep. Like it, it really, it really is worth doing the work to do the research to figure out where your people are coming from. Especially if you're stuck in terms of trying to grow your business or trying to scale your business. If you don't even understand like, where are the people actually coming from?
Camille: How do you know what to optimize?
Nancy: And you would think that my audiences are the same. Oh, women over 50, for the most part. However, they're completely different audiences and they don't like to mix.
Nancy: I belong to a couple of mastermind groups where we meet every week. And not only have those been really vital to my life because you get ideas from people that are like-minded and have your best interest at heart to help you grow.
Nancy: You're all learning from each other faster. One of the biggest things that I've learned from one of those groups is knowing your avatar, your customer, your audience to a tee.
Nancy: Maybe you have two or three different avatars. But the more you can narrow down and know those things about her, the more successful you're gonna be. Because all you're going to be doing is filling those needs that she has as a small business.
Camille: Yeah, it sounds like you're going so much deeper than just, here's how to look nice. Over 50, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's not that. It's actually about how our identities are shifting. Yeah. Or my identity as I age isn't necessarily shifting. I feel like the same person, but people are looking at me like I'm a different person.
Camille: Because as you say some of the ageism that shows up, especially for women earlier and how that shows up. So I love that you're tackling that and how it's starting to really just show up and is also kind of that story of the only way that you get there. Like I was thinking about when you were talking about identifying your avatar and how the only way you get to understanding them is by doing the work of putting the content out and seeing how people respond, you gotta run those experiments so that you can see absolutely, oh, that really resonated. I'm gonna follow this thread, I'm gonna go down this path. But you don't know that unless you try. Right? Exactly. So some people are like, I need to figure out my avatar before I start to do all of
Nancy: that.
Nancy: No, you take kind of a guess at what that avatar is and then the avatar will reveal itself to you.
Nancy: If you do YouTube, the amount of demographic information that you can get is amazing. And you have to remember as a YouTuber, you're there to be helpful, but you're also there as entertainment.
Katie: Otherwise, it's just somebody's home movies, which I have seen some of them and they are uncomfortable.
Nancy: Mm-hmm. you're right.
Camille: Yeah,
Camille: because it's that visual medium. Like you're not multitasking typically when you're watching YouTube. When you're listening to this podcast, like people are out for a walk doing laundry, driving to work. Like there's all sorts of things that you can be doing at the same time.
Camille: So you're try, it's more being informative. I mean, we certainly wanna be entertaining, but there's this visual aspect that calls for even more entertainment in that medium. Right? Yes. Which I think is really interesting. How long have you been doing the YouTube thing?
Nancy: So, when I started YouTube I would say, gosh, it was about, at least 12 years ago.
Nancy: It was really more of a way to Provide informational content for my knitters that I would put right on my website. So if they bought, they could also watch the video on how to do it.
Nancy: And help provide information on the products to educate the customers. So that's really how I got started.
Camille: How'd you learn what to do on YouTube? How'd you figure that out?
Nancy: I actually joined a mastermind group and it was expensive, but it is like my lifeline now.
Nancy: So I'm getting the best information I could possibly get to grow my business. And the people that are in this mastermind some of them have millions and millions of followers.
Nancy: And they're at a totally different level, but they're still having problems that they need to pivot.
Nancy: You would think, oh, you have 10 million subscribers.
Nancy: Your gold. No, how do you continue that? How do you bring new things into it and keep yourself interested in creating? There's always something to be learning no matter where you are.
Camille: This is so in line with what we talk about all the time on this podcast, which is having a goal or a vision of where you wanna go is useful in setting some direction for you, but we're not in it for that.
Camille: If you're only in it for the destination, you're gonna be really disappointed because you really have to be in it for this.
Camille: It's the journey and it's this growth mindset. Yes. Like that's really what I'm getting from you is, yeah, I've been thinking about this a . Lot and how I wanna talk to business owners about this idea of you're in a continuous improvement space.
Camille: You need to just have a learning mindset, be a learning organization. That's the whole point. Because even when you get there, whether it's I wanted to achieve some level of revenue, or I wanted to have so many stores, or whatever that thing is that you've kind of been aspiring to get to, there's no done.
Camille: Like, there's always the next thing to iterate to. And I think if that sounds exhausting to you, you probably shouldn't run your own business.
Nancy: Oh, absolutely. Because the whole thing is what is gonna be around the corner next? What is the next thing?
Nancy: Like I have this meetup with my mastermind group. We meet up a couple times a year, but I have won in April and it's. It's like I am chomping at the bit. I can't wait for that event to see what I'm gonna learn. They're gonna deep dive us on all new stuff that we didn't know to help grow our businesses. That's the stuff that carries you and, and keeps you invigorated and keeps your ideas fresh so that you can keep creating.
