Get Your Hopes Up with Christy Wright

Be More Confident By Believing in Yourself   1:22 Choosing to Believe in Myself 5:59 How to Believe in Yourself 17:51 Faith and Belief with Mignon Francois 51:57 Challenge: The Right Time to Play Small Resources 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner Get going on your goals and make 2020 your best year yet! Order the new Business Boutique 2020 Goal Planner at BusinessBoutique.com/Planner and use the code BBPLANNER to receive Christy's Setting Goals video that you can watch right now! If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. At our company, we get to go to church every single Wednesday. That's right, every Wednesday morning at Ramsey Solutions, our entire team of more than 850 people gets together to hear from amazing speakers, authors and pastors, like Max Lucado, Christine Caine, Donald Miller, Dr. Henry Cloud and Bob Goff-the best of the best. For years, our leadership team has asked Ramsey Personalities, like me, Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruze, Chris Hogan and Anthony ONeal, to prepare one of these devotionals for our company. And to be totally honest, we don't love the idea . . . like, at all. I'll give you four reasons why: It's a lot harder to speak to close friends than it is to speak to complete strangers. When you see the kind of speakers we normally have, it's easy to feel unqualified. We're supposed to teach Scripture, which is intimidating. Committing means writing a talk, practicing and preparing, which is a lot of extra work. All of this together was enough to make me never want to do it. Related: Ep 60: How to Face Your Fears and Do It Scared But you know what they say: Never say never. Choosing to Believe in Myself A couple of years ago, I felt like God was taking me through a season of growth where He was teaching me many different things and stripping me of my pride. One morning over Christmas break, I was sitting on my couch reading my Bible and journaling when, out of nowhere, I did the weirdest thing. I picked up my phone and texted my leader, "Hey, God's been taking me through a season of growth. So, if you ever want me to do a devotional, just let me know." I dropped the phone and couldn't believe that I'd just sent that text. I thought to myself, Why did I do that? I don't want to do a devotional! I don't have any confidence in doing a devotional. My leader texted back almost immediately saying, "Love it. Let's do January 2."-which was one week away! I spent the following week pouring over Scripture, praying, preparing and practicing. It was one of the most exciting and life-giving experiences I've ever been through. Related: Ep 68: Inviting Faith Into Your Business And you know what? I wasn't even nervous. In fact, I felt this deep sense of responsibility to deliver this message that God had so clearly given me. I share this story with you to show you that I still experience imposter syndrome. There are still situations that put me outside of my comfort zone and make me feel unqualified. But if we let these feelings drive our decisions, we'll never step into what God has called us to do. That's why I want to spend some time today talking about believing in yourself and having confidence even when you're scared. Let's get right to it. How to Believe in Yourself There are four things you need to "get" in order to believe in yourself and grow in confidence. 1. Get secure. If we're honest, 99% of our fears, doubts, insecurities and anxieties come from worrying about what other people think about us. But what if you didn't care? If you're secure in who you are and whose you are, then when someone says something hateful on Facebook, or your crazy aunt makes a passive-aggressive comment about a decision you made, it doesn't fluster you. It doesn't rattle you. It doesn't...

LIVE From the Business Boutique Conference 2019!   3:09 I have so many passions and dreams. How do I combine them enough to feel fulfilled, but narrow them down enough to create a focus that creates more success? 12:10 I know I need to set goals, but I don't know how or where to start. How do I learn how to create goals for my business? 16:00 What do you do when you feel like you are spinning your wheels and not moving forward? 20:31 If I launch before my journey is complete, do I risk failing from the start? Or is this simply a case of imposter syndrome? 24:13 What is the best way to handle copycats in your business? 28:24 Where is the first place newbies should start to attract ideal customers? 30:52 How do you create an email marketing plan? 35:27 How do I get my husband to realize, with owning my own business, I have to bring work home? 41:16 I have come from a 7 to 4 job. Now I have a blessing of working my own hours and enjoying my family. I don't want my hours of work to take away from my family. How do I balance my work and family? Resources   2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner Get going on your goals and make 2020 your best year yet! Order the new Business Boutique 2020 Goal Planner at BusinessBoutique.com/Planner and use the code BBPLANNER to receive Christy's Setting Goals video that you can watch right now! If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. This episode is just like having lunch with some of Christy's best friends! Get to know photographer, business strategist, and host of The Jasmine Star Show, Jasmine Star; coach, consultant, and host of the Marketing Your Business podcast, Stu McLeran; comedian, musician, speaker, and host of The Kelsey Show, Kelsey Humphreys; and founder and CEO of The Cupcake Collection, Mignon Francois. They'll answer your questions, and more! This podcast was recorded during our Business Boutique Conference 2019 VIP Lunch in Nashville, TN.

