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Simple SEO and Marketing, Business Growth, Organic Marketing, Copywriting, Online Business, Blogging, Content Creation
Ep 205 // 10 Can't Skip Reflection Questions for a More Fun and Profitable Business
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All right, y'all, so I have a bit of an unconventional for me episode for y'all today where we're just gonna chat about some reflection questions for your business that I want you to ask that I'm asking at the end of the year because I feel like this is a really natural time to just kind of pause and reflect before we move forward and set new goals for the new year. And so I want you to listen to this episode hopefully with a cup of coffee or a cup of tea in hand, or be prepared to listen to it again a second time with a cup of coffee and a cup of tea or a cup of tea or both and a journal in hand. Because I really feel like sitting with the Lord and asking him these questions and really digging deep and answering some of these questions. It's going to help you have a more fulfilling business and it's going to help you do the work that God has for you to do better. So without further ado, we're going to jump on in. Hey there fellow entrepreneur. Welcome to simple SEO and Marketing. Do you want to grow your business with sustainable traffic sources? Have you heard about the power of search engine optimization? And you want to take advantage of it to get more traffic, more eyeballs on your business. But when it comes down to it, does SEO feel complicated and hard to implement? Are you tired of wondering what in the heck to do with your website to get more traffic and more leads knocking on your door? What if I could tell you that there was a simple, proven system for using SEO, blogging and copywriting to get leads from your website and not just any leads, High converting leads. Hey, I'm Faith Hannon, wife, mama, copywriter, SEO strategist and barrel racer. And for the last eight years I've been figuring out what works and what doesn't work in the world of online marketing to get organic traffic. And now I'm here to share all the things I'm learning in the trenches of SEO, copywriting and content marketing. How does 300%, 500% or even 12,000% more traffic in a year sound? What could your business do with that kind of traffic increase? How many more people could you help? So listen in and prepare to take note. I'm about to drop simple, actionable SEO, marketing and copywriting tips, all with a heavy dose of Jesus loving encouragement. Let's get you more traffic and more leads so you can help more people with your God given gifts. So for at least, I don't know, the last 10, maybe 15 years, journaling has Been part of my quiet time. I would love to be the person who keeps a journal at the end of every night, blah, blah, blah. But that just isn't how my life is right now. That hasn't really worked for me. So what I have done just as a practice and a very sustainable practice, is I've incorporated journaling into my quiet time in the morning. And so I'm one that I really like to naturally reflect and think and make note of, you know, what's working, what's not working, how I'm feeling, and process that with the Lord. So it only feels really natural for me to do that in business as well. And if you're somebody that you're like, hold up, faith. I have not ever done that. This might feel a little bit more awkward to you, but that's okay. It doesn't have to feel perfectly natural at first. It's okay. But one of the things that I just want to encourage you to do in wherever you're at in business is to intentionally take time to pause and sit with the Lord and listen. Okay? To pause and sit and reflect and pause and just be. Because, let's be honest, things feel like they're moving a million miles an hour sometimes and very seldom do a lot of us sit and pause and reflect and listen to the Lord in prayer. So that's my soapbox. I'll get off of it now. So 10 questions that I want you. And I am doing this, too, that I want you to reflect on. 10 Reflection Questions for the end of the year or whenever you decide to do this for your business, okay? So question step number one is to pray and listen, guys. The Lord longs to speak to us. He wants to speak to you. He wants to give you wisdom. He wants to give you instruction and direction. He wants to give you edification. All right? God started humanity because he wanted a family. And how sad is it that we don't often sit to pause and pray and have conversation with the King of the universe who wants to have conversation with us. So at the start of this whole reflection time that you're going to have that you're going to block off on your calendar. First things first is I want you to pray, to ask God for wisdom, to ask God to come and join you, to come and give you downloads from heaven. James says that he gives wisdom to us liberally, okay? When we ask and we don't doubt and we don't waver. And so know that God wants to give you downloads from heaven. He wants to encourage You. He wants to help you fulfill the thing that he has called you to do. Okay? Philippians, chapter three talks about. He gives us the power and the desire to do what pleases him. All right? So know going into this that you have a partner in the Lord and that he wants to help you succeed. He wants to help you do the thing that he's called