Camille: I love it because it is also just this lesson of you gotta find your people too, right?
Camille: Yes. Like, we're out here all running our little businesses on our own, in our little offices, but boy, we need people.
Camille: I have a membership that people we meet once a week. I guess it's kind of mastermind -ish cuz we do share ideas amongst ourselves. But I'm always bringing a topic, there's some structure to it.
Camille: There's a monthly goals conversation. We come to talk to each other. And that you build trust and you're all experiencing the same challenges and you're helping each other. And it's just such a lovely space to be in, because otherwise where else are you gonna get that?
Nancy: Yeah. And you might think, well, they're not in the same industry. I can't learn anything. I'll tell you one thing, one of the biggest people I learned the most from as a fairly new YouTuber was a plumber.
Nancy: I have gotten so much inspiration from this guy because of just the kind of content that he puts out there. It's like, well, how can I take plumbing and replace it with the word knitting?
Nancy: It sounds really weird, but it works.
Camille: That's such a great one. Cuz I think sometimes we mistake that, oh, I need to be around people that are doing exactly what I'm doing. Yes. Which can have some value. But it also can become an echo chamber.
Camille: Mm-hmm. Yes. Of we're all kind of just bouncing around doing the same ideas. What if I tried to do something different? And you only get those ideas by going to be with those different people.
Camille: Yeah.
Katie: A lot of our industry is very competitive, but also it's because they don't take it as a business and so they don't find the collaboration aspect helpful. It's more threatening. And thus these people who are more hobbyists their growth reflects that.
Camille: Yeah.
Camille: That difference in looking at it as a hobby versus a business, it's such an important mindset shift for people to make if they really want this business to go well. As a hobbyist, you can just tinker with something and see what happens.
Camille: Yes. But a business, it does require some structure and it requires you to be constantly innovating in your own space. It doesn't have to be innovation on the big scale like we always think of it. It's just I'm constantly in that mode and I'm doing it because I love that about it.
Camille: That's what definitely why I got into it. It was like, I just want to discover different ways to help people in this space than what I could do in the corporate world, which was just very structured in how you would do that. So I just find that so freeing and fun, and I think if you're gonna do this business thing, you should take advantage of, like, that's the freedom you have.
Camille: You don't have to show up on YouTube, but you choose to. Yes. And then if you're gonna choose that, then you're like, well, then I'm gonna get really good at it, so here I go.
Nancy: Exactly. It's like, okay, what can I do to own this?
Camille: I'm curious about how you do this. So you're creating a lot of content. Sounds like you're good at looking at your numbers.
Camille: Like how are things performing? Even looking at your YouTube videos of I can actually see where people drop off. This is all taking some time to do. How do you do that?
Nancy: I have put some little systems in place for myself and they're like, she said, systems my favorite thing.
Nancy: Mm-hmm. They are. I give them little songs because that's what makes me happy. Every Saturday I do this little thing called social media Saturday, but in my head it's going social media Saturday . That is adorable.
Nancy: And I have a list in that I keep in the back of my planner that I put the date and I have all my social media and I just go list out my stats. It's not a big activity, but it's once a week, every single Saturday without fail, I look forward to it.
Nancy: I go and see, okay, how was Pinterest for the week? How was YouTube? How many subscribers did I gain? And I'm not looking at as much from a dollar standpoint. Instead, in this social media thing, I'm looking at it from a where was my growth? Did I let this one fall? What was I doing here that I didn't see the growth that I wanted?
Nancy: And it's just a weekly reminder of looking at those things and where I wanna be on them. Just a little benchmark. And it's also a nice way to look back and say, oh my gosh, I have grown this.
Nancy: I started with zero. And look at how many people are following that, and not just from a vanity standpoint, but to know that what you're doing is making an impact. That's how I look at my social media numbers.
Nancy: There's a lot that I do to compare on YouTube to see, okay, this particular genre is working. That's gonna be the next video in my lineup.
Nancy: And same thing with my blog. What posts are performing month after month? Do I need more posts on that topic?
Camille: So you're even using the checking of your social media status as a way to inform future content, which I think is something we miss as an opportunity.
Camille: Yes. Oh, I should look at what I did do and then I need to start like doing either more of that or repurposing that. Yes. And instead of starting from scratch, right?
Nancy: And same thing with diving into your Google Analytics. If you have a blog or a website, what is performing? It's got that Pareto's principle, 20% of the content is producing 80% of the results.