Develop Self-Awareness and Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths   1:21 The Difference Between Goals and Habits 6:24 Five Good Habits to Cultivate in Your Life 20:05 Building Good Habits with Anthony ONeal 42:31 Challenge: A New Habit for the Decision-Making Process Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. Business Boutique Academy Waitlist We are opening enrollment for the Business Boutique Academy on October 25! Text the code ACADEMYWAITLIST to 33444 to sign up for the Business Boutique Academy Waitlist and be notified the moment enrollment opens! 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner Get going on your goals and make 2020 your best year yet! Order the new Business Boutique 2020 Goal Planner at BusinessBoutique.com/Planner and use the code BBPLANNER to receive Christy's Setting Goals video that you can watch right now! If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. There was a season in my life when I'd get up every single morning at 4 a.m. to work out. There was a season in my life when I'd get up every single morning at 4 a.m. to work out with my friend Rachel Cruze at our local YMCA. Yes, you read that correctly-4 a.m.! We got up day after day, week after week, and month after month at that crazy, early hour. Honestly, we didn't have any lofty goals. We didn't even necessarily want to lose weight. We simply wanted to be healthier-and, I'm telling you, it paid off. I was in the best shape of my life. Do you know why I saw such improvement in that season? It wasn't because I exerted high, intense effort over a short amount of time. It was the result of being consistent with a new habit over a long period of time. The result was looking better and feeling better-and y'all, I even had biceps! Related: Ep 82: Succeed at Anything By Understanding the Importance of Discipline You know, when I look back at the last 10 or 15 years of my adult life, it's easy to pinpoint the reasons why some years were really good and others were not so good. I can almost always trace the good or bad of any particular season to the habits I was cultivating (or not cultivating) that year. Believe it or not, getting up at 4 a.m. to work out with my friend wasn't super difficult. Sure, getting started that first week was hard. But after that, it got easier and easier because it became a habit. It became something I did without thinking. The Difference Between Goals and Habits We talk about goals all the time-y'all know what a major role they play in my life. But goals are different from habits. Goals tend to have a starting point and an ending point. They're an intentional action where you take initiative to do something new, big and impressive. Related: Ep 38: Hitting Big Goals By Winning Small Habits aren't exactly like that. Habits are a recurring action you commit to doing day in and day out. They're often not new, big or impressive. They're small changes and tiny tweaks you make to your daily routine. When you first start to cultivate a good habit, it feels insignificant and like you're not making much of a difference. But over time, you begin to see the dramatic impact they can have on your life. For example, cultivating a good habit might look like: Choosing water over Coke every time you eat out at a restaurant Reading Scripture first thing in the morning rather than scrolling through Instagram Those are tiny, unimpressive habits. But over time, as you continue choosing water over Coke and Scripture over Instagram, you'll notice a change in your life. And it...

