Finding Clarity When Starting a New Project

Reflecting on a year of this podcast, it also made me think about how to find clarity when working on any new project. It often starts with the basics - who, what, when, where, how and why. Connect with me on your favorite platform: https://pods.link/aardvarkgirl -- It’s officially been a year since the “Business for Self-Employed Creatives” podcast launched. Some of you have been with me since day one, some found it later on, and this might be the first episode you’ve ever heard. No matter what, I appreciate that you’re here. This episode is about reflecting on how I got here, but also about the steps I took and how those can apply to starting any new project. In 2019, I started The Womanpreneur Podcast with my friend Melissa Moats. We had a proper studio and a team of great people who helped us look and sound our best. Then the pandemic came along in 2020 and complicated things. We tried for a short time to keep going, recording remotely via Zoom like so many others, but neither of us had the time or desire to learn how to do everything ourselves. We decided it was time to retire the podcast. That decision was the right one, but I also didn’t want to lose the momentum of the podcast. I had wanted to start it as an additional business tool. A way to connect with a new audience and share what I’ve learned throughout my career in hopes of helping others. I had a lot of fun chatting with Melissa every week, but I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to manage two brands. I found myself prioritizing that podcast because it involved someone else. Meanwhile, I wasn’t doing anything to help Aardvark Girl. With the extra time on my hands from production being shut down, I put my focus back on my own brand and pulled out the list of projects I’d been wanting to work on but never seemed to find time for. I saw that a lot of people were struggling, not knowing what to do because of what was happening in the world. During lockdown, I offered free business coaching for anyone who needed it. I helped people navigate the loan options that were available to them. I helped them figure out ways to be more productive with their time. I helped them brainstorm new ways to make money since the old ways were unavailable. It reminded me why I wanted to start my business in the first place – to help others in their businesses. At the same time, I had been working with Tansy Aster Creative to redesign my website and found more clarity about what I wanted to be doing. I decided I should still do a podcast, but one that was a true extension of my brand. It would be a way to offer the same type of help I was giving my coaching clients, but making it accessible to anyone who wanted to listen for free. I had a lot to figure out since I knew I would be doing this by myself. Fortunately, I have a lot of practice doing things by myself. And this was essentially like starting any new project, so I approached it with that framework in mind. It’s always good to start with the basics. Can you answer the standard six questions – who, what, when, where, how and why? The who was pretty easy for me to identify. For simplicity, I would be the only host. I would continue doing interviews because I really enjoy those conversations and think it’s important to offer different points of view because we can all find success in different ways. The target audience would be the same one I had already carved out for my consulting business. I was focused on single person, or very small, businesses because I felt I could make the most difference there. The bigger the business, the more complicated solutions become, and there are plenty of people out there for that. I want to help those creative individuals who were doing their own thing but didn’t know how to balance their talent with running a business. So self-employed creatives became my niche. And, in taking a note from Melissa and her husband who always said it’s best to name a business what it is, that’s what I call