you to do. Because as a son or daughter of God, you are a lighthouse, a representative for him on this earth in your business. And being in business, you are uniquely positioned to influence people and bless people in a way that maybe they won't seek or they won't find in a church setting. Okay? So just know that in doing this and in taking time to sit down and partner with the Lord in your business, you are partnering with God in kingdom work. All right? First step, first pray and listen. All right? And whatever the Lord tells you, write it down, baby. Write it down. All right? Question number two that I want you to ask yourself is this. What have you left unfinished that you actually need to finish? And I have to put that little caveat in there of that you actually need to finish. Because I think hand raised here, a lot of us, we start off a new project or a new year or a new business, and we're like, I'm gonna publish five blogs a week and post on social media 20 times a week, and I'm gonna make YouTube videos and I'm gonna have this many clients. I'm gonna do this and this and this, this, this, this. And we have this gigantic list of things that we need to do. And then because we set unrealistic goals and I'm the queen of this, sometimes, like, there are things that we think we need to finish that we don't actually need to finish. Okay? So funny story for you. I have way more energy in the morning in my life than I do in the late afternoon and evening. And so sometimes I. On like, like home days, not so much work days, but on, like, being. I work at home, but on days when I'm, like, more focused on my home and my kids and not so much focused on work, I will start projects that, like, I mean, like, oh, I'm gonna wash the sheets, I'm gonna deep clean the bathroom. I'm going to, like, clean out all of the cupboards, I'm gonna mop the floors, I'm gonna do all of these things. And then when like, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 o'clock rolls around, I am done. I am spent. Stick a fork in me. Done. And I have usually, like sheets off the bed, not even dry. I've got crap strewn out all over the house. Like 19 unfinished projects. And my husband just looks at me and he laughs and he's like, 10am faith biting us in the butt again or 10am faith strikes again. Because I started all of these projects that I didn't actually need to start that day and I didn't have the capacity to finish. And I think sometimes we do that in our business, right? We set ourselves up for failure. Starting all these things, you're trying new things or committing to, you know, maybe producing content that we don't actually need to produce, like whatever it is. But in this time, I want you to reflect and journal, obviously, pray about what have you left unfinished that you actually need to finish? If there's something you need to do and you need to finish, write it down. If there's nothing, move on. God bless it. All right, and question number three for you is this. What have you enjoyed? What have you enjoyed about your business this year? Who have you enjoyed working with? Like, what has been fun? What has just lit you on fire? What things have felt really fun? What things have really propelled you further into your purpose? What have you enjoyed? Okay, and write those down. And then question number four, is this what has been hard and why? And was that hard thing within your control quotes or not? Okay. Because sometimes we have hard things in business or life in general, like, they were just hard and there's nothing we did or didn't do right or wrong. It was just a hard season or a hard situation. Right? So was that within your control? Was the hardness of that within your control? Or maybe it was just your response to that situation? Okay, now, is there something, and this is something kind of a backup question, a follow up question to that is, is there something that you could have done differently on the front end to prevent that hard thing? Like maybe you had a really difficult client, maybe you had a fallout with a collaboration, or maybe you overextended yourself and you booked too many things at once or something like that. Like, maybe that's the hard thing that comes to mind. And maybe the thing that was within your control, right, is maybe you didn't have contracts in place, maybe you didn't plan out timelines and deadlines very well, maybe you didn't communicate very well with that business partner or that client, whatever that is. What has been hard and why, and was that within your control or not? Okay, now we're going to get more into a little more practical, tactical stuff now and a little bit, a little bit out of the feely stuff and then we'll get back into the feely stuff in a minute too. Okay? So the fifth question I want you to ask and reflect on and this, you might actually need to pull some data for this slash, you will need to pull some data for this is where are your leads coming from? Now this is not something that you can always track down to a super minute number because depending on your business, depending on, you know, the price point of your product, where people are at in the funnel, in their buying decision funnel and they're buying decision when they find you, depending on all of those factors, like there may be more than one touch point that somebody has with you before they purchase your product, right? They