Nancy: I never try to look at what everybody else is doing to beat them. I try to look at what I can do to be better than I was the day before .
Camille: And getting inspiration for that, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. So you mentioned how when you do this, you're trying not to just like, I'm not just trying to walk them through a generic how-to, but I wanna be entertaining.
Camille: Yeah. So I'm curious, what's the, I don't know what the right word is. I was gonna say goofiest or kind of craziest thing you've ever tried, whether it worked or not that you tried to just be entertaining.
Nancy: I wouldn't say that I'm particularly wacky. I try to come at things at an angle rather than coming at it the way you would think it's gonna be the straightforward approach.
Camille: The reason I was asking that was cuz I was curious, I wasn't getting that vibe from you, but I thought, I think people do think. It's kind of like when they started saying, you know, we had to do all these reels on Instagram, and everybody was like, oh, now I have to like do a song and dance.
Camille: Oh, wow. On Instagram, right? Yeah. I think there can be the same assumption about YouTube. If I'm gonna get attract, you know, attention, I have to maybe be entertaining outside my comfort zone. Cuz I'm not an actor, I'm not a dancer, I'm not a sim, I'm not a seminar A whatever. Right. So say more about that.
Nancy: That is a very good point.
Nancy: Think about it. That is something I really try to avoid. I do have a big sense of humor. But I do not, that is just not me when I'm on camera. I might joke around a little bit, but I'm not gonna get up and do a dance.
Nancy: It's just not me.
Nancy: I try to come at things with like interesting topics.
Camille: I think that takes some courage to just, I'm just gonna try this thing, and it's a little bit outside of, , what I'm seeing. You must feel the courage to do it because you've been doing it now for a while. You're like, Hey, I know it's either gonna hit or miss and exactly when it hits, it's great.
Nancy: There's definitely a mindset to that. What you don't wanna do is say, okay, all of my other content, I'm going to totally erase that and just start doing crazy content. What you wanna do is you keep up your, this bucket works, this content bucket works, this content bucket works, and then I'm gonna have this experimental one over here where I'm trying new things, where I'm trying those things that are out of my comfort zone, but they're not gonna interfere with any of these regular standbys that you've come to love for me.
Nancy: That's right.
Nancy: So I kind of try to come at it with different angles, but I feel find that as business owners, we feel like we have to do it all ourselves.
Nancy: And I found that my biggest growth has been when I take other people's content and curate that and put that together in a new and interesting way, or bring together a collection. I mean, we are bombarded as consumers of the internet.
Nancy: You go to do a Google search. And it's just like, Shopping ideas, you're not really always getting what you want. So what I try to do is curate fun, easy collections for people to really dive into what they love. And that's all comes back to that leaning into your passion and really leaning into what they want that they didn't know they wanted.
Camille: What you're saying is so important to point out because most of the value, like when I think about what so many of us are doing and me included you can Google search the stuff that I teach.
Camille: Now I have a way of teaching it. I have a way of coaching people that helps them take that information in, in a way that makes sense for them specifically.
Camille: But it's all the information is out there. But Yep. When I'm the aggregator of that and I give it meaning in a way that speaks specifically to my audience, that's what's worth it for them. Right, exactly. I have simplified this for you cuz I did all the research cuz I am an expert in this space and I knew where to go look for all the stuff, but me aggregating it.
Camille: I love that because it makes me think of, again, when we kind of struggle with the idea that your business has to be innovative and fresh and new and not in the way you might be thinking. Right. I don't have to reinvent business coaching. Yeah. In order to have a really strong business coaching, but you don't have to reinvent or create a ton of new patterns all the time in order for your business to do well.
Camille: Right. So I love that idea because it also sort of speaks to the fact that you have much more of an abundance mindset about it. Right. You're like, Hey, I, why not share what absolutely other people are doing and bringing it together.
Nancy: Right. Not only does it help these designers, it helps elevate them and get their word out for no cost for them.
Nancy: So I'm lifting other people up, even though I'm doing my thing. I'm helping other small businesses along the way as well. Yeah. I love it.
Camille: Okay. I have other questions to ask. Yeah. But also I wanna jump over to Katie. She's just over there listening away, and I know you get to talk to Nancy all the time, but is there anything that you've been wanting to ask or like how does this maybe even tie in with your own experience since your little business journey so far?
Katie: I knew you two would get along because you have like a very similar mindset approach about business and as soon as I heard pivot, I was like, oh, okay, well yeah.
Katie: This is gonna be great. Cause we were just talking about how often people will think of stopping something or quitting something to do something else as failing. But when, it's the end of the line for brick and mortar shops or online or whatever it is, the trend, it's smart to Yes.