Develop Self-Awareness and Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths   1:22 What Is Self-Awareness? 6:32 Three Ways to Become More Self-Aware 18:53 Becoming Self-Aware Through the Enneagram with Ian Cron 40:56 It's Not the Thought That Counts Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. Business Boutique Academy Waitlist We are opening enrollment for the Business Boutique Academy on October 25! Text the code ACADEMYWAITLIST to 33444 to sign up for the Business Boutique Academy Waitlist and be notified the moment enrollment opens! 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner Get going on your goals and make 2020 your best year yet! Order the new Business Boutique 2020 Goal Planner at BusinessBoutique.com/Planner and use the code BBPLANNER to receive Christy's Setting Goals video that you can watch right now! If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. I've always been a huge fan of personality assessments. DISC, Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder-they all fascinate me. I love reading the results of these different assessments because they're usually pretty positive. You get an entire report that focuses on your strengths-who wouldn't have fun reading that? Well, earlier this year, my friend Rachel Cruze convinced me to take a different kind of personality assessment: the Enneagram. I took the test, not expecting to learn anything new about myself. But y'all, I was so wrong. This assessment was so different from any other I'd ever taken. Rather than telling me what I was good at, this assessment revealed all of my weaknesses (Some I didn't even know I had!), and the deeper motivations and fears associated with those weaknesses. Related: Ep 79: Take Control of Your Life With the Power of Personal Responsibility Not only did I feel like there was finally a personality assessment that truly understood me, but I also felt like it helped me understand myself better. Learning about the Enneagram has been transformational for me. It's made me so much more self-aware. And you know what? Knowing your weaknesses and being self-aware is one of the best gifts you can give to both yourself and those around you. What Is Self-Awareness? Being self-aware is about knowing your strengths and your weaknesses. For example, self-awareness is about knowing how you come across to others-not just your intentions, but how you actually come across. I've noticed a pattern in my life where people describe me as being intense and aggressive. But here's the thing: I don't intend to be aggressive, and I don't think I'm intense. I describe myself as enthusiastic and passionate. I'd never use the words intense or aggressive. But you know what? After hearing enough people use those words to describe me, I started to pay attention. It turns out, intense and aggressive is how I come across to other people. Do you know what paying attention to those patterns did for me? It gave me a better understanding of how I actually come across to people so I could learn to adjust my tone, behavior or volume level based on who I'm talking to. It's pretty easy to be self-aware when it comes to our strengths, isn't it? And it's important to know what your strengths are so you can leverage them in your life and your business. But I want to spend this episode talking about the other side of the coin: what we should do with the not-so-good stuff. Three Ways to Become More Self-Aware We all have blind spots. You know what a blind spot is, right? Think about when you're driving in the car and want to change lanes. You...

Succeed at Anything By Understanding the Importance of Discipline   1:21 What Is Discipline? 5:05 What Does Daily Discipline Look Like? 14:14 How to Become More Disciplined 20:42 Maximizing Social Media for Your Business With Jasmine Star 40:56 Challenge to Just Be You Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. Business Boutique Academy Waitlist We are opening enrollment for the Business Boutique Academy on October 25! Text the code ACADEMYWAITLIST to 33444 to sign up for the Business Boutique Academy Waitlist and be notified the moment enrollment opens! 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner Get going on your goals and make 2020 your best year yet! Order the new Business Boutique 2020 Goal Planner at BusinessBoutique.com/Planner and use the code BBPLANNER to receive Christy's Setting Goals video that you can watch right now! If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. I have a lot of feelings-even my feelings have feelings. The worst part is, my feelings can easily drive my actions. But you know what I've learned? If you build your business, your life, your dreams, or your goals based on feelings, you're going to be on one heck of a roller-coaster ride. One day you'll be up (excited, motivated and charging forward) and another day you'll be down (tired, disappointed and on the brink of quitting). That's why I think it's so important to talk about a skill that will help you create stability (something feelings don't have) as you reach for your goals and chase your dream. What's that skill? Discipline. I know, discipline is not an exciting topic. In fact, the word itself can have a negative connotation. You might think of the word in terms of disciplining your children or being disciplined in school or at work. But that's not the kind of discipline we're talking about. We're talking about being a disciplined person. Why is discipline important? Because discipline will help you be successful no matter what dream you're chasing-it's that simple. Related: Ep 58: Perseverance in Your Business: How to Keep Going When You Want to Give Up What Is Discipline? Like so many qualities I teach about, discipline is not a gene only some people are born with. Discipline is a choice and a skill you can learn. You can actually cultivate discipline in your own life, even if you don't feel like it comes naturally to you. The author Stephen King is a great example of this. He's written countless bestselling books- many of which have become box office hits. He says there is one reason behind his success. You guessed it: discipline. In fact, he doesn't even believe in writer's block. He says it's just an excuse writers use when they don't have any motivation to write. Talk about some tough love. Stephen King writes 10 pages a day, even on birthdays and holidays. While you definitely won't find me working on Thanksgiving or Christmas, I love the emphasis he places on the importance of discipline in making your dream a reality. I believe your success is not dependent upon your situation, your feelings, or how nice the weather is. It's dependent upon your level of discipline. I love how my friend Christine Caine puts it: Vision will inspire you, but discipline will get you there. What Does Daily Discipline Look Like? When you break it down, discipline in your day-to-day life is pretty straightforward. It looks like: Following through on what you said you were going to do, even when you don't want to Holding yourself accountable, even when no one is watching Honoring...

