Design Mistakes You Might Be Making on Your Website

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I have the amazing Christi Cooper here, and she is the owner of Cooper and Heart Creative. We are gonna talk today about design mistakes that you might be making on your website. This is really important stuff. I’m very excited that you’re here to share with us.

How did you get started in designing websites?

I’m one of those rare people who started a career and kind of stayed in it forever, I didn’t change. I started in design when I was 17 and I’ve been a designer for 23 years now, maybe longer. I started in print design and graphic design. I went to university for it. I have a degree. I worked at a design agency for a long time, so that’s where I started to do more website design in conjunction with branding and stuff like that.

Then I started my own business in 2017 on the side of my job. Just getting going and started and it just really expanded and I started learning a whole bunch in the online marketing space. And it just went from there. I taught myself how to build websites because before I was designing websites but not building them. Now I’m designing and building them. And it just grew from there. So, it’s been fun. 

It’s really rare nowadays and I think that’s pretty normal. Like it’s normal to start with some things and like maybe you just haven’t found your thing yet. I guess I just got off, early on and became fascinated with design. As far as work goes, it’s always been kind of design oriented. But, my other interests have changed over the years, so I think I just had other outlets to find new things.

What are those mistakes that we might be making when we’re making our website?

One of the mistakes that I see is wasting that hero area on the homepage. So when people first land on your website. There’s like a pretty picture or it says, “Welcome to so and so’s name site”. And it doesn’t like, it’s a missed opportunity to like. Talk to people about what you do and hook them.

Put a headline there that just speaks to what you do and who you help. Something about the results that you offer. Just really try to speak to your people and draw them in as soon as possible. We have short attention spans. Split-second decision. They’re not gonna scroll down and reach yours about you section. They’re just, they wanna know as quickly as possible. 

An example, like a straight board example I’ve done recently, is I did a website for financial planners. And, he has a very specific niche and so he says Financial planning for Twitch and YouTube creators. It’s super clear, super specific, and maybe not super catchy or clever, but it is really clear.

What he does and who he helps, right?  Like it’s just super obvious and then he has some follow-up copy, And then a nice call to action button that is just for people who are just ready to jump on the ball like you always wanna put that call to action there too. 

That eliminates people from meandering there. I need a financial planner, and they’re like a teacher or something. That’s not the right person for you. 

He had an advantage cuz he has a very specific niche. So it does depend on your business and stuff, but you do wanna speak to what you do and who you help in that first section and give them a call to action to learn more. 

What other mistakes are we gonna avoid making so that our websites are all fabulous? 

Another mistake that I see a lot is making it difficult for people to contact you or take that next step with you. Make it easy for people to contact you. Like I, I’ve been. Why are you making it so hard? So make sure it’s really clear whether you have a contact form or book a call or make an appointment, whatever your contact method makes it obvious like that’s usually your primary action goal on your site. 

Make it obvious. In your navigation, usually you want that furthest right link in your navigation to be that action that you want people to take on your site. Also, when you’re talking about what you offer, put that link button right there too. Don’t make people scroll back to the top of your website to find your contact information or scroll to the bottom.

So they’re not having to scroll also you could lose their attention if something else catches their eye, like on the way back up. Who knows where they might go? They might go to someone else’s website or, who knows what it is.

It’s super important you wanna catch people in the moment when they wanna learn more. I wanna take that into step. That’s another mistake that I see. It’s just not making that clear and easy. Let’s see here. Related to that is a website that’s not structured around whatever primary action that you want people to take. 

If you’re like a consultant, you want people to probably contact you, book a call or submit an application, whatever your process is, and you really wanna structure your site pages and content around leading people to that call to action. Versus just using your website as a dumping ground for all of the information about everything you do. 

You really wanna inspire people to take action. Or you want them to book an appointment. You wanna make sure that you wanna make sure it’s really clear in the navigation, but you also wanna make sure that the information that you’re giving them is focused on leading them to book that appointment.

That’s a very good point because I think a lot of times we’ll put multiple calls to action or multiple like you could call me or you could book a call or you could email me or you could, like Facebook message me or you could fill out our contact form or you could chat with us.

It depends on how you have it structured. If you don’t want to avoid it, like, book a call with me and then join my email list and then sign up for this workshop and then do this. Like really different types of call to action that they’re doing something different for each one versus a contact you one, you probably do want a couple of different ways for people to contact you.

On mine, I emphasize booking a call with me through my appointment scheduler, but I also put my email address for those people who are like, I just wanna email you, or they have another inquiry or something like that. And I think if you’re like a local business, you want your phone number on there.

You want to list your phone numbers. People can call you. And you probably wanna give them another way to contact you. Email contact forms, something like that. I’m a person who doesn’t like to call local businesses. I like to send them a message. So I think it can be beneficial to have a couple of different ways. 

You could feel like I was trying to read something, so I closed the popup, but then I’m like there’s something on there that caught my attention, but I already closed it. So more on the visual side is making sure your website just looks professional and put together because there are people who judge a website by how it looks before they get to read what’s on it.

And you really wanna establish trust and credibility, so you just wanna make sure that your site is. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but you want it to be simple and clean and clear and look like a legitimate business versus something you let you’re nine-year-old put together.

I’ve seen some pretty dated-looking sites like that also the thing you wanna avoid is looking dated. I feel like that presentation that you put out there with your website and your branding and everything reflects how much you care about your people and who you’re serving. If you put some intention into making sure you have a professional presentation, it does convey that you are like, you’re serious and you’re not just I put a side up 10 years ago and it’s still fine. 

So you wanna avoid a bunch of different fonts, a bunch of different colors, a bunch of different background images. If you’re not a designer, just keep it simple and clean and somewhat updated looking so it doesn’t, you know, turn people off right away.

Do you have any other tips when you’re rebuilding websites more than when you’re building them?

So another big thing is a copy, like your text on your site is not doing big blocks and big paragraphs of copy, because back to the short attention span, nobody reads it. We just skim the page looking for the information that we’re looking for and we take in. Headlines and callouts and things like that, we don’t sit down and read three paragraphs of your story or stuff like that.

If you wanna break it up and edit down your copy first, only talk about what you need to talk about and then break it up into different lines. I rarely do traditional paragraphs on sites anymore, occasionally three sentences are a paragraph, but usually, I’m almost always breaking one or two sentences, and then there’s a return. It just helps people skim it and then they’ll stop and read if something catches their attention. But then they rarely read the whole thing. 

But it does allow, you’re right it’s a visual cue. It just gives you enough information that you can pick out a couple of words. Or, I do need to read this sentence and I wanna read all of them now.

You really wanna design your pages to be for those people who are just skimming so that they can take in enough information when they’re skimming the page versus reading everything word for word. Some people do read. Like dedicated read pages, but most people don’t. 

So you want both, it’s like you want both there for the people who do want more information, but, you really wanna aim it at people who are just skimming and scanning for information. As they go through your site. 

I think there can be some generational differences there. As far as older generations were more accustomed to reading full newspaper articles and magazine articles nowadays we don’t do that. Whereas younger generations are like that, social media inundated them. 

They read a line and that’s it. But I also think it’s personality based too. So people who are a little more analytical and detail-oriented will tend to read more versus people who are just like moving on to the next thing on their list. You want some sort of idea. And that’s why we do write more copies, than maybe what everybody reads, just because some do want more information and do read it. 

How important is visual aesthetic versus copy on a website in this day and age? 

I think they’re pretty equal in my opinion. They work very much together. You can have a great copy, but if your site design isn’t up to date and it’s just like blocks of copy, nobody’s gonna read it. No one’s gonna take it in. You have a pretty site, with pretty pictures, but your messaging is all off, and that’s also not gonna work.

I think they’re pretty, I feel like they’re 50-50. Okay. As far as. You know the impact that they have. So you want them to be both Pretty good, to have an effective site.

Do you have a particular industry or niche? 

I work primarily with a lot of entrepreneurs and bus and businesses small teams, such as coaches, consultants, and service providers, both online service providers, and local service providers. Those are typically my main clients. I’m capable of designing for anyone, but that’s who I primarily serve.

At the design agency, my old job, we’d serve large companies and corporations and that’s just it was a little less inspiring to work for a tire technology company that’s looking at their bottom line versus A consultant who just really cares about their people and wants to have a bigger impact.

When are we going to build our website?

I feel like I shouldn’t need to say this but always check your mobile view. Like sometimes people forget, and the mobile view of a website just is, it’s a poor experience and you just can’t ignore that nowadays. Menus and words are cut off and images are in the wrong place. There’s a lot that can go wrong there.

Where can people get in contact with you?

If you wanna follow me, I’m over on Instagram at Cooper and Hart. And then my website is cooper and har.com. If you are looking for a website and you need some help with it, definitely reach out to Christie. She can help you with that, and she will help you to get started and get everything. You need to do it, and have a beautiful website, beautiful and effective too.

How to start a new profitable business in 2023

Welcome to episode 235 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento. And I want to share it with you today. Something very near and dear to my heart and something that I started working on, many years ago when I first started my business has helped tremendously. And that is how appearances will help you to grow your business. 

When I say appearances, I don’t mean necessarily video appearances or in-person speaking or anything like that. Something that you can do from the comfort of your own home to enhance your brand. Enhance your business. And share your knowledge, those types of things, our podcast, and guest episodes. 

Blog post-episode blog, post guesting. You can also be writing articles for people. In your area of expertise. Just there are so many different things that you can do. I’ve been on YouTube shows. I’ve been on LinkedIn shows. I’ve been on many different things.

You can be a guest. Articles or chapters in books even. There are so many ways you can network and grow your business. And just really get your business out there. 

Places that I highly recommend going to:

Listen Notes

It is one of my favorites and it is a directory of podcasts. So you can go on to listen to notes and you can search for specific search terms. That is relevant to your area of expertise. If I just started typing Google business profile. I’m going to find a list of podcast episodes. 

Or podcasts that have Google business in the listing in the episode, the show notes, in the name of the episode. So it’s a really handy place. You can just get started on it. Finding different podcasts to be a guest on. I know it can be overwhelming, especially if you’ve never done it before, but just speak through it. Your experience, just talk about how, what, go ahead and email them. 

I always like to check their website first because they most likely have a form. That allows you to apply to be a guest. And I don’t have time to respond. To any inquiries that come through in my email. 

So I’ve missed out on dozens of guests because I just don’t have time. And I now have it in mine. Auto reply, a little blurb about if you’re looking to be a podcast guest, go ahead and fill out this form because I don’t have time to reply to all of those. 