Katie: Jump and do something else. So finding the line of, I just haven't done it enough to know versus it's time to go. Yeah. Is very smart.
Camille: Yeah. There is this fine line, right? Some people think that the pivots they have to make are much grander than that, right? So you didn't say, forget about this knitting thing, I'm just gonna go, you know, do something with I don't know, in the food industry.
Camille: Which maybe if you had food industry experience, would it make sense. But you're also, you're leaning on your strengths, like you said earlier, like, well, I have retail experience and I have passion for this, and I know fashion and I know these things. These make sense for me to do.
Camille: Yeah. I see some people pivoting, not because it makes sense for them, because they have expertise in that space, or they have some knowledge but because they think it's gonna be a fast buck. Like, I think I could make fast money over here.
Camille: Right. It's like, can you?
Camille: But there's also the idea, like just the idea that you started this second business and that your audience actually turns out to be different. I talk to a lot of business owners who are running a business that they wanna get out of. They're not working on the business as much as they're working in the business.
Camille: They're not stepping out into a mastermind to really think about what's happening. But they already wanna start a second business. I'm wondering what advice you have for those people who want to make that either start up a new thing or actually get out of what they're doing and do something else.
Camille: And how you do that? Well, because most of the business owners that come to me with that, they're coming to me cuz they're like, I can't do it. I want to do it and I'm struggling to do it.
Camille: How are you able to make that sort of shift happen for you to make room for that second business without losing the first one?
Nancy: First one, I grew it from 3000 to 300,000 monthly visitors. So that's almost like a huge steam engine that took a while to get up and running, but it's a sailing ship that is like Google loves all the content. I don't have to create like crazy the way I did when I was in growth mode.
Nancy: So that first year was full on growth mode for probably the first two years of that when I pivoted was full on growth mode, where I was cranking out as many posts as possible to really get it up to where I wanted it. Now I'm in a mode where I'm just maintaining so I don't have to go full throttle on it.
Nancy: That's in a maintenance mode. Now that's really where you have to think of it. You've got growth mode, you've got maintenance mode, you've got, I wanna let it burn out mode, you know? Yes, yes. Just have to think where you want it to be.
Camille: And I think you just you completely hit what my experience has been, as I watched these business owners is they are not really clear how to get to maintenance mode.
Camille: They're sort of constantly in a churn of growth mode, cuz they haven't, you know, as you talked about, you have systems that help you. Yeah. And they haven't really built enough systems to get things just like operating the smooth way that it should be. So they're not in the push, push, push mode. But they, I mean, you still have work to do in there.
Camille: Yeah. But it needs to lower in intensity. And I think that's what a lot of business owners really struggle to do. Some of it I think is, cuz some of them are adrenaline junkie, right? Mm-hmm. Like, they kinda like the hustle and the grind of doing the business.
Camille: But for some they're not happy and they're trying to get out.
Nancy: I think of people think, oh, I'm a business owner. It's so sexy, you know, and doing Instagram, it's sexy.
Camille: What? It's not what what are you telling me, Nancy?
Nancy: A lot. I thought what you're doing, especially when you get into blogging and YouTube, it's not sexy.
Nancy: It's hard work. Yeah. It's a grind. But like you said, if you put systems in place, like I literally have a good 20 to 30 content things ready to go for noble nets, that all I have to do is open my computer, go to that f folder, and the content is just, needs to be placed in. And write the blog post, add the affiliate links, hit done.
Nancy: And it's a system like I know when I'm doing it, I know where I am in the content creation phase. And I might even have several blog posts in content creation phase.
Nancy: And once you can do that and make it so it's like systematic for you, you're not thinking through the process every single time of what you have to do. How can you make your life easier?
Camille: Yes. That also makes it so easy to know when that time comes, and I don't know if you do this in your scheduling, but if you're like, now is my time to work on my content.
Camille: This is what I do every Wednesday from noon to two or whatever. Right? Yeah. Then the fact that you have the system makes it easy to know like, well, and here's what I work on next. Yeah. It's just obvious and I think what some business owners struggle to do, and you probably had this in your early years of it is some work in the beginning to get out ahead of the content, right?
Camille: Yes. When you're first developing it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But if you have systems in place as you're building that, then it starts to get easier. Cuz you realize I have all this great content to pull from. Yep. I don't have to reinvent the wheel anymore.
Nancy: I've seen a lot of people that are like, okay, they'll sit down with their phone and it's like, okay, what am I gonna film right now?
Nancy: Like, I could never go about it like that. Hmm. You know, I know, okay, I need to post a reel. What am I to say? What a waste of time. Right. And it's like you're starting from scratch every single time.