may have joined 4 different email list segments. They may have found you on social media and then join your email list and then started following your YouTube channel. Or like they. There may have been multiple touch points before they finally make a purchase, right? They may have found you in April and waited until Black Friday to make a sale. Like, there's a lot of analyzing and a lot of nuances to really digging deep into where your leads are coming from, right? But for the most part you should be able to act like accurately track. Okay, I had this many clicks on social media to this many email list signups, right? I had this many people come to my website. My conversion rate to my freebie was this and my conversion rate for my email list was this. Like, you really need to get into the nitty gritty about where your leads are coming from because this should inform where you are marketing and how you are marketing your business in the upcoming year. All right, now, kind of a follow up to question number five, question number six, here is where are you spending your lead generation time and how much time are you spending on each form of lead gen, each form of marketing? Okay? I heard a statistic not long ago that the average small business owner spends 20 hours a week marketing their business. Now you might be like, faith, that is not me. And that's not me either. That's average, right? And so there's gonna be hot people that are higher than that and lower than that, and that's fine. But the fact of the matter is marketing your business is a big deal and it is gonna take a time commitment, okay? So you need to really think about where you're spending your lead gen time. Like if you're spending 5, 10, 15 hours a week on social media and you're not seeing a conversion Rate. That makes sense. You're not seeing an ROI that makes sense, then you need to do something different. If you're spending 20, 30, 40 hours a week creating or 20, 40 hours a week, a month creating blog content that isn't getting you enough content, enough traffic, then you need to reevaluate. You need to fix something. You need to change something. All right? You need to honestly be able to look at where you're spending your lead gen time, where your leads are coming from, and how much. How much each of those leads are worth, right? Like, where are they coming from? How much is that costing you? And is there a better way to spend your time and your dollars? All right, and reflection question number seven, is this. Where would you enjoy creating more different or better content? Maybe you're on all of the places, but you're like, man, I'd really like to have more time to focus in on this platform. Okay, write that down. Where would you like to create more? Where would you like to create less? Like, what feels fun for you, what feels enjoyable for you? Now, I do want to follow this with a very clear, very clear warning. So hear me out. Lean in. Just because you are currently passionate about something does not mean that you need to completely pivot and completely change your business. Okay? I could talk all day long about the book that I'm reading currently, but that does not mean that I need to completely change my business because I am very excited and passionate about this thing that I'm currently learning that is completely unrelated to SEO and marketing. Okay? So I want you to think about, where would you enjoy creating content through the lens of your business? Because I feel like, I know so many business owners fail because we follow our whimsical instead of our wins. You all can write that down, right? Like we can. We like to follow the things that we're currently excited about, which is awesome. Amazing. I think we should have passions, but those are like book club passions. Those are things that we need to be talking about to our friends and our family and pursuing in our fun time and our free time. They're not necessarily pivots that we need to make in our business because so many business owners fail because they change their business, like pants and their audience cannot follow. All right? And I love it. I love multi passionate people. I am a multi passionate person. But this question, this reflection question right here, number seven, where would you enjoy creating more different or better content? I'm not asking you if you feel like making a pivot right now because it's the End of the year and things are a little bit stale or hard. That's not what I'm asking you. I'm asking you, where would you enjoy creating more content? Where would you enjoy spending your time getting leads? Where would you enjoy pouring into people more within the lens of your current business and current marketing strategy? All right, and question number eight is, where do you feel like the Lord is leading you? What's the pull on your heart for business? Okay, now I know this is kind of a funny follow up to my rant on point number seven about not changing business ideas like pants. However, obviously everything we create is for the Lord. It's from him, for him and to him. And so if he says, hey, you need to lean into this platform or, hey, you need to refine your messaging here, hey, you need to serve people in a little bit different niche. You need to obey that, right? Like, obedience is better than sacrifice. If we're going to say that we're children of God, we need to obey like we're