TERESA CAPALDO

CONTENT STRATEGIST FOR SMALL BUSINESSES & SOLO ENTREPRENEURS

Do you have what it takes?

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Please note: We’ve moved!

Head over to HeartSoulandTech.com and say hello!


do you have what it takes?

My mission is to help women build their business on a solid foundation of confidence, clarity and empowerment. Through long range strategic growth not get rich quick schemes.

If you’re a woman in transition or starting your business over this year, consider whether your mentors and influencers really fit you. If they don’t, cut yourself free! The point of being your own boss is to design a business that aligns with who you are and reflects the lifestyle you desire. For every woman that picture will be slightly to dramatically different. Women often fail following someone else’s blueprint and expecting the same results. It just doesn’t work like that and if anyone tells you it does, they’re lying!

I work with moms and women transitioning from outside employment to self-employment Or moonlighting their dream biz part time. If you really want to create a business based on your passion and life purpose, consider the following:

1. Passion alone is not enough to create steady income or wealth. A strong work ethic and self discipline are required when you’re your own boss because, if you don’t make money it’s not a business and you won’t survive.

2. Before you answer the question, “who do you want to serve” it’s in your best interest to thoroughly investigate and research your business idea. See what comparative businesses exist. What their business looks like and who their clients are. If after doing deep research, your passion and enthusiasm are strong enough you know you’ll stick with it, then and only then should you take the next step.

Don’t start a business based on who do you want to serve! Many online marketing programs teach this and it infuriates me because, you cannot build a viable business pulling an ideal client description out of thin air. To really understand your ideal client you must put yourself out there and actually talk with real live human beings! If you start with the concept of ‘who you want to serve’ without taken the time to research, you’ll likely fail. I wish someone would have been this blunt when I first started. It would have saved me a lot of time and money. Researching your idea is fundamentally critical. It sets the foundation for your business strategy, finding your audience, building strong relationships AND creating products and services for people to buy!

I’ve seen more people fail because they didn’t research their idea, FIRST and pursued a business they really didn’t feel ecstatically committed to. That’s why so many entrepreneurs (myself included) end up starting over. If you don’t have the drive and self-discipline to stick with whatever you think you want to pursue, you will not make money!  You have to LOVE what you do enough to push through the work you DON’T love. When you’re a one person operation there’s a lot at stake. It’s a lifestyle commitment that’s not for everyone!

3. Are you willing to provide value upfront to build relationships and earn trust – In other words; Work For Free, initially? One of the quickest ways to take your business idea for a test drive is to offering free coaching calls, small group webinars, email challenges and deep Q&A conversations in exchange for research and clarity about your idea. Most newbies want the quick solution to make fast money and fall prey to lofty marketing programs that completely skip over the fundamental principles of business. Don’t invest in marketing programs until you’ve done some research! Google is FREE. You have no excuse not to do the research first. All the information you need to determine if your idea is viable or not is at your finger tips. I promise you, if you invest the time into the deeper work initially, you’ll be thanking me in about a year!

 

If you made it this far and you want to learn more about what it REALLY takes to be in business for yourself, book a 15-minute consultation with me. I’m happy to answer your questions. Few coaches and  marketing teachers are brutally honest.

What you read is what you get with me.

I tell it like it is and will do everything I can to help you get started with your success in mind. Foundational work is absolutely key and if you skip over it, you’ll find that out the hard way!

Still interested? Book your call with me at Bit.ly/clearintent Weekend times are available for busy moms! 

Lessons Learned

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owl and flowers

10 Tips To Build With Purpose

Getting to the heart and soul is where real truth and empowerment lies, both in business and life! Lessons learned are teachable moments!

Here are my 10 tips to Build With Purpose:

 

– Focus on CLARITY about your business foundation.

Understand how your business helps others and what the over-riding results, shifts or changes are that they can anticipate. This is critical to your branding and marketing. [Read more…]

Your Greatest Resource

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Your Number One greatest resource is actually Yourself!
You have Instincts, Intuition, Creativity and Energy and those resources are at our disposal every day.
The problem is, we sometimes don’t Trust ourselves and doubt our abilities, value, and ideas. We avoid choosing and taking action because, we fear failure!