Balancing Social Media in Business and in Life   1:20 Five Ways You Can Create a Healthy Balance with Social Media 18:51 Maximizing Social Media for Your Business With Jasmine Star 40:20 Challenge to Just Be You Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. Business Boutique Academy Waitlist We are opening enrollment for the Business Boutique Academy on October 25! Text the code ACADEMYWAITLIST to 33444 to sign up for the Business Boutique Academy Waitlist and be notified the moment enrollment opens! 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner  The NEW Business Boutique Goal Planner is almost here! join the waitlist today by texting BBPLANNER to 33444. If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. Let's be honest: Social media is hard to balance. Most of us have a love-hate relationship with it, right? We love to check Instagram and know what's going on. But then we hate ourselves for wanting to check it all the time. When we open Facebook multiple times a day, we feel guilty for not paying more attention to our kids or our work. So, we swing between two extremes: being on social media all the time or feeling like we can't be on it at all. That's why I think it's so important to talk about how to balance social media. Because the truth is, social media in and of itself isn't evil. It's all in how we use it. In fact, social media has a ton of great benefits: It allows you to stay connected with family and friends who live far away. It gives you a place to share exciting updates-from new babies to new homes. It's like having a giant virtual album of multiple years of your life. It allows you to connect with different groups of people who have similar passions. When it comes to your business, it's free marketing! I want you to take advantage of these awesome benefits, but I still want to encourage you to build healthy boundaries around your screen time so it doesn't consume your life. Here are Five Ways You Can Create a Healthy Balance with Social Media: 1. Know when not to use it. There are times to use social media, and there are times not to use social media. Some examples of times you shouldn't use it are when you're: Having dinner with your family On a date with your spouse Having lunch with a friend In the middle of any kind of conversation with another human being Related: Ep 70: How to Be Content in Every Situation  When you check social media while someone is trying to spend quality time with you, you communicate that they're not as important as whatever is happening on your phone. To avoid the temptation to even look down at your phone when you're spending time with someone, put it out of sight completely. Before you take out your phone to check what everyone else is doing or to post what you're doing, you can also ask yourself some important questions like: Is it more important that I know what everyone else is doing right now, or is it more important that I experience what I'm doing? Is it more important that the outside world knows what I'm doing right now, or is it more important that I experience it myself? I'm willing to bet, almost every single time, these questions are no-brainers. So put your phone down. Keep it in your purse or your pocket and be where your feet are. Be present in the moment. 2. Pick your balance. I can give you all the tips and tricks to balance social media, but at the end of the day, you have to decide the types of boundaries you need. You have to decide what time you're on and what time you're off, and what times...

Dream Bigger and Build the Life You Want   1:24 Why We Stop Dreaming and Three Steps to Dreaming Bigger 21:17 Pursuing Your Wildest Dreams With Bob Goff 48:47 Encouragement to Remember that God is a Personal God Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner  The NEW Business Boutique Goal Planner is almost here! join the waitlist today by texting BBPLANNER to 33444. If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. Growing up, I had this aunt named Gloria who I thought was the coolest person around. She was beautiful, independent, drove an amazing car, and had a Rottweiler who went everywhere with her. But the coolest thing about her was that she lived on a farm by herself. She had horses, chickens, pigs, goats and everything that went along with the ideal farm life I fantasized about. To me, her life looked like the greatest life ever. I would often look at her and think, That's who I want to be. That's the kind of life I want to have. Well, fast-forward a few years to my early 20s when I was working 80 hours a week at a nonprofit. I was looking to downsize from a three-bedroom apartment with roommates to a one-bedroom apartment where I could live on my own. During my search, I came across an ad in the newspaper for a 40-acre farm for rent just two miles from my job-not exactly downsizing, but gasp! I immediately picked up the phone and called the number on the ad. It was perfect for me. Okay, so I couldn't afford the rent they were asking for, I had no idea how to run a farm, and I was working insane hours at my day job. So, if we're being completely honest, it didn't make any sense at all-everything about it was impractical. But, y'all! It was my dream to live on a farm, so you better believe I wasn't going to let "practical" stop me from pursuing it. Related: Ep 60: How to Face Your Fears and Do It Scared The next day, I went to visit the farm in person. Once I left, I scrounged up enough money for the deposit and moved in a few days later. At 23, I was living my farm dream. Sure, I had to start a side business boarding horses in the empty stalls so I could afford the rent, but I couldn't have been happier. Looking back on that experience, I could've easily missed out on living out that dream. Because the dream wasn't happening on the time line I thought it would happen on (like in my 50s when I'd have more money, a spouse and kids), it would've been easy to convince myself that it wasn't the right time. But you know what? More often than not, dreams aren't practical, and they certainly don't always come to life in practical ways. Thinking practically is just one of the many reasons our dreams get smaller and smaller as we get older. Why We Stop Dreaming It's so easy to dream when you're little, isn't it? You believe you can do anything, be anyone, and accomplish all the big dreams in your heart. But at some point, life-and other people-gets to you. You get bogged down by people telling you to do more practical things that have a guaranteed path to success. So your dreams slowly start to fade into the background. Related: Ep 74: Find Your True Self and Get Back to You And if you do dream, you play it safe. You keep your dreams small and doable so you can control and contain them. You also convince yourself that dreaming any bigger is selfish when so many people (your kids, your husband, your church, etc.) are counting on you. Does that "logic" sound familiar? So often, we women believe our heart's desires are...