Visit their website first. Look for a form. Fill that out. If you can’t find one, email them and then go from there. There are also lots of different podcast groups on Facebook, so you can join different podcasts, guests, and groups, and you could post about wanting to be a guest. Anything, your area of expertise. 

And people will let you know if you would be a good fit for their show. Highly recommend starting with podcasts. You can also go to business networking meetings. There are usually a lot of people that have podcasts or YouTube shows or LinkedIn shows. Go ahead and just start Googling. What are other people talking about that could benefit? 

From your knowledge.  I want to also mention that this is not specific to the industry. In a lot of ways. So for example, One of the best podcasts that I’ve ever done. And the most profitable for me was a wedding industry podcast.

So it sounds silly because I have nothing to do with the wedding industry, but a lot of my ideal clients are in that wedding industry. So if I’m providing value to people that are in the wedding industry that is listening to that podcast, then it’s going to resonate with them. 

Going to give them actionable things to do on that podcast episode and allow them to experience my expertise and understand what can happen from working with me. 

So that’s a really good example of why you need to think out of the box. Think about your ideal clients, but think about. Who’s listening to that podcast episode? You don’t want to waste your time. On a podcast episode that is not necessarily in line with your ideal audience, because it’s just going to fall on deaf ears. So be sure that you’re picking them wisely. 

You can also email bloggers. You can email companies. And they’ll most likely take you up on it because everyone is hungry for content. They’re thirsty for knowledgeable people, just make sure that it’s original content and that you’re not repurposing things because you don’t want to use the same article for many different websites or even two different websites. 

Because that will create some issues. Just be sure that you are putting yourself out there. I figured out some ways that in 2023, You can focus on sharing the value, the knowledge, and the experience that you have in a way that’s going to benefit both you and the people that are listening and the people that own that particular platform. 

Perimenopause or Not? How to Know

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I have the wonderful Kathy Fritz here, and she is a board-certified master hormone coach. 

It’s very exciting to have you, and this is a very interesting and perplexing, puzzling, and confusing topic that we’re gonna talk about today, and that is perimenopause or not, and how you can know if that is really what is going on with your body.

How did you get started in hormone coaching? 

My background is in education, I was a high school English teacher that I would be forever. Then I had my kids, and I know you can relate to this. Suddenly you wanna change your schedule a little so you can do homework. I know you did something similar in your own business. 

I switched to virtual teaching before it was the cool, trendy thing to do. That was great for about seven years. And then in the midst of all of that, I was having my hormonal imbalances. I was in my late thirties and nobody was talking about the possibility that my hormones were already shifting in per menopause. 

Because believe it or not, perimenopause can start as early as 35. We think of it as this thing that happens when we are older and then we get to 38, 42. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, so we’ll get to that in a little bit. 

So my doctor, trained in the medicine that she went to school for, said to me, “Okay, you can have the pill that’ll help, that’ll clear up all this stuff “. And it just didn’t sit well.

So I did my research and I found out why it didn’t sit well, because the pill turns off communication between your brain and your ovaries. I think there needs to be more communication here, not less. Long story short, my research discovered lots of different ways that I could support my hormones, and support my body as it headed toward midlife.

And something about educators, and you may know this, when we find out something and we see a need for teaching it, we’re all over that. So I started my business more from that place of an educator and just wanted to teach as many women as possible about their bodies. I got certified as a health coach and that was great and I thought I was rocking it.

And then I got certified as a master health coach and the difference I learned was between teaching and coaching, those are two different approaches. And I can get more into that in a minute. And then the last kind of piece of my puzzle was I got board certified over the summer and that.

I know I get women to get the results they want. I thought I had dealt with all of my imposter syndrome issues, but getting board certified showed me that I still had a little bit lingering there, and now being board certified, it’s gone. Like I know I’m good at my job. I know I get women to get the results they want.

I was so surprised because I didn’t think I had any more imposter syndrome. And then it was only after I got that board certification. 

I think people do try to tell us about it. Once you’re a mom, you’ll understand, you’re not gonna change that much. And you don’t change at your core, but your priorities change.

There’s an additional layer of responsibility because we have all those options. You have to explore what’s gonna work. I didn’t. Expect to become a virtual teacher. That certainly was not why I got my master’s in teaching. 

But that’s what worked, that’s what worked for me and my family. And then, when that stopped working, my interest was pulling me elsewhere, starting a business. You had told my 23-year-old self that I would never leave the classroom and start my own business.

What are some of the signs of perimenopause? How can we say it is perimenopause?

I think a lot of women try to like, use their age as the thing that would make them decide. And as I said earlier, that’s not at all an indicator. 

The first thing I want you, and your listeners to know is that symptoms predate period changes. Our hormones start shifting before our period starts shifting. It’s just like when we’re going through puberty. 

I have a 13-year-old, she hasn’t gotten her period yet, and believe me, she’s riding that hormonal roller coaster every month just without a bleed, So in the same way in perimenopause, we’re starting to ride a new hormonal roller coaster. 

And so we’re gonna have symptoms and our periods are not necessarily going to reflect those hormonal changes. So the symptoms vary widely, woman to woman, and month to month. The common symptoms we hear about are hot flashes and insomnia. 

Weight gain is starting to be talked about more. Like you’re like, wait a second. Like I thought I had a deodorant that worked well for me.

And all of a sudden you’re like, I smell all the time. So that can be a hormonal symptom.

And one of those good ways is switching up your natural geo. Another kind of less common thing is hair loss here, and then hair growth, in places you don’t want it. All of a sudden you’re like that’s a coarse hair on my neck. That’s hormonal hair. You’re having gobs of hair coming out just when you run your fingers through your hair. 

For those of your listeners who have gone through a pregnancy, there’s a very common shedding that happens after the pregnancy. You know that hormones can make you lose your hair. Brittle nails are another Strange hormonal symptom.

Hot mouth, like burning mouth. Burning tongue. And here’s the thing. Not everybody has super symptomatic perimenopause. Those women you are lucky and you are not. You don’t need my services. But a lot of women are maybe not super. 

Every month there are perimenopausal symptoms, but some months seem worse than others. Or, every month seems wow, like this is not fun. Those are the women that I end up working with. In my work, I always find that certain. Things are cyclical. Like I had a lot of women struggling with hair loss earlier in the spring. 

I have a lot of PMDD clients right now, so PMDD is like PMs to this degree that is super life interruptive. Like your moodiness is out of control. It’s really difficult. And so right now I just seem to have more of those clients. 

It changed again there. It seems seasonal, almost like where people are drawn to work with me. So that’s an overuse of perimenopause or not? If you are noticing month to month that you’re having these experiences and if you are unhappy, if you do not like the symptoms, if you believe that your body’s trying to tell you something, follow that intuition.

Do you do a lot of tracking?

I again follow my client’s lead. For some clients, tracking makes a lot of sense. Like my PMDD clients, they tend to track because they really wanna understand when my tough symptoms start. And then what tools am I gonna employ before and during that really difficult time?

So in that situation, yes, they’re gonna track, other clients might track for a little bit, maybe they’re trying to see if they have a food sensitivity or maybe they’re curious. How much is my period? Changing month to month. Is it consistently at 26 days now instead of 28?

So when they want data, then they will track it. I leave that up to them. We certainly can have a conversation about it. But it’s always from a place of curiosity and on my part, what is it you wanna learn about your body, and is tracking the best way to do it? 

Those two stories do not always level out. They’re not always telling the same story. So doctors are interested in the testing story. What does your urine say? What does your blood say? I’m interested in your symptom story.

If you want to do hormone testing, Go right ahead and it can certainly give you more information about what’s going on in your body. I wouldn’t say to do it, but it’s not part of what I do. And it’s pretty much never covered by insurance because it’s preventative.

But the symptomatic story. It’s the thing that matters to me and my clients usually because it doesn’t matter what their blood or their urine is saying they’re having this experience and that’s what they need help with.

Now I don’t want this to come across like I’m, being mean about doctors. I love partnering with doctors. Because they had great medical training. They know way more. Certain aspects of a woman’s body than I do. I like to partner with them because they want their patients to get relief too.

I don’t, I have never read anything about this, but if I were just to use my like, educated guess since perimenopause can start at 35 the hormonal, the sex hormonal shift that exists during perimenopause is slowly but surely, your progesterone is decreasing throughout perimenopause, and your estrogen is doing this kind of up and down months to month until it also starts to decrease.

So then at the end of perimenopause, once you’ve hit menopause, your progesterone and your estrogen are pretty. So that can, that process can start as early as 35. So I’m guessing that they assigned an advanced maternal age to anything over 35, recognizing that this sex hormone change can start as early as 35.

A lot of thyroid issues get triggered by pregnancy, and that all has to do with this brain recalibration. Perimenopause is another brain recalibration time. What’s interesting to me about this is that perimenopause is a window of opportunity.

During this window of opportunity, we get to make choices about how we fuel our bodies, move our bodies, and treat our bodies that are gonna impact our longevity, that is gonna impact the quality of our golden years. So that’s another reason, like this is where the educator me comes out. 

This information is essential to get to women in their late thirties, or early forties because your window of opportunity is from your Paris during perimenopause. Once you hit menopause, which is 12 months, be between your most recent bleed.

When it’s been 12 months since you’ve had a bleed, then you, that is your menopause day. After that, your post. A lot of times people will call, use the word menopausal to refer to that, but just technically menopause is one day.

And in the work you’re doing, the marketing and Google Business and all of that stuff, there’s a narrative there that, as a woman, I am finding myself pushing up against. And your podcast and your client work are helping me change that narrative. And so I’m trying to do the same with this, all this midlife stuff.

I think it’s important to celebrate when we have these kinds of big moments in our lives as women menopause to me is a time where I get to, I’ll get to shed. One identity and embrace another one.

Menopause is a time of wisdom. It’s a time of being able to guide others and embracing yours. Success. And I, and that doesn’t have to be financial. I feel like too often the words success and financial are married to each other.

But success can look like a lot of different things. Maybe it’s that all your kids are out of your house. Maybe it’s that you didn’t choose to have kids, and now because you’re in menopause, you can do all the traveling you wanted to do without worrying about when are I getting your period, how much do I have to bring, product wise and, medication wise so I don’t, be crampy or whatever. I think there’s a lot to celebrate there.

Where can everyone get more information about working with you about what you do and how you can help us figure out if it is perimenopause or not?