1

-What if it’s the wrong choice?
-What if I waste time and money?
-What if I don’t really enjoy it?

Sound familiar? So, we continue doing busy-work but, we’re really not being productive and working towards results.

I’ve struggled with staying on task. Sometimes, I fall into old patterns. Self-discipline can be extremely challenging if you formerly worked 9-5 with structure and a boss. When you first start a business and there’s no income, creating a structure to get up and running is critical. Whether you choose to work early and take time away in the afternoon or ease into your day and work late into the evening, “the work” has to get done if you want to create content to help people and make money. Using your own resourcefulness, ideas and adaptability is key.

Google is the next best thing and the most amazing resource we’ve ever had access to 24/7 and FREE! EVERYTHING you need to figure out with your business has likely already been tried and solved by someone else and definitely researched on Google. If there’s something you need to know and can’t figure it out on your own, Google is the next best resource. In fact, Google is a tremendous resource to research content creation, blog post ideas and services.

Sometimes, what we really want is to give ourselves permission to take action, which is why I started out saying, YOU are actually the greatest resource for your business.

For service-based businesses, here’s 5-Important Tips to consider:

1). Get to Know your audience really well first and foremost! I cannot stress this enough.

2). If you don’t know your audience, offer free consultation calls, surveys and live streaming presentations to get experience. This will also be useful for getting testimonials as well as ideas and AHA’s you didn’t anticipate. I worked with numerous people initially when I first started coaching. I took it very seriously, over-delivered my time and value and my confidence grew quickly.

3). Of course, building a business requires lots of knowledge, new skills and presents an abundance of questions, most of which can be answered on Google, offers, freebies, etc. Many questions around business building require some outside support, expertise and helping hands — BUT, why not use your resourcefulness to figure most things out or at least try. With the exception of coding your own site maybe. Failures, disappointments and glitches always lead to empowerment. As Marie Forleo says, “Everything is figureoutable.”

4). If your biz is a reflection of You, what you care about, stand for, believe in and want to help people with — there’s something very powerful about going the distance to learn experientially what we want to teach because, we will have the experience, not just ‘knowledge’ to build credibility.

5). If you’re putting stuff out into the world with your name on it, I expect you to take great pride in your work, ensuring it fits your audience, reflects you and is not a copy of someone you admire. All this points to Doing The Work.

The entrepreneurial path is actually not just about business and making money, it’s truly journey of deep personal development and growth. That’s why cultivating TRUST in yourself, intuition and instincts is absolutely vital. Courses and Programs don’t offer deeper support on that level typically.

Short term one-to-one coaching with the right fit can help accelerate progress and rejuvenate your creative ideas.

Remember, “Content does not create itself!”

Social media is most effective when you actually have something in place to offer, including free content, live chats and videos.

With Trust in your own resourcefulness, you can and will create a viable business you can be proud of!

Building Social Alliances

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You can’t build a viable business online or offline without alliances. Building social alliances strengthens your visibility, engagement and sense of purpose. Building social alliances is an absolute must if you’re thinking long range.

Building social alliances is all about connectivity and it’s very personal! You can’t create a business that supports other people whether you’re teaching them how to knit or learn tech, without trusting alliances.
Building Social Alliances
Three categories to consider for alliances are; Clients, Peers and Influencers. [Read more…]

Using Social Media

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Understanding social media demographics is essential if you have a business online. It’s necessary to choose the best social platform(s) to connect with your audience and build relationships effectively. Social platforms are an inroad to empower your Know, Like and Trust factor but, you don’t have to be on every platform! Attempting this when your relatively new leads to overwhelm, confusion and lack of progress.

Social is an important part of marketing but, you still have to do the work.

Just a few years back, you had to be an ‘epic’ blogger to captivate your audience. Now-a-days, you also need to have some presence on at least one live streaming platform. Whether it’s Periscope, Blab, SnapChat, MeVee or Meerkat. The point is visibility. [Read more…]