Take Control of Your Life With the Power of Personal Responsibility   1:25 Three Reasons You Might Not Be Accepting Personal Responsibility 19:39 The Importance of Personal Responsibility with Rachel Hollis 33:12 Encouragement to Choose Could Over Should Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner  The NEW Business Boutique Goal Planner is almost here! join the waitlist today by texting BBPLANNER to 33444. If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. Taking control of your life sounds like a nice idea, doesn't it? But let's be real: So often we feel like we actually don't have any control at all. We feel like we're tossed left and right by the seasons of life and the people in our life. You know what, though? We actually have more control than we think we do. Your situation right now might be really hard-maybe it's harder than anything you or I have ever been through. But here's the great news: That's not your only story, and it's certainly not the end of your story. You Can Take Control of Your Life If you've ever seen the hit ABC show Shark Tank, you know the story of how Daymond John built his clothing company, FUBU, from nothing. Daymond was raised by a single mother. When he was 10, he started working to help his mom make ends meet. The hip-hop movement inspired him to start a clothing line, so he started sewing sweat shirts and hats in his mother's living room. (By the way, when he first officially launched his clothing company, he was still working as a server at Red Lobster!) Today, FUBU has brought in more than six billion dollars in global sales.1 Let's look at one more example: Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. (Who else is grateful for this shapewear brand?) Nobody handed Sara her fame and fortune on a silver platter. In fact, she failed the LSAT twice, worked as a chipmunk character at Disney World, and even spent seven years selling fax machines door to door before she ever started working on her idea for Spanx. When she pitched the idea for Spanx, she was met with rejection after rejection, until finally she convinced one manufacturing company to produce her product. Today, Sara is one of America's richest self-made women.2 Do you know what stories like those reveal to me? We often fall into the trap of believing our situation is impossible to climb out of. Meanwhile, others-like Daymond and Sara-are refusing to be defined by their circumstances. Instead, they're taking control of their lives and changing the outcome. Related: Ep 70: How to Be Content in Every Situation The truth is, you have control in the good and the bad times. The way you view your life-and your belief about the amount of control you have-will have a major impact on how your life turns out, whether you reach your goals, and how your story unfolds. Your ability to take control of your life is connected to the amount of personal responsibility you're willing to take. It's also connected to the amount of determination you choose to have in your life. The important thing to note here is that taking personal responsibility for your life is more dependent on you, your choices, your beliefs and your actions than anything else going on around you. Whatever your situation, I know it's real. I'm not discounting what you're going through-I know your situation is a factor in your ability to be successful. But I also believe your circumstances should not define you. Because there is a person who can change circumstances, who can fix broken...