Head over to my website, Kathy fritz coaching.com and write on that. Page, I have four surprising ways to produce your hot flashes, insomnia, and waistline. So that is an awesome free resource that I have and you can certainly poke around on that website. I’m also going to be launching a membership shortly. 

I recommend that anyone listening who is curious about getting that free download will be in. And that way when that membership rolls out, you can hop right in. If you are struggling though I recommend you just set up a call with me. We’ll meet, we’ll talk, I’ll hear all about what’s going on and we’ll go from there.

How to start a new profitable business in 2023

Welcome to episode 233 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento, and I am very excited to talk to you today about how to start a new profitable business in 2023. The last three years have been incredibly difficult for everyone. So 2020, 2021, and 2022. 

Expectations are stressful in everything in our lives. There’s nothing. That’s easy. There’s nothing simple. And I want to help you try and get back to easy, simple. Something that you enjoy and that is highly profitable. Social media management has taken off. 

Incredibly in the last three years, that’s an easy thing for people to do, but it’s something that is not necessarily sustainable from a couple of different points. The first point that it’s not sustainable is the algorithms are constantly changing and constantly making it hard for social media managers to keep up with the changes. 

And to keep figuring out what is going to work for their clients and the clients then get disappointed in the results. And they cancel services. So that’s not great. A business model where you’re just constantly in a hamster wheel trying to keep up, trying to figure out what’s going to happen next, trying to pray that nothing is going to happen and that everything’s going to stay the same, which we all know that it is not. 

Another point that it’s hard to keep up from. It’s a lot of labor-intensive work. You post many posts per week, you have multiple clients. There’s just a lot involved. In social media, posting graphic creation. There’s just so much that goes into all of that. And you end up spending hours and hours. And are you getting paid for all of those hours? 

Are you making sure that you’re profitable? Are you making sure that you’re getting the results for your clients? That’s another difficult part of it. With all of that said there are other business models. That is similar, but they offer more profitability. 

They offer more flexibility and they offer better results. And I am going to speak to you about our current course, which is called how to start your own profitable Google Business Agency. 

This is going to help you to dive into every single step you don’t even really need to dive into because it’s all laid out for you from start to finish, why you should be offering these services. 

There is a very large deficit in the market for these services. We are currently maxed out with our clients at TDM marketing. And we’re no longer accepting new clients until at least probably mid-February.

And so it’s been like that since. Mid-December, which is great. However, we want to make sure that we’re able to serve all of the clients that need our services because guess what? It’s extremely effective. Extremely profitable and it’s affordable for them.

Which makes it a no-brainer right? So if they know that they’re going to be getting, I don’t know, an extra. Two to 20 clients a month based on the service, they’re going to pull the trigger. They’re going to sign up and they’re going to stay signed on if they can continue to get those results or as we see even better results month after month.

How can we prove to them that this is happening, that this is possible? We have a bank of reports that we’re going to share with you in this course they’re available for you. To white label any way that you like so that we can demonstrate these results and that services do work. And you’re just going to be able to start the course.

And a highly sought-after Business model. That’s going to allow you to have flexibility in your life. It’s going to allow you to have a lot more of your time back, and it’s also going to allow you to if you want to outsource. So then you have even more of your time back and you’re just managing your agency at that point.

So this course is going to walk you through so many different aspects that you need to know. One aspect that it isn’t going to cover is his legal aspect because people all over the world are looking to start the service, the laws and business licensing and all of those things are different in every state, city, country, everything we are not covering in this course.

So that’s something that you’re going to need to know you’re going to need to lay out for yourself, you’re gonna need to do that research, but the rest of it is all taken care of. From how to charge. How to market. How to find new businesses to offer this too. There is prospecting software.

There is everything that you can imagine. There are resources for you. So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We have created this agency. I have, I should say, created this agency from scratch from the very beginning, from literally just going in and manually posting to Google Business Profiles four years ago, five years ago.

And just finding every software that we could use to make it easier to make it better, to make it everything. Like we just have been refining all of these services for many years now. And we’ve come to a point where we feel like we can offer this as a course for other people because I know there are people out there struggling.

They’re tired of what they’re doing. They’re burnt out. They want to spend more time with their kids. And this is the answer to that issue. If you’re interested in learning more about the course, you can go to the td-m marketing.com forward slash course. And you’ll be able to sign up for our waitlist and you’ll be able to get more information about the course.

Find out everything you need to know, and it will be an amazing transformation. If you go through the course, you finish it and you just go ahead and start your agency. And start getting clients and start managing and helping them. We are offering coaching services alongside this starting in February.

So if you are looking for additional help with it. We can offer that as well, but just the course itself is going to be enough for you to get started, start getting clients and start serving them. I hope you have an amazing day in 2023. And we look forward to connecting with you. You can always email me@amandaattdm-marketing.com. Visit our website, which is the-marketing.com. Thank you for listening.

How Clearing Clutter Can Help Create Space and Allow For Abundance

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host Amanda Tento, and I have with me the amazing Louise Hopkins. She is a professional organizing coach, and today she’s going to tell us how clearing clutter can help create space and allow for abundance. 

How did you become a professional organizing coach?

It’s a cool story. I like it, but I’m not a naturally organized person, so I think that firstly people are What? How do you do this then? But that’s where I’ve learned the skill, how to become organized, and how to help others learn the tools and the strategies right to do it.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for a while. I had my cafe in New Zealand where I’m originally from, and I’ve always been restless. And I was in the corporate world in Alberta and Canada and I was like, There’s something, I need something else. So I was looking and I found someone advertising a home organization business. 

I’m intrigued. I’m like I’m gonna find out. Something is pulling me here. So I didn’t buy that business. I decided I wanted to do it myself, explore it, and use my processes and things. The more I worked with clients. Because there’s so much more to it. 

It’s not just the tips and tricks. It’s not just the things we see, to make everything look perfect. It’s what’s lying behind it and the effects clutter has on us. So that’s what I’m super passionate about.

Helping people understand why we’re attached to stuff, and where it’s coming from, is what I’m excited about, as seeing people. Just, it’s like this whole thing, this whole weight comes off them right. When they realize and they can release themselves from their clutter. 

I decided I still go into people’s homes, but coaching is helping them learn and teach those skills to themselves. So it’s a lifetime skill because it’s something we need all our life. 

It’s interesting because the more you see that stuff, the more it’s harder to let go. Sometimes am I supposed to keep it? And that’s where it’s really interesting, that kind of psychological part behind it. Just listening to people and their stories, how they treat staff as security sometimes, because it could be past things that have happened in their life.

Your mom might be scared that if I give this up, we’re gonna forget everything. We’re gonna forget all our amazing memories. So, it’s quite typical, right? With moms and their kids sometimes, because we are so attached to everything they do. 

That’s why I love passing that information and helping other clients understand it and helping them release because you’re probably gonna ask this question anyway, but I’ll just kind of quickly say that if we have clutter around us, it’s hard to focus, right? It’s hard to concentrate on things and bring in that abundance for us. That’s why I love talking about that and helping us release from that. 

How can we clear that? Do you have things that you can help us to release and say to let this go?

I have a ton of things, but what I like to talk about is that I think that’s so true, it’s the energy that comes with it. Because if we paint a little quick picture, if you’re in your home office and if you’re working on your business, and if you have paperwork everywhere, you have your books everywhere, you.

The home office has become a dumping ground, and you’ve got things you need to take to donate your things. You need to take back what you bought, that you want to return. Your whole brain is now just surrounded by all these to do things right, And you’re now going in the back of your mind. “ that you need to do that”.

Now you can’t focus, and then that energy becomes heavy. You become feeling guilty. You become feeling sad and frustrated because why can’t I do this? What I like to help and what I teach about or just quickly talk about the top six reasons and the reason why I’m quickly touching on this to help us. 

To release clutter, we need to do a little bit of work. What I wanna focus on is it doesn’t keep coming back for you. What I talk about are the top six reasons we collect clutter so it’s actually, the reason is the acronym. So retail therapy emotions assign time to sentimentality to overwhelm and no, can’t say it.

When we can discover, and I know I just went over that real quickly, but if say, retail therapy is one of the triggers for us, if we’re having a tough day, we’re not happy in our career, we’re not happy in our life. We use retail therapy as a way to make us happy. So a cool strategy for that one.

What I talk about is using the if you shop online, put something in the online cart, walk away for 24 to 48 hours, and then come back and see if you still want it, if you need it. I think this helps a lot of people because we’re quite emotional at the time and maybe we’re like, I just want that new sweater because it’ll make me feel really good.

And it’s a bargain. And another really good way to think about this is if it’s on sale, you feel like you have to buy it. But what I want us to think about is that if you don’t need it, you’ll always find it when you need that item, if that makes sense. 

You’ll always be able to find something on sale, right? So don’t feel that adrenaline. I have to get it. Because if you don’t need it, you don’t have space for it, then it just becomes clutter. 

The other one is if you want to, I can go through more of them quickly. Would you think that? So E is for emotions. That’s a really big one for a lot of us, we can feel, and we can hold onto guilty things. So say you are a mom who has brought gifts for your kids or something like that, or she’s held onto a lot of your stuff. 

So you’re now gonna feel guilty and you’re gonna feel frustrated because you’re like, I don’t need this stuff. When we feel these emotions, we have to work through them. So a really neat thing we can do is use a post-it note strategy. So with a post-it note, if you have an area in your home, or if you have say, five or six objects that you’re struggling to let go of.

What you can do is write down the first feeling you’ve got. Write down how you’re feeling and then put it on that item. And you’ll notice there’s a pattern here. You’re gonna walk away again for 24 hours or 48 hours, and come back. And is that emotion still strong? And if it’s a negative emotion, then you need to protect it because it’s too.

It’s low energy that you want to remove and then it helps release all the things that are negative energy in them. Assigned time is where we need to make it a priority for decluttering and put it in our calendar and schedule it, which I know people find hard because it’s not fun.

It happens to all of us. That’s the thing we’ve gotta know. It’s like we’re not alone in this. And that’s why I hear it from so many women too. That’s what happens because it’s like you can’t make a decision, so you automatically shut down and you’re like, I don’t wanna deal with this, or I don’t have time. And another, I think we see a lot of.

And social media, we see it around, pull everything out, and do it all at once. So what happens is it gets shoved back in, right? And I think breaking it down into tiny tasks like a quick example for that is on Saturday night, this is how signing my Saturday nights are.