children of God, okay? But this is the time to really sit with the Lord and say, lord, where are you leading? You know, and really listen to that pull on your heart from the Holy Spirit about where he would have you go or the little tweaks or changes he would have you make in business. All right, question number nine is who or what kind of people do you need to surround yourself with now? Maybe you have a great group of friends away from business. Maybe you have a great group of business friends. Maybe you're in some great masterminds. Maybe you are not in some great masterminds. Maybe you don't have anybody that you can talk to about business. I don't know where you're at. All right? I've been in all of those places, right? But what kind of people do you need to surround yourself with in this next year? Maybe there's a mastermind that you need to join. Maybe there's a mastermind that you need to create. Maybe there's, you know, a program that you need to join just for the coaching aspect. Maybe you need to be bold and send an email to somebody. Be like, hey, do you want to be business pals? Like, I don't know what it is that you need to do, but this is your time to sit with the Lord and ask him and then be obedient, okay? And I'm not telling you that every email you ever send or every like, hey, do you want to be business besties text or message you ever sent, I'm not Saying that everything is going to land and that you're all of a sudden going to have, like, a group of business besties at your pecking call. But I am saying maybe that's something that you need to sit with the Lord about and say, all right, Lord, who do I need to surround myself with? Who do I need to bless? Who do I need to pour into in this next season and this next year? Alright. Okay. Question number 10. Is this ready? What big, bold prayer have you been holding back on? Are you praying the kind of prayers for your business, for your clients, for your family and for your life? Are you praying the kind of prayers that scare you? Are you praying the kind of prayers that shake the gates of hell? Are you praying the kind of prayers that are dangerous to the kingdom of darkness? Or are you praying safe prayers like, oh, Lord, help me not suck at life today. Oh, Lord, help me not, you know, make a mess today? Like, what kind of prayers are you holding back on? Because I truly believe that in order to be warriors for the kingdom of God, we have to consistently and fervently pray prayers that are dangerous to the kingdom of darkness and honestly scare us a little bit to pray. Because when we see those prayers come to pass, when we see those prayers answered, we will know. We will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is a God in heaven and that he hears us and he answers us and that our prayers matter. And so the question I'm leaving you with, and these reflection questions are, what big, bold prayers have you been holding back on? And I want you to stop. I want you to pray those prayers that scare, scare you to pray. I want you to pray those prayers that are dangerous to the kingdom of darkness. And I want you to pray those prayers that when you write them down now and you look back in 10 years, you're like, man, God is so good, he is so faithful, and he did those things that only he could do. All right, y'all, that's what I have for you today for those reflection questions. And if you are somebody that you're like, you know what, faith, I would just really like some business direction. I am offering a special, very special discounted coaching call where you buy it now and we get it scheduled for the first part of the year because the rest of my year is booked out. But a very special call, very special discount where we're going to dig into your business a little bit. We're going to talk heart to heart, and you're going to get some direction for your business. This is not an SEO call. This is not a copy call. This is a business direction coaching call that you can buy now and you will schedule it for the first part of the year. Just a very special offer for you. If this is something that resonates with you. If not, that's okay. I just pray that this episode blesses you and I pray that you take these tips and you sit, sit down with these tips, these questions and you sit down with the Lord in your quiet time, journal in hand, coffee, Bible and you really let the Lord lead. Let the Lord lead you out of this business year and into the next year. All right y'all, we will chat soon and I love y'all so, so much. Bye. Thank you so much for listening in today. Hopefully this episode gave you some really tangible tips for better SEO and marketing to get more leads and more sales from your website. If it did, can I ask you a quick favor? Would you please share this episode with a friend and then just take 10 seconds and go leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. That is the very best way to help more Jesus loving entrepreneurs scale their businesses so that they can help more people with their gifts and make an even bigger impact for the Kingdom of God. And guess what? We now have a Facebook community where we can learn, hang out and laugh. Go join the Facebook group now. It's linked in the show notes and all the other things courses, coaching and copywriting can be found at my website faithhannon.com until next time. God bless and I'll talk to you soon.