How to Be Successful at Anything by Starting Small   1:21 The Importance of Starting Small 6:06 How to Start Small 21:07 #AskChristyWright Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. We have a bad habit of calling successful people an overnight success-as if they just woke up one day on top of the mountain. But, in most cases, that's just not true. In reality, most successful people started small doing something unimpressive. Here are just a few examples I can think of: Television pioneer Oprah Winfrey started her career as a news anchor in Nashville, Tennessee-way before it was the cool and popular city it is today.1 Y'all, she was even demoted once from an anchor job she had in Baltimore.2 (I bet that person still regrets that to this day!) And then there's self-made millionaire Dave Ramsey. He grew his business from a card table in his living room to a multimillion-dollar company with more than 850 team members-and he's helped millions get out of debt and change their family tree. Did you know that world-famous author J.K. Rowling was living on welfare when she wrote the first Harry Potter book?3 And finally, let's talk about Ellen Latham-a name many may not recognize. But I bet they recognize the name of the business she started: Orangetheory Fitness. The massively successful chain of fitness studios actually started in a spare room of Ellen's house.4 Do you see what I'm talking about? The early stages of their careers did not look impressive by any means. But, eventually, because they were consistent and refused to let their humble beginnings define them, their careers surpassed even their wildest dreams. Related: Don't Be Sorry for the Struggle The Importance of Starting Small Let's just go ahead and acknowledge that starting small is not fun. You're probably not going to update your friends about it any chance you get, or post pictures about your journey on Facebook. But you know what? Starting small is actually one of the most important steps in building your business-or anything for that matter-wisely. That's why it's so important to give yourself permission to be a beginner. Aside from the fact that it works and is proven, starting small makes your dreams and your goals so much more attainable. As you begin to think about your big dreams and goals, what usually happens? Fear creeps in, doesn't it? You start to doubt that any of your dreams are even possible, because they're just too big and overwhelming. But when you embrace the idea of starting small, your dream doesn't feel so crazy after all. How to Start Small The commitment to start small requires persistence, dedication and a go-getter attitude-qualities I know you've got in you! That's why I want to give you a few do's and don'ts that you can use as a guideline as you chase your dreams. 1. Don't wait until you're ready. "Ready" is a myth. Because let's be real-do we ever feel ready for anything in life? Related: How to Be More Confident There'll always be a new doubt or excuse that will try to convince you it's just not time yet. But the truth is, the only way you figure anything out for yourself is by doing it-by learning on the job. Early on in my career, I learned something important: Say yes before you know how. When an opportunity comes your way and you don't feel ready, qualified or educated enough, it doesn't matter. Just get out there and get moving-ready or not. 2. Do take baby...

How to Attract More Customers to Your Business   1:21 Four Ways to Find More Customers 17:29 Attracting New Customers to Your Business with Reina Pomeroy 33:23 Encouragement That That Will Transform Every Relationship Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24-26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don't want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. "Christy, how do I get more customers?" The most common question I'm ever asked-more than questions about social media, goal setting or time management-is how to get more customers. I get this question almost every single day. But before we go any further, I need to bust a myth you might be believing that is keeping you from getting more customers. For as long as I can remember, I've heard people say: "If you build it, they will come." How many times have you heard that line? How many times have you believed that simply creating a website meant people would visit? Or opening a store meant people would stop in? Related: Market Research: How to Know What Your Customers Want I hate to tell you this, but it's just not true. No matter what you build, customers don't show up out of the blue. Why not? Because . . . They're busy. They're distracted. They're tired. They have hundreds of other messages vying for their attention. We have to stop building these big, awesome, impressive things and wondering why customers aren't showing up. We have to do something different. Instead of sitting back and waiting for customers to come to you, it's time for you to go after your customers. You have to figure out where your ideal customers hang out and build relationships with them. And only then, when you've added value to their lives, can you invite them to become a customer. So, how do you actually do that? I've got four different tips to get you started! Four Ways to Find More Customers   1. Get scrappy. Some of you are sitting around waiting for some sophisticated formula or fool-proof plan to attract more customers. I hate to break it to you, but business doesn't work that way. Business is a science and an art, which means that while there are certainly best practices to keep in mind, there's no perfect path to success. Most business owners become successful not because they're sophisticated, but because they're really stinkin' scrappy. They're willing to get their hands dirty and try a bunch of different things to get the word out. They're willing to show up at other businesses with donuts, coffee, samples and a business card. They're not afraid to pick up the phone and do some cold calling. The bottom line is, you have to be willing to do the hard work of building relationships-and that takes a whole lot of scrappiness. 2. Get referrals. When you need your hair colored or your house cleaned, who do you want to hire? Someone you trust, right? And how do you find someone you trust? You ask your friends! Y'all, this is so important! Referrals are just another way of describing word-of-mouth marketing-the most effective form of marketing. The best part is, it's free! So, if you're not actively incentivizing your current clients to refer their friends and asking them for testimonials, you're missing out on an amazing opportunity to find new customers. 3. Improve your marketing. I want you to take a good look at your marketing efforts as a whole. Look at the different ways you're marketing your business-from your website to your social media posts and the emails you send. Then I want you to ask yourself:  Is the design clean and beautiful? Is the copy clear?...