I spent 15 minutes going through my closet. and I just made the decisions. I was like, Okay, and I got half a garbage bag full of clothes, so I feel better because it took me 15 minutes using the guidelines that I can. We can talk about it a bit later if you want to. They’re also good strategies too. 

And then the last one is no, can’t say it. When people are very kind, this could be like your mom too. They give you stuff. and you can’t say no. And so you’re like, Oh my gosh, I don’t have room for that. And then it comes back to you again. So when that happens, it’s hard. But a really good way is to communicate and just say, you know what? Thank you so much.

That’s actually, that’s a really good one that you brought up because I have a really good strategy for that. And it happens to all of us as moms because it’s tough. 

And I do it too because like you said, I still have my son’s outfit from when he came home from the hospital. What I talk about for that one are guidelines. And so when we can do guidelines, talking about that situation, in particular, let’s limit things. So let’s put a guideline in. I’m only allowed one bin per child for sentimental reasons. And that way it helps you stop and think.

It’s okay, what is an amazing memory that I want and how do I do it for myself? My son’s outfit coming home from the hospital. And now he’s taller than me. And his little shoes, the shore that fell apart, that his grandma made for him. Just a little piece of it. So for me, that’s how I decided to keep things. 

And then little bits on the way, but they only fit in this one bin, and that’s all I can take and keep. Now how big is the bin? That’s a good question. Something that fits on the shelf and does it one per child and that. It’s stored nicely. It has them, you can make it look good. 

You can put their name on it, you can put pictures, something like that. The kid And another way to do that too is to revisit it every year. Because they have different memories right as they grow. And you might chuck it in a holding bin.

Then you go through their actual sentimental bin. And then go, Okay, this can go, Now I need to make room for this because this is something really important to me. So I think guidelines, what guidelines help us do is take away those brain fuzzies.

So when I say brain fuzzies we’re making so many decisions. And if, and what happens we tend to go run around in circles. But this was great. I love this memory. It’s so cool. It’s so cute. But if you say, Okay, but it doesn’t fit in the. Okay, now I need to make a tough decision.

Having those help, right? They help take away that when we get stuck and we’re like, I don’t know what to do. And it’s, and take away that, what if I need it someday? I paid good money for it, That kind of thing.

When we start having those conversations, we wanna try and shut it down a little bit and then just say, Okay, this doesn’t fit into my guidelines. It’s an interesting way to.

And that’s why I say to people, 15 minutes, usually, they will do longer, but when you say 15 minutes, you’re getting past another block. I don’t have an hour to do this, but if I just do 15 minutes, then I can, and usually you’ll carry on. If not, that’s great too.

And I think that’s an eye opener for people because like you said, it’s the endorphins and it’s also, it’s like you feel. It’s like I just did it. And that’s a good feeling. And that’s the interesting thing too, as I think a lot of us think if I just do this, it’s going to stay this way. 

And that’s the reason why I help us change our mindset too because clutter is here for life. We’re always going to have stuff, we’re always gonna have things coming in. And this is where we can create that flow in our home.

And it allows for that abundance because we are continually moving things through our house. We’re continually rotating that clutter and keeping stuff that is relevant to us and stuff that we love. And that’s where. We are feeling this flow. 

And then that helps the abundance come into our lives and in our business and money and everything. Because if we’re stuck and we’re in unhappy relationships, and if we don’t do something about that, then we just feel tight and wiped down. 

And it doesn’t have the same meaning. And that’s where people get concerned because they get upset. After all, they think you should have the same feelings about it as they do.

But it’s different feelings and emotions for everybody and memories and things. And that’s when it’s, it’s hard for a child to say to the appearance it doesn’t mean anything to me. This was your life and I’m sorry that it’s like that, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Swedish Death Cleaning Method.

It’s really, it’s a great book and I’ve talked about it before too, and it’s, anyway, kind of digressing. But with that one, it’s preparing if anybody has parents that are in that kind of stage, it’s helping them realize that they need to release their stuff. And just briefly on that, it is some of us, it is past traumas in our life. So it’s what’s happened. It can be, and this is why it’s interesting to dive into it in their life, and maybe it is what they have been modeled in their life. It also could be just who they are. 

They could naturally be empathic. It could naturally be someone who’s Okay, I’m done and dusted with that. That’s good. I’m moving on. It’s our personalities and when we don’t acknowledge it or can’t get control of it, and when we start feeling like it.

Everything needs to be kept because that’s who I am. It’s their security. That’s when it’s really hard. So that’s why doing a little bit of diving into your background, who you are naturally. And another thing I talk about is organizing and decluttering to your strengths, which is like your processing modalities.

So when we do that, it’s based on if you’re a visual person, if you’re kinesthetic, if you’re. Auditory to think about that. There are quite a few of them. So if we can choose the ones that stand out the most for you, then we can help figure out the best way to declutter, and the best way to organize based on that.

It becomes natural. And this is something I like to be intuitive with our organizing. But what happens is when you clear the clutter, And you’re able to focus and you’re able to feel that energy, then you have time to be intuitive because you’re like, This is what works for me.

Not what I should be doing. What we see all over social media, right? It’s like you should be folding clothes. No, you don’t have to. If it doesn’t work for you, I don’t feel close, because I’m terrible at it and I’m impatient. So I hang all my clothes because it’s just easier for me. Most of them.

Sweatpants and things like that. But following what they say they should be doing on social media, just can be damaging to us because we can’t do it. So we get frustrated and go through all those feelings again. 

Where can people find out more about working with you? 

I have my website, the space reclaimers.ca. Also on Instagram as the space Reclaimers. And on my website I should say, there’s a quiz that you can do too, which is cool because it helps you discover your clinic here. Probably the best place is a website and Facebook as. Space Reclaimers.

Where is the best place to hang out on social media anywhere?

I am on Instagram and I am on Facebook. I do have just one on Facebook, but I have a podcast as well inspiring com. Podcast. It’s a few more than I thought. 

We have lots of ways to connect with you, lots of ways that we can figure out how we can work with you. I appreciate you being here and sharing your wisdom with us and sharing all of these amazing tips on clutter, creating space, abundance, all of these things, they all go hand in hand. I love that you brought your expertise. Awesome.

5 Hidden Secrets in Google Business Profiles That Will Change Your Business

Welcome to episode 230 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento, and I am here to share with you today. Five hidden secrets in Google business profiles that will change your business. I like to call these Google Businesses Hidden secrets A gift from Google.

Because what happens is Google is the largest search engine online and they’re giving you space to tell them. What you should be ranking for, who should be finding you and what problems you solve for those people.

Number 1

Number one is going to be locations. You can put in 20 different locations that you would like to target for your Google business listing. Google is just guessing where you should be showing up based on your address. You can target your most valuable clients where they live, and where they hang out. That kind of thing by completing this. I always recommend that you do it by zip code. So that way you can be super specific about what areas you would like to be in. If you were to put Tacoma, Washington, for example, 

That’s going to give a huge area. For Google to pull from. But it is all up to Tacoma, your ideal client, most likely not. You’re going to have certain zip codes where your ideal client lives in certain zip codes where they don’t live. So why waste that targeting on someone that isn’t necessarily your ideal client? So number one location.

Number 2

Number two is your description. You have 750 characters. That you can use to describe your business. Things that you want to include in that description are what you do. Who you help, and how you serve them. And where you serve them. Very important things to include. And you want to make sure that you’re using great keywords that people are searching for in this description because this is going to take you.

Past your competitors. It’s going to help Google to understand who you should be ranking for and what search terms people are using to find you or people would use to find you. So do not neglect this description. There are so many businesses out there that just don’t fill it out at all. And that is a huge mess because you’re missing out on one of the biggest permanent Gifts from Google.

Number 3

Number three is updated. If you are not posting regular updates. You are missing out on being able to give Google a daily. If you want to update about your business. About who you’re serving. What you’re doing. News and your business, what products you have going on, what services you have going on. For any events that you have coming up, there’s just so much opportunity in updates that it’s just crazy if you’re not using them. 

This is where we get our clients the most traction in these updates because we’re using keywords. We’re trying to use as many characters as possible. Where applicable, there are 1500 characters that you can use for each update. It’s not a huge amount, but it’s not a Twitter post, it’s way more than a Twitter post. And it allows you to give enough information. 

About a particular topic or service or product that Google is going to get more information from and display it to the right people. Huge gift from Google. So updates. If you’re not using them, we recommend a minimum of three per week, which is what we do for our clients in TDM marketing. Google. 

Suggest that you do a minimum of one per week. And if you don’t do them, You’re going to get an email and Google’s going to say it’s been a while since you’ve updated your profile. Would you like to post now? I do it. So whenever they send you a prompt, that means that it’s been more than a week, do it. 

Number 4

Number four is services. Do you have the ability to put your services into Google? You can put your pricing, you can put. Photos, you can put all kinds of information in there. And it allows you to also tie them to the categories that your business is listed under.

This is huge because it is going to allow you to pinpoint whether or not you’re the right person. For whoever is looking right. I was searching for it. Services the other day for electricians that install. Particularly video doorbells, for example. 

And if you were to have that. On your listing, if you’re an electrician, then I would probably call you before I call anyone else because I want to know if an electrician has experienced doing that.

It’s something that they do and if it’s already on there and I don’t have to call you, talk to you about it. Figure it out, then you’re going to get my call before anyone else. So just an example from my real-life circumstances, but it’s a great example because it shows you how you can stand out. You may not think of offering that service. Whatever it is in your business. Is unique for individuals. But if you’re offering it on your listing and someone else’s not, you’re more likely to get that call.

Number 5

The last one and not least is the product. So you can also add products to your listing. Even though I’m a service-based business. I have a lot of my services listed as products. And the reason for this is because then I can add a range of pricing.

I can add photos, I can do a lot more with the product listings. Then I can whip up the service base listings and I just find it, very graphic, very visual, very easy for people to understand those services, especially if you have flat rates. 

If you have set rates, even if you have a range. You don’t even have to list the cost of your product. You can just set a link right to that product. This is good for any business that sells anything online. So if you have any type of product that you have online, you can set these products to your listing. And if you like, have a hundred products. 

How am I going to get those all in there? I recommend you to sit down every Monday and do 10 a week. That way eventually in about 10 weeks, you’re going to have all of your products in there. You’re going to link directly to the purchase page of the product. 

Make it super easy for people to buy from you. Very effective. All of these five hidden secrets are on Google Business Profiles. Or Google, my business is going to change your business. If you use them. I see typical results for our clients in about six to nine weeks where they start getting into that top three, they start getting a lot more phone calls, those kinds of things. 