Nancy: I actually have a little calendar here that the front of my calendar is all my little sticky notes here with what I'm going to be posting on my upcoming videos.
Nancy: So it's already planned out. I know what I've got in my pipeline that I have to get done, and then I have a bucket of ideas where I can pull from. So I'm never running out of content ideas.
Camille: All right, listeners, this is our belief shift of planning it over winging it.
Nancy: Oh, absolutely.
Camille: So we have these eight belief shifts that we talk about repeatedly on the podcast. And this one, it's really a standout because so many people are, I think as you described, winging it by just like, what should I post today? What should I do a reel about? Yeah.
Camille: And there are so many ways that that is challenging for building the business that has the sustainability we're all looking for. I want something that will sustain. Right? Yeah. And you can't do that if you aren't planning things out, if you aren't one of the other belief shifts: systems over chaos.
Camille: You've gotta have systems in place and not just be running your business in this chaotic, frenetic way. Even if you are an adrenaline junkie and that feels good. Get your adrenaline somewhere else. Right. Exactly. Not inside your business that, in
Nancy: that climbing on the weekend, but calm, that's and focus. And you'll feel so much happier with your business too. Yes. And more success.
Camille: And then you too can launch a second. Business if you want to, that you're excited about. Right? Like, I love that you were able to do that because I know so many people struggle with, you know, their ability to, like, I have this other passion that I really wanna do, and how am I gonna do it?
Camille: Well, you put the plan together, you put the systems in place, you get stability. Like you go all in on that one business. Yeah. And get the stability there before you start the next thing.
Camille: So was it easier to do the second the shopping on champagne?
Nancy: Oh my god, can I tell you? I So it takes so long for people to get monetized on YouTube.
Nancy: You have to have like a thousand followers, 4,000 hours of watch time. There's a whole bunch of checklist. I was monetized in two months. Holy cow. Yes. And I think my first check was over a thousand dollars from them job. So it was like, you know, it worked. I followed the mentorship that I am part of and it was amazing.
Nancy: Being able to see it go so quickly and just doing what they told me to do and not fighting it. Yeah. Having my content ideas planned out ahead of time. Trying what works, pivoting if it doesn't. Making adjustments and changes to the upcoming content and just trying to get better with each and every video that I produce.
Camille: I literally just looked at the clock and was like, there is no way, it is almost time to finish this. Oh my gosh. Like this went so dang fast.
Nancy: You're one of those people I need to be friends with.
Camille: I know. See? Oh, I'm kidding.
Katie: You two could have a whole episode just nerding out about planners, because I just realized, my God, like,
Nancy: are
Katie: you a planner artist?
Katie: First person Camille is making her own planner. Like, oh, you two.
Nancy: That is my dream.
Camille: Best friends. Oh yeah. We should definitely collab on that.
Nancy: I could talk planners all day with you.
Camille: Maybe we'll do a whole episode just on the best and the worst planners and how they work and all of that would be super fun.
Camille: Yeah, that would be awesome.
Camille: I don't know what planning nerds that listen to this podcast are into that, but if you are a planning nerd listening to the podcast right now and you would like to hear us talk, just nerd out on planning, we would like to hear it.
Camille: All right. Before I drop us off of this fabulous conversation, what would you tell to other small business owners out there that are, you know, still struggling their way and to getting their business to the level they want it to be?
Nancy: Narrow down to what the most important goals are. Pick three goals and do one thing each day for those goals to move yourself forward or your business forward.
Camille: It's like she just read my notes. I literally
Katie: Do you listen already to this podcast All the time. I didn't you two
Camille: not you
Katie: guys like lost at birth siblings or
Katie: something when it's happened.
Camille: I did not feed her that. That is the best advice ever. Ah, fabulous.
Camille: Well I'm gonna wrap things up here. We'll definitely have you back to Nerd out on Planners or whatever other time.
Camille: Any time we can talk about that'll be so fun.
Camille: I'm gonna put all of your website stuff, whatever you want us to put up there. Okay.
Camille: Shopping of Champagne and Noble Knits and all your stuff. We'll put that into the show notes. I know you said you've got a free learn to knit course, which I bet I do. Yeah. My mom is a knitter, I'm definitely sending her to your page to see what else she has to learn.
Camille: And as I said, do leave us a either a voicemail, you can do [email protected] or you can check in with us on Instagram @TheBeliefShift.
Camille: And of course we would love a rate and review if you would be so kind. If you are still sticking around listening to this podcast, I know you like it, so just tell everybody, we wanna share the love as much as we can.
Camille: All right. Thanks to listening everybody, and we'll be back in your ears next week.