It’s not an overnight thing, but it’s way more effective than social media. And it’s going to get you where you want to be. As far as revenue. A lot quicker than posting on Facebook, and Instagram. Twitter, all of the things. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions, please email me@amandaatthedeterminedmom or mandated-marketing.com. And you can also visit our website, which is the-marketing.com. 

How to Publish Your Own Book, Course, and Webinar on Amazon in 12 Weeks or Less

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show, and I have my good friend Scott Smith here with me, and today we’re gonna talk about how to publish your book course and webinar on Amazon in 12 weeks or less.

Hey Amanda, it’s so great to be here with you on your show, The Determined Mom Show. I am a subscriber and a fan, so I love listening to your episodes and it’s great. What an honor and a privilege to be here with you. 

That’s awesome. I am very honored that you’re here. I’ve been following your work for several years now since we met at Clubhouse like. Reminded me earlier, and it’s just amazing the connections that I’ve made through knowing you and it’s just an honor to have you here.

First I wanna talk about you. I know you, your title officially is Motivational Listener, and so I might expound on that a bit. But then also tell us how you happened to Amazon publishing.

The title, Motivational Listener, there’s some brain science that goes behind this, but the bottom line is if you wanna say, what is the goal of being a motivational listener? It is that when we have a conversation, So Amanda, if you and I are speaking and I’m the motivational listener, my goal and outcome is that you leave that conversation feeling better. 

Before we started talking and the term motivational listener, I stole from my wife. And because I’m a good husband, I will always give her credit because one day somebody asked her, I said, Christine, what do you do? And she thought about it and she said, I think very accurately I’m a motivational listener. I said, Christine, I love that and I will always give you credit, but I am stealing that. And that was back in 2016.

It’s a good interrupt pattern, right? We hear lots of motivational speakers, so motivational listeners are a good pattern. Interrupt. And again, the brain science that goes behind that. And that’ll be for a different show. 

That’ll be the next episode. Awesome. So tell us about Amazon publishing and how, how did you get started in that.

It’s really interesting. So like many people, I wanted to write a book and actually, the first book that I wrote is titled Motivational Listener, Be Interesting by Being Interested, A Practical Guide to Being Successful In Business Networking Events.

That’s quite a title, but anyway. It all originated from a talk that I gave at the Social Media Summit in Dublin, Ireland back in 2016 when I first claimed the title of motivational listener, and I’m speaking of this social media event, and there is some deep knowledge there.

On Snapchat for business and Facebook ads and Google and all these different platforms and YouTube. My topic was a little bit broader. It was the psychology and physiology of relationships. And essentially what I did is I looked at the academic research that showed that the relationships that we create digitally can be just as strong as those that we create face to face.

Of course, for the last two and a half years we’ve had a global laboratory that has proven that to be true. Because you and I met, as you said, in the Clubhouse. Then we got together for some different events and the networking event that you have each week. And I’ve been able to attend that.

And also you’ve been a part of the virtual global tea break that we run each month as a co-host. And so we’ve proven that the relationships that we create online can be just as strong. I had this concept, I gave this talk and I turned it into an e-Course to teach people how to connect at business events. And I thought the same thing as you had a guest, Rachel Patterson recently, and she talked about her book.

 It was a short, little 60-page book. And the reason she put it together is that they were having an event and they needed to have this book to give out.

I format, reformatted, and published it on Amazon. Self-published on Amazon. There was no guide. I, this is back in 2018 when it was released. I had to learn everything from scratch. There was no guide. It was painful, but I did it. And like Rachel’s book, I look back on it and I go, But as they say, if you are not embarrassed by your first release, you waited too long.

I love that. That’s so true. Anything that you do, Like even, I’m thinking back to my first podcast episode and I wish I could hide those. I was reading from my Google document and not sure what to say and so nervous that anyone would be hearing what I was gonna say and just all of those things. It’s the same thing, I’m sure with the book.

So then I, so I had the book and I. Another book after that and then, Cause now it’s easier. You get that first one done, then it becomes easier in May of 2021. I was accepted as an Amazon influencer. What that means is that I’m able to broadcast live to the audience on Amazon.

Of course, it’s the world’s largest book retailer. And I happen to know a lot of authors. So Amazon Live is for those people that are unfamiliar with it. You can go to amazon.com/live and watch broadcasts and it’s like the home shopping club and people are saying, Oh look, I got this mug and I got these clothes and I got these items.

It’s a way to, promote and it’s this life as they call ’em, shoppable videos very big in. But relatively new here in us. So I got accepted as an Amazon influencer and I thought I couldn’t, I can talk about products, but I know a lot of people who have written books, so I started doing author interviews.

As I continue to do this, I’m meeting more people who are saying, I would like to write a book too. I have broken the ice, so let me put together a program to help people. To be able to take the content that they’ve already written for the most part. So like yourself, you’re a podcaster.

You write newsletters, and you’ve already generated content. Let’s take that expertise and put it into the world’s largest reseller of books, Retailer of books. And it’s a perfect platform because, I’ll say back in the old days, blogs and then podcasts, which I’m a fan of. Both of those were great ways to showcase your expertise.

And then we were doing eBooks and downloadables on our websites, right? These are lead magnets that we can, we could share out. Then the explosion of short-form videos, especially TikTok. Instagram live videos or reels Facebook, YouTube, short videos. They become a way to communicate with people.

However, people go to TikTok and Instagram to be entertained. So we may find some customers there, some clients and people that we can help, but they’re there to be entertained. So it’s hope in a way. YouTube is great. People go to YouTube to find out how to do things, but generally, it’s a DIY place.

How do I format this? How do I do that, right? The only reason people are on Amazon is to buy something. And although Google is the world’s largest search engine and it owns YouTube, which is also the number two search engine. Amazon is the number one place people go to find things that they can buy to solve problems that they have.

That is so true. I love it. It is interesting to me that there are all of these different places that we can search for, but they’re very specific for very specific things. It’s really about the intent. You’re spot on. Like anything that you need to search, you go to Amazon for anything you need to buy.

You go to Amazon first. It’s so ingrained in our phones, I don’t know, is it in our phone or any, in our electronic devices. That it’s just a natural habit. And I love that you’re putting that together. Solving the problem, like whatever your specific area of expertise is, you’re solving that problem for the person that’s searching for it.

I think that’s a really important thing to point out. And you had mentioned earlier that coaches content creators of any kind that already have all that content out there. This is the perfect place for them.

Absolutely. So a great example is my wife. So she’s launched her business Aging Better Network, and she talks about the aspects of aging. She was also a caregiver and like many families, we have lost family members, lost loved ones, so she wrote a LinkedIn newsletter. Called and it was titled The Care Grievers Kit. 

And so in this LinkedIn newsletter, she shares taking physical things that you can put together in a kit.

So when you have those waves of grief where you miss that person in your life, you can go to this kit and pull things out. There might be some. Items that help you remember a moment with them. Maybe they gave you a birthday card or for my mother. 

We enjoyed watching the movie The Sting when I was young, and so recently I was missing being around my mother, so I turned on the movie, right? And it was very comforting. She brings the newsletter to me. I’m like, This is great. And if you just added a couple of things and we listed those out and she wrote those. And within two weeks, that newsletter was a book on.

That kind of content is so helpful because there isn’t, there’s stuff out there, but I think especially if you have a niche that’s very unusual or very specific, that is just, can be explosive as far as growth goes.

Absolutely. And one of the authors that I often point to is a lady named Barbara Carnes. So she, I’m in Oregon. She lives just over the border in Vancouver, Washington. And Barbara is a registered nurse, back in the eighties, seven, late seventies, and eighties, she was working at the end of life in hospice. 

It’s 15 pages and sells for like $7 and 99 cents on Amazon. So she published that in 1980. And it changed the hospice industry, and she’s written several books. Most of them are under 30 pages. She’s written some longer books as well. But this is what she started with, that 15-page book that she released in 1985 since then has sold over 35 million copies and it’s 15 pages, so it’s 80,000 copies a month. Books, booklets, whatever you wanna call them, are going out. 

It solves one problem. It addresses it, it tells people what they need to know. And when people are going through an end-of-life, the situation with a family member, they don’t want a 200-page book not, it’ll have time, everything, and stories, right? It just, gives me what I need right now. And so she put that together and she did that. I encourage people. Don’t try to solve everything.

Don’t try to put all of your knowledge into that one book. Think of your book as a series of books. Later on, you can compile them into a longer book. If that’s gonna be helpful, then it may be. But the important thing is that you take your ideal audience, you. Take a common problem they have presented and offer a solution that way you can have an impact. Because think of all the business books. 

You’re probably like me, I have a shelf full of business books that I haven’t read or haven’t read completely. And the other thing is I haven’t implemented anything out of most of those books, but give people one problem. So Your expertise in the Google business profile, formerly Google My Business, Google Places that there, you can put together a 300-page book on how to manage this, but maybe it’s just a 20-page book that tells people how to claim theirs. 

Just to get started, right? Then the next one is how to do posts, how to do, how to respond. Then another book about how to manage, how get, and manage your reviews. Now, later on, you can compile them all, but each one of those steps along the way gives them a specific item that they can implement right away, and that’s what’s important. That’s how you change lives. 

I love the idea of you not only putting out this consumable content that answers questions but also using that to attract people to what you do. If you’re a coach, you’re using it to get clients. If you’re an agency like us, we would be using that same book to get clients as well. So tell us a little bit about that aspect of it and how it works.

Absolutely. So one of the benefits. Of course, we’re self-publishing, so you have control. In the old days, if you were going to use traditional publishing, you would have to find an agent, because publishers only speak to agents. They don’t speak to the authors. It’ll take you about a year to find an agent. That agent will probably take a year to find a publisher who is interested in your book.

Then you’re looking at a two-year process too. So four years from the time that you go, I have an idea that will help people till the time that it gets in their hands. So you can get your ideas to market quickly. And I’ll give an example later about how I’m doing this currently with a joint book.

But the problem with selling books on Amazon is that they don’t tell you who bought your book or she. That person’s email with you. So you’ve got the book there getting helped. So the key in the self-published book especially is putting hyperlinks into the book that go directly to gated content. So content that is specific to your book, but requires them to share their email. 

So what I recommend is, as you go. Here are these concepts. We’ve got this problem. Here’s the solution, but let’s help you apply this directly in your life or to your business, whatever type of coach you are. I have exclusive free content for the people who buy this book. Click on the link, take some to your website, capture their email, and then take them through. 

My recommendation is to do three videos. We want to connect your face and your voice with the solution to their problem. And again, there’s brain science that goes behind this, right? So we want them to see your face, hear your voice, get, and connect that up with the solution to the problem.

So in the first video, you tell them what it is they’re gonna do and why they want to do this. In the second one, you give them the layout. What it is they need to do. So it might be taking an inventory or filling a worksheet out or some other item that they need to do. And the third one, you provide an interpretation of that, and here’s what you do.

Now, of course, this is solving one problem and it’s providing one solution, and coaches and consultants have many more items that they can solve than they can. In the videos, you’re always reminding them, Now I’m just solving this one problem for you. There are many more things. There are a lot of things that combine into this, and if you’re interested in learning more, here’s how you can do business with me.

And so you can enroll them into different email sequences. Courses, whether they’re free, mid-value, high-value, or whatever it is you have to offer. But now you’ve captured their email and so you’re using Amazon as part of your lead magnet, the top part of your funnel. 

That’s awesome. And it’s ingenious. Like I love the idea of. I never really feel connected with an author unless I’m also listening to the audiobook. If I’ve purchased the book, I read it and then I listen to the audiobook. That’s the only way that I feel connected to them. But I love the idea of doing the audio end video because that is gonna really like, just bring it full circle.

That’s amazing. And you recommend 20 to 40 pages? Nothing. The huge pull of existing content. I will say, Scott and I had our recall a couple of weeks ago and he inspired me during that call. He’s Look, you have all this content lying around. You have all these episodes already recorded.

You have everything that you probably need to write a book, so just go look and see what you have. And I ended up pulling, I think probably 30. Either piece of webinar or podcast episodes or some sort of audio content that I already have. I rip the transcripts using the descript. They’re already written, pop them in Google Drive in documents, and I have at least 10 books already.

That took me probably maybe four hours. I’m thinking of just going through the same grade. And I’m like, Oh my God, I have all this content. And I didn’t even think about it. And I just, I obviously wanna say thank you for bringing that ease into my mind because I didn’t even think it would be that easy.

Not only that but just giving us this method that you’ve created to make it easy, step by step. I’m also following along with your 12-week email series, and that is helping me to stay focused every week, every Friday now, because I signed up on the day that we had our pre-call. Every Friday I get the email and I just follow along and I think it’s amazing.

Thank you, and I’m, I am grateful that you’re taking that knowledge that’s been inside your head or stuck on podcasts. You’re extracting that out of your brain and sharing that with the world because they need this information. They need what Amanda Tento has to offer, and people learn in different ways, so providing it to them in a different way is the right thing to do. 

I know I have some friends that like don’t listen to podcasts at all, so they would benefit from some of the content on the podcast, but they’re just not podcast people. I feel like shifting this into a different medium is gonna be helpful as well.

The course that you’re going through is a free course that I offer on the website, and I call it the pip method. Publish, Instruct, and Promote. And so it’s taking that information, you have published it, Instruct, that’s creating that exclusive course where you capture their email and then promote and do that as a webinar.

Of course, my recommendation is to go live on Amazon with me. So I have a paid mastermind, and so people who go through that with me, we do a webinar on Amazon, which is permanently housed on the Amazon servers. So you can always point to people, Oh, you can go learn more about what I have to offer and give them that link.

Again, it’s a shoppable video. Now, shoppable video means. As they’re watching the video, your book is in the carousel. It’s right below that video to buy the book. All they have to do is click on it, it opens a new tab, and then they can hit add the cart. And this is opposed to using a nonshoppable video.

Let’s say you put that same content out on YouTube, you say go watch my video. They watch it and then they go, now go to the show notes and scroll down and find the link and click that and then go to this other platform where you can access the book, but you can direct people directly to there.

So when I do these Amazon live videos, not only is it live to the audience on Amazon and permanently available, you can always point people. I provide a full MP4 copy of that interview, of that webinar so that the author can then post the full thing, they can edit it up, put it on their book page, their author page, their website, social media, anything that they wanna do to promote it. So it’s really fun and I love doing this.

And it’s very evergreen. Once you have written your book, once you have started that promotion, once you’ve done your webinar with Scott, then you know you have all of this stuff already done and said, and all you have to do is just refer people. I love that.

I think making things as simple as possible for us as business owners and a lot of our listeners are moms, so combining all of the stuff we have going on, makes it so much easier. So I love it.

How can people get into your paid mastermind? How can they sign up for the 12-week email series course?

The best thing to do is to go to my website, d Scott smith.com and there you can sign up for the free course. and also you can request access to the paid Mastermind course. Of course, I recommend that people start with the free course and get started and see if it’s really interesting to them. I’m a huge fan of masterminds. I am a part of a paid mastermind for over three and a half years now. Iron sharpens.

I always tell people, Look, I pay for this Mastermind and I could lease a very nice car for what I pay for that. But masterminds are hugely important. If you want to be successful in your business, don’t do it alone. Get into a Mastermind. Have people hold you accountable. 

And in one of the episodes I have on my podcast, which is Publish your book, we talk about goals. Dr. Gal Matthews from d the Dominican University outta California gives five steps that you need to do to be successful and have goals is the first one. The second one is to write down your goals. 

The third is to develop a plan to meet your goals. Fourth is to tell somebody about your goals. It helps you formulate it when you have to communicate it. But the fifth is to have someone hold you accountable, and that’s what happens in a mastermind. 

I am a huge fan of masterminds as well, and I had ambitions, and someday I may still run a mastermind.

I have run them before, but I haven’t done it. Or so but I love them and I love participating as well. So I think that this is an invaluable resource for you. If you are out there, you’re listening and you’re ready to either write your book or maybe you’ve even already written the book. I’m sure there is a lot of content in that mastermind that can help to move that book along a little bit further.

I wanna throw one more reason out there for writing your book. And it’s about adding to your body of work, to your legacy. And, I think back to my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, if they had written books, I would treasure those. And I know you have a growing family. Congratulations. I just think, imagine when you publish your book that your children are gonna go, Oh, this is mom’s book and someday this is great Grandma Amanda’s book, right? So create that legacy today. 

Take that information that you have and publish it. It’s your point of view. It’s the synthesis of what you have pulled together, you’ve created. It is different from anything else in the universe. Nobody else does what Amanda does. So when you publish it, you capture it and you add to your body at work, you add to your legacy.  

I love that. But if that doesn’t reason enough for anybody that’s listening to write your book, then I don’t know what is. Thank you so much for being here. We truly appreciate you. We appreciate your expertise and I hope that anyone listening is gonna be signing up for your email course because you have to. I’ve already done it so I can tell you that it’s really good.

How to Access Google Business Profile Now that the App is Gone

Welcome to episode 229 of The Determined Moms Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento, and I am very excited to be here with you talking about where in the heck can you access your Google business profile now that the app is gone. So there used to be a Google business app called my business. And I might even still have it installed on my phone. No, I think, yeah, I do. And it was a little like the little icon. 

Now if you still have it on your phone. You can just click manage on maps from there. So you could save that. App and not delete it. And then that way you at least have a very quick way to access your listing. Or you can delete it and then just go to Google maps. If you go to. 

The Google My Business app. It says Google. My business app is no longer available. Manage your business profile, view your performance and connect with customers directly on Google maps and search. Get notifications on Google maps. Learn more. If you click the manage on the search button, it’s going to take you to a list of Google business profiles. So if you have more than one, you’re going to see a list there.

If you only have yours, yours should be the only one that shows up or it’s. It’s going to pop up. All of the information about your business. If you’re on a desktop and you’re like I used to call nine dots on the top right-hand corner. And it used to pop up the little Google business icon. You can still do that. And click on it and what’s going to happen is it’s going to take you right to search.

If you click on the name of your business from the list. And it’s going to show you the options to edit on Google search. This. Handy because you don’t have to worry about it. Finding your listing or any of that stuff you could even go. If you’re logged into the profile, a Google email address, Gmail address, or Google workspace account. 

That you manage your listing from. It’s going to take you. To your listing, if you Google it. So if you’re logged in and you just go. To a Google search. And you the name of your business, which I’m doing right now.

It’s going to bring up a search, but then it’s also going to show you. Search performance for this query. It’s going to show you your search performance. Oh, that’s if you have a Google search console, I recommend it. But if you scroll down, it’s going to say you manage this business profile only visible to managers. And it’s going to show you the name of your business.

How many ratings do you have, you’re just going to go ahead and click on the view profile. It’s going to bring up a box. A box. It’s going to bring up a whole bunch of little icons. And then some boxes underneath with new notifications about your listing. And your listing itself should show up on the right-hand side of your screen. So you’re gonna be able to see what it looks like.

And then you’re going to be able to see your service area, your cover photo, and all of your information there. So that’s how you can access it. It’s very easy. And I do want to point out that there is a little dropdown arrow on the bottom right-hand side of those icons. If you miss that, you’re not going to be able to post an update because they’ve hidden the updates.

Under that little arrow dropdown. So there are a few more. Icons that show. Show up. If you click on that down arrow. And add an update under there. So if you’re looking to add an update, You’re not sure. On that arrow. And that is where you can do that. A lot of things have changed in Google My Business in the last few months. Like so much, I’m moving away from Google My Business app.

And there are so many more but the performance metrics have changed how you can view them. There’s been a lot of glitches recently with reviews and leaving reviews. And if those reviews stay. If they’re marked as spam. I’ve seen a lot of businesses. Start getting reviews that are from local guides.

So the more reviews you leave. The more points Google gives you, the more you can level up to the next badge. It’s almost like a video game. But I’m seeing that. A lot of. People are taking this kind of the wrong way and leaving.

Reviews for businesses that they’ve not legitimately visited, and that can be difficult depending on the kind of business you have, because that particular. A person is making it up and Google is not recognizing it because they are. 

A local guide and they’re trusted. So there are some caveats to every change and every new system, every new incentive, but I do not love the local guide program because of that. If you are having trouble finding how you can access your Google Business Profile. 

We do have a webinar available. That is a replay of one. I think it was in September that we did it because there were so many different updates and that’s when they were going to switch over from the app. From, the ex easy access on your computer too. Maps and search access. So you can go ahead and go to the-marketing.com and you’ll see a little pop-up and you can opt-in to watch that webinar. If you’d like. 

There is a charge for it. It was $37. It’s a one-time fee. And it is chock full of information. Like we go through, I think it’s like an hour and 20 minutes because we go through. Very detailed questions from the audience and just go through and solve every problem that comes to their mind during this webinar. 

I can fast-forward through parts of it. If you already understand parts. But it’s very valuable and it is full of all of the information that you would need. 

How to Sustainably Prioritize Your Health with Ashley Carlotta

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I have the lovely Ashley Carlotta with me today, and we are gonna talk about how to sustainably prioritize your health. So welcome, Ashley. 

Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed listening to your podcast so much. I was listening to the one last night. Responding to your Google reviews. And I was like, oh, I need to get on that. So I went in there and I was doing it. So I follow a lot of what you say. 

That’s good. I’m glad that you took action too. The biggest thing is that listening is one thing. And then, like taking the action and doing it is the other thing, and you’re gonna see results from doing that. I’m excited that you did. Before we get started in talking about this sustainability, go ahead and tell us how in the world you get started in health coaching. 

I always knew that, like I was a people person and I always wanted to create my own business somehow, but I was a tax accountant and I liked getting the scheduled income and having somebody else pay me and all the things. Once I moved to Texas with my family. I became a stay-at-home mom and quickly discovered that stay-at-home mom life is not my favorite thing in the world. At least you’re admitting it. 

Honestly, it’s just, it’s hard and bless all of you moms. Even if you’re not staying at home and you do other things, you’re still doing all the mom things, so after I had my third baby, I wanted to lose the weight that I had gained. I had yo-yo up and down.

My whole life I gained 50 pounds with each pregnancy. I was like, you know what? I am done with this. I started posting my weight loss journey on Instagram, like every normal person I was so vulnerable.

I put myself out there, I put my pictures on there and gradually just started doing it. I have a lot of questions about it. Hey, what are you doing? What diet plan are you doing? What exercise program are you doing? And I’m like, honestly, I’m not doing like any program. I’m just eating sustainably healthy meals. I am prioritizing myself. 

Finally, I’m not making excuses and saying, I’m gonna start every Monday morning again. And. I started helping people, oh what should I have for dinner? Or what workout would you recommend? I was like, you know what? There is something in holding somebody accountable that it just works, and so I started just doing it at first for free for some friends. And then they were like, you should charge for this. 

And so slowly but surely I grew it into a business and I’m just so passionate about it now. Now that I have finally figured out how to maintain my goal weight for a significant amount of time without going back up and then having to diet again, I just love sharing that with other moms and busy professionals and it works. That’s where I’m at and I’ve been doing it for a few years now. 

I love it. I think that the best way to do it is to experience it yourself because. You’ve been to the gym. And you’ve seen like the personal trainer, like the 20-something personal trainer, that’s never had any type of overweight issue in their life and you’re like. Can that person help me lose weight?

Do they have any idea of what it’s about? Like when you’re overweight and then you lose weight and then you gain it back and then that like defeat, does that person have any idea, but I love the fact that you’ve been through it. You shared your journey and you can relate to all of those stages that people go through and all of the thoughts and problems and everything. 

I did go on and I got my health coaching certificate and I did that for a whole year and I studied, but I can tell you that maybe out of the hundreds of clients I’ve had maybe two that are like, so what is your background and what is your certificate in? 

Do you know what I mean? Because they just, most of their Business comes from my Instagram account because they’re watching what I’m doing daily. I will post what I’m eating. I post that I’m getting my workout in.

 I post what I’m emotional about and I don’t feel like doing the things that I’m supposed to do, and I’m working and I have three kids. I think that they just find trust in that. And it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter with all the things that you have behind your name. If you’re showing that you’re living it and doing it. 

That’s so true. And I think that’s a good testimony for any moms that are out there listening that you don’t have to necessarily go through all of that formalization to start doing the thing that you’re interested in doing. I think that’s a really good point to point out. 

I would say start being scared. Do you know what I mean? If you think that you have something to offer the world, Start doing it. And if it doesn’t work out, then stop doing it. 

I love it. So let’s talk about sustainably. That’s a hard word to say, prioritizing our health. How in the world can we do that? Because it’s something, as moms, we’re business owners, we’re busy, we’re always doing something like you said we have the mom hat that we have to wear. We have the business owner hat that we have to wear. 

We probably like the bills, hat, the grocery hat, the, oh. There are just so many hats that we wear. Right now, as we’re recording this, we’re in the back-to-school hat era, and then as this is airing, we’re gonna be in the Christmas shopping holiday shopping era. It’s just difficult to keep that focus on ourselves.

It is. I believe in scheduling, and prioritizing yourself. I just think it’s so important to take care of yourself. Like any other thing that you have on your to-do list? From drinking water, from. Schedule your workouts on the calendar. And my clients are not doing hour-long workouts. Like I give them short, easy bursts to do, like you got 15, 20 minutes.

Even if you need to break this up, if you have like little toddlers in the house, get 10 minutes done in the morning and get 10 minutes done in the afternoon just starting somewhere and starting small, I feel is so key. and making sure that you have the correct groceries that you need in the house ahead of time.

If that means ordering for you is easier getting it delivered, and pick it up without having to go in the store and taking that time. You do have to plan ahead of time. And that is how you can say you can stay sustainable with your weight loss program. 

I need to go back to ordering the groceries and having them delivered. I spend way too much time in the grocery store every week. And because I have a child with allergies. We have to go to four different stores to get everything. So it’s so frustrating. I just need to go back to just ordering and having it all delivered. You’re right.

I feel like when you order it, then you’re already setting yourself up to kind of plan for what you need and why you need it versus when you are going in the store, which is great. I do love going in there to pick out your products and stuff like that, but you end up just buying a bunch of stuff a lot of times, and then it sits in your fridge.

Another way to make sure that you are sticking to your plan is by actually. Washing your fruit and having it readily available for yourself instead of just letting it mold in the fridge and like chopping up some of your veggies, whether that’s your bell peppers or your cucumbers.

I’m telling you to stay consistent with your weight loss. It has to be simple or you’re not gonna continue. You’re not gonna wanna follow these long recipes that take a lot of time keep it simple and make enough so that you can have leftovers for the next day. Make it easy on yourself. 

I love those tips. Oh my goodness. I need to go back to this. I was on track last summer. I lost like 20  or 30 pounds. I don’t know how much. And then I gained a back and then I found out I was pregnant. And so now I’ve gained even more and I’m like, oh my God, I’m gonna have so much weight to lose. 

When this baby comes, it’s going to be so much weight to lose. But you’re right. All of those things are very like, Simple, just adjustments that I could start making now and get that into my habit and routine and prioritize those before the babies come or the baby comes well.

A lot of times especially us working moms who have a meeting after meeting and email, it’s like remembering to just get up and move. Even if you’re just walking, go walk around the, and put something out in the morning that you needed to frost for your dinner. Like some chicken or some Turkey meat for easy tacos.

One of my favorite things is the black bean burgers from Costco. And my whole family will eat them and it takes two seconds to just make them in the frying pan, just flip them over. But I also really encourage you to. Take small steps. And a lot of times when clients come to me and they’re like, okay, I have 50, I have 60.

Some of them have a hundred pounds to lose. Let’s not look to the end of the race. Let’s celebrate each little win along the way. Let’s focus on losing the first five pounds. We’re gonna do it slowly. And the reason why we’re gonna do that stays gone. And when you’re done working with me, you’re not gonna gain it back again. I need you to just take small steps and not change everything at once because you won’t stick to it. 

Not restricting is so important. Like the clients that I work with, they are not on a diet. I always remind them of them. This is not a diet plan. Like you can still go through the drive-through if you’re going to Chick-fil-A for example, like to order the grilled chicken nuggets and get something like a side salad. And if you want a few of your kids’ fries or your husband’s fries or whatever it is great, but don’t order a whole large fry for yourself.

As the holidays are coming, things are busy. There are kids, sports, there are things. So you need to like, look at the menu ahead of time or kind of figure out exactly what you can get so that you can still experience the same thing that your family’s having. And you can get things that you enjoy, but you’re not gonna go overboard and get the huge big Mac with a large fry and the shake.

Like it’s what you do most of the time that matters. And you need to be able to live your life like a normal person. Otherwise, you won’t stick to a healthy lifestyle. Even once you get to your goal weight, you have to allow yourself to have a little bit of dessert or a little bit of alcohol. 

If that’s your thing, I know for me, having a glass of wine is everything. If somebody told me not to do that, it’d be like, okay. I can’t do this program. I won’t be talking to you anymore. 

A question that I have is what you do may not work for everyone and what everyone else does may not work for you, but what do you do? Do you have a specific day of the week that you sit down and say, okay, I’m gonna plan my meals? Do you do it monthly? 

Do you do it for two weeks? Do you do it? Like how do you do that? Like your grocery shopping list, your meal planning, and coordinating all of that. So that way it is easy and you have it done and you can focus on your business and things. 

I am not the type that schedules things out very far in advance, because I know that with my family and stuff, things change all the time. Sometimes you’ll have enough or more leftovers than you thought. So for me, it’s like an every three-day thing. I typically have most of the same. Things for breakfast. I have two or three options that I know are there that I can grab. I always like my protein bars and protein shakes for snacks so that I don’t have to think about it.

For lunch, I also typically have some of the] same things. I’ll either make a salad with some leftover meat and stuff. That’s in the fridge or I love making. Like a deli, Turkey wrap with some avocado and I get this Deja mustard from Trader Joe’s. That’s amazing. So in my mind, I know what I’m gonna have ahead of time, so they don’t have to think about it.

I can just go and do it right. I can take it with me if I’m on the go. Or like even today, before we were having this call, I was doing all these things. So I made sure that I had my lunch just like on my desk, ready to go so I could eat it when I got hungry and I didn’t have to go out there and do a whole. As far as dinner goes. 

I have a whiteboard on my fridge and I usually will write out like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, this is what we’re having. And the Sunday beforehand, I make sure that we have it. And if we don’t, I will go to the store or I’ll order it like on Monday morning or go drive into Walmart and go pick it up.

But I think that you need to give yourself grace and you also need to have I’m not about having the process meals, but there are healthier process meals that you can have, in the fridge frozen stuff that you can take out if you’re just, don’t get the time and you just have to do it quickly, so I will also plan like a day like that, like sometimes. 

For example, Thursday is our Mesos for us. We have all the different activities, all the things going on. I have no shame throwing a frozen pizza or two in the oven. Make sure I have some veggies on it. You can have some of those if you want to. And then I always make a side salad so that you’re still enjoying it. I have a couple of pieces of pizza, but I’m gonna have this big filling salad that fills me up so that I don’t have two or three more. 

I love that. And I love my ADHD brain. I love the fact that you’re not focusing on the entire seven days. You’re only focusing on three days because when I sit down and I think about oh God, I have to pick five or six meals. That’s too overwhelming for me. And then I’m like, ah, I’ll just do it next week.

I love that idea of just doing a few days at a time, like whatever, you can see, whatever, what’s going on in your head. Like you have that calendar in your head. This is what’s going on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and this is what we’re gonna have. I love that. 

It is overwhelming for a lot of moms. And a lot of people will ask me if I provide them with a meal. And I don’t, because again, I think I have ADHD of some sort too, but I haven’t been fully diagnosed, but I also like engram seven, which is very spontaneous. So if somebody tells me that I have to sit down and plan it out completely, that is gonna stress me out. 

Sometimes just in the morning before my husband goes to his office for work, now that everybody’s working from home a lot these days, I’ll be like, Hey, what do you wanna do for dinner tonight? I don’t think that you should be afraid to give that responsibility off, maybe to like your spouse once in a while, too. Why is it always on us to come up with all the food? I like planning all the time.

Sometimes I’ll be like, okay, Wednesday, I need you to plan it. And you know what? It might not be the best thing ever, but at least  I didn’t have to think about it that day. That is a great point. But if I left it up to my husband, no one would ever eat because he doesn’t like eating that much. 

Just where did he come from? Okay, so let me just specify this. He is from west Africa. So if he was eating a homey, Western, African dish, then he would eat it every day. But like American food, he’s like the stuff that the kids like, and that I like, he’s like. That’s a little different in our household.

One thing that helps my husband too, like when I put him on duty, which again is not that often, not often enough now you’re making me wanna do it more, but I always tell my clients like you’re not always gonna have fresh stuff on hand, as it goes quickly like you’ll get a few things and all of a sudden it’s gone.

I always recommend having frozen vegetables and frozen fruit in your freezer. And then also in your pantry, have some canned items too. Like it’s so simple to open a couple of cans of green beans. I have to say a couple now, cause I have a family of five. It’s crazy how much food I have, but, just open it and make it easy.

You don’t have to go through the whole preheating, the oven, and cooking the broccoli now while that’s the healthier thing to do, just open a can, and so I’ll tell my husband. You better make sure there are vegetables too, or a bag of salad, make it easy on yourself.  I love that easy is good. 

Easy is like the name of the game with moms and our schedules and our businesses.  I love that. Awesome. So are there any last tips or ideas or anything that you want to share with the audience? That will help them. Kinda lock in that prioritization, but also the sustainability aspect of it.

I get on board with a good morning routine and it does not have to be long, but I’m telling you if you wake up and you’re not going directly to your phone and opening your email or your social media, I feel like it’s, that’s helpful. So what do I do? When I get up, it’s important to look at one of my Bible verses or a devotional just to get my head right.

And then I’ll go out before my kids go to school and make sure to just talk to them, encourage them for the day. I always make sure that I’m getting my coffee first, and just enjoying that and starting the day with a grateful heart before I stress myself out with all the things that I have to do.

So that is one of the number one things that I will encourage my clients to do. And a lot of them, I do hold them accountable to do like their affirmations or their meditation in the morning. Also, my mom used to always tell me everything in moderation and I used to roll my eyes at her, but I’m telling you, there is something about it.

I think if we all try to aim for moderation instead of that, all or nothing mentality, especially when it comes to your diet, especially when it comes to working out a little bit of each thing is better than doing it all at once. You don’t need to start a workout routine and do your whole hour, like start with 20 minutes.

You don’t need to cut out all your carbs and all your sugar. Just start cutting maybe a little bit of it and adding more things such as drinking more of your water or adding some more fruit and vegetables.

I think that’s helpful for women, especially those who get overwhelmed when they feel that they have a long way to go to get to where they want to be. I wanna remind all of you that it’s not a race, nor should it be at a race, because if it was, then once you get there, you’re just gonna go back up again. 

You’re gonna burn out and be like, oh my God, this is like the name of the game that we’re talking about is sustainability. So it’s not going to be sustainable. You’re gonna get there, hit the wall, and then be like, huh, finally I’m here. And then just, let it go.  I love that. I love it. So how can people find you online and how can they work with you? 

I think the best way is my website is better health by accountability.com and you can get my freebie there. I have lots of tips on how to live like a normal person while losing weight without dieting. So go get that. Then I mostly hang out on Instagram. At better health by accountability. So come say, hi, and send me a DM. And I’m always open to answering any questions you have. 

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with us. It’s a very important thing, and I know as we’re finishing out 2022 and rounding into 2023, this is gonna be as always a pretty big focus for everyone. I think going into it with some ways that we can be. Being sustainably healthy is gonna be important for everyone. 

I would just say, don’t wait, you don’t have to wait till the new year. Do you know what I mean? Like I know maybe your break might be coming up and Christmas is coming up and stuff, but you can start today. You don’t need to just keep eating all the cookies and all the things like you really can. You really can start today, go for a walk. 

What is Google My Business (Google Business Profile) and Why Do I Need It?

Welcome to episode 227 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host. I’m Amanda Tento, and I am very excited to talk to you today about my favorite topic, which is Google My Business, also now known as Google Business Profile, and why you need it. This is a very important topic to me because this is the entire basis of my marketing agency and it.

Getting such amazing results for our clients that I can’t talk to you about it. And the reason that I’m talking to you about it is that no one else talks to you about it. There are very few people if you’re not in tune with the SEO industry in general. 

That is talking about this. There are tons of SEOs that talk about it regularly, but you have to be tuning into SEO blogs and newsletters and subscriptions and webinars and things like that.

And if that’s not your wheelhouse, if that’s not what industry you’re actually in, then you’re not going to be hearing about it. So that’s why I think it’s very important to talk to you about it today. And I’m gonna explain to you what it is, why you should be using it, and I’m hoping that you’re going to go after you listen to this episode and either claim your listing or create your listing.

So what Google Business Profile is, if you get out your phone right now and you were to search for something near me, I always pick Coffee Shop because it’s super easy. Put the coffee shop near me in your search bar, and you’re going to come up. A map and you’re going to have three listings that come up in a little box.

Those listings are the Google business profiles or Google My Business listings of those particular coffee shops. They tell you where they are, how late they’re open, and what their hours are. Sometimes the menu, if they have it set up correctly, they’ll give you their website, a direct link to call. A direct link to.

Click on it to find directions. So all of those things are in there, and they’re very important and very easy. Now, each of those businesses should be managing those listings individually and updating them, keeping them full of all of the information that Google needs to know all of the right information to give to the consumer at any given time.

That’s the whole point of Google My Business or Google Business profiles, is that Google wanted a way to allow businesses to update their information in real-time, as opposed to Google having to manage all of those businesses themselves.

That would be entirely impossible, and I think they finally realized that and they allowed businesses to edit their information. Now, why do you need it? Because people that are ready to buy are going to be searching on Google, right? 

They’re not going to be searching on Facebook for a coffee shop. They’re not going to be searching on Instagram for a coffee shop unless they’ve happened upon one that someone tagged someone in.

All of those things just don’t happen. Most businesses do not get business from social media. However, there are exceptions to that. I’m gonna put that out there. But as a whole, if someone’s ready to purchase something, if someone’s looking for a major purchase like a plumber or electrician or an attorney, they’re gonna be going to Google and they’re gonna read reviews.

So those are really important things to note. Even if someone goes into, let’s say, a mom group on Facebook and asks for a recommendation for a particular type of business, and they get recommendations, I guarantee that they’re also going to Google. and search for those businesses. Look at their listing, and read the reviews, because they don’t wanna have a negative experience.

So why should you be claiming it? Because you need to be there. Your business, no matter what type of business it is, should have a listing. Now you’re going to be asking me, I don’t have a store. I don’t have a brick-and-mortar business that people can come and visit. I work out of my home.

Can I have a listing? The answer is yes, you can, which is great. All you have to do is market as a service-based business that does not accept customer visits at your location. Super simple. I wanna also warn you. That you cannot use a UPS box. You cannot use a US Postal Service box. You can’t use mailboxes, et cetera.

I don’t even know if that store exists anymore, you can’t use any of those types of boxes because they wanna verify that you have an address, that you’re a legitimate business, and that you’re not creating this profile to sell it or to spam or anything like that. So you do need to have a legitimate address, but it will be hidden from maps.

So no one’s gonna be showing up at your house asking for a coaching session. Okay? So that’s the good news. If you haven’t claimed it yet, you just have to go.

And if you’re not sure if you’ve already claimed one five years ago, just literally go and Google the name of your business. If you see something come up on the right-hand side, there’s going to be a little link that says, own this business question mark. Click that, and then you can go through the process of claiming. Okay.

Make sure you fill out everything. Do you need a phone number? Yes, you need a phone number. Do you need an address there? Yes, you need an address in there. It doesn’t have to be a public address because again, if you market as a service-based business, then people will not see it. So keep that in mind as you’re creating, but, you need to fill out everything.

Do you need hours? Yes. You need hours. Do you need attributes? Yes. Mark, everything that you can in there. Okay. Mark it all. And another great way to get a lot of traction is to just post regularly. So on Google, you can post updates, you can do them daily, you can do them weekly, you can do them, whatever.

Google recommends one time per week. In TDM marketing, we post three times per week for all of our clients because that is the magic number that we’ve found over the years to get great traction. And there is a difference, a marked difference in the progress that we see for businesses that we post one time a week, for which we only had one business, that we do that we split three posts.

Plan between two of their businesses. So we’ll post one week, one post one week to post the next week, and alternate between their two businesses. And it works, but it doesn’t work as well as three posts per week per business. And if you’re asking if this client is aware of that, yes they are. We have talked about it extensively and their understanding of that.

And so it is just one of those things, the more you post. The more information you’re giving Google about who you should be served what they’re searching for, what services you provide, and what solutions you offer them. So if you have not done this yet, please just go do it. It takes five minutes.

It’s gonna be the most productive five minutes of your life for the rest of 2022 and potentially 2023 if you’re listening to this in January. So definitely, do it now. You don’t need any excuses. There’s nothing that should be holding you back from this, and it’s super easy.

So if you have any questions about Google Business Profile, visit our website, TDM dash marketing, like the determined mom, t d m-marketing.com and you can always shoot me an email@amandatdmmarketing.com.Thank you.