✨ February Biz Forecast — Fun Trends, Biz-Care Recs & Taking Inspo from Selena Gomez
Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. Hello, and welcome to off the grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby. I am the founder of softer sounds podcast studio, the cofounder of the lifestyle business league, and as you might have guessed, the host of this here show. If you're new around here, welcome to the show.
Amelia Hruby:This season, we are sharing weekly episodes every Wednesday from January through the end of June. And in those episodes, you can expect interviews or solo chats with me where we're gonna talk about marketing strategies, marketing experiments, as well as some creative business journeys that inspire me and hopefully you to feel like you can do things differently in your business and your marketing. Today, I am popping into your pod feed with a new type of episode that I am experimenting with this season, which is a monthly business forecast episode. So what is a business forecast? Well, you know, I don't totally know, but I've noticed that as the show has been growing, I've been having so many amazing conversations and filling our episode calendar with really great marketing advice, and I've lost some space to hop on the pod and share more with you about what's happening in my own business and some of the trends I'm seeing that maybe I'm not sure need a whole episode yet, but that I'm really excited about watching them emerge.
Amelia Hruby:So in these monthly forecast episodes, I'm gonna do a few things. I am going to share a few marketing trends that I'm into this month. I'm gonna talk about a couple of biz care tasks that are on my radar that maybe you want to be doing for yourself in the month ahead as well, and then I'm gonna give you a sneak peek about what's coming up for the show in the month ahead so that you have some things to get excited about. And if all goes well, maybe I will even do some listener q and a's at the end of these episodes as well. Of course, that involves audience participation.
Amelia Hruby:So send me your questions, my friends, or stick around till the end to learn how to submit those so I can give you marketing advice here on the podcast. And then join me in diving into our 1st ever biz forecast. This one is for February 2024. Okay, beauties. We're kicking things off with some marketing trends that I'm into right now.
Amelia Hruby:So the first trend that I have really been enjoying is world building. I hesitate to even call world building a trend because that feels like it diminishes it. But I think as a concept, it's something that I'm seeing emerge more and more in conversations around marketing right now. So one of those places I'm seeing it emerge is with my friend, Kinning Xu's work. Kinning will be on the podcast later this spring, and she's been writing a lot about how she's been crafting her digital ecosystem over the past 10 years and the ways that she's built a website that feels like a world of its own and is now magnetically attracting people to her business through the magic and power of SEO, as well as referrals and just general Internet magic, my friends.
Amelia Hruby:So I've really been into these ideas of world building and digital world building that Kinning is creating. I have also really been enjoying emails and podcast episodes from Ayanna Zeyer Khatun, who is the creator of CIDA School. And on her podcast and in her business, she's been talking a lot about world building as a black feminist practice and grounding our business development and offering development within those traditions. And I think that this is a really integrated and expansive way of thinking about building a business. And I will link to her newsletter and back to Kenning's work, starting to think of your website as a world that you can be building.
Amelia Hruby:Or back to Kenning's work, starting to think of your website as a world that you can be building. And not only that, but what are the worlds that we're building with our work, and how are we building the worlds that we want to see and inhabit and cocreate together as opposed to just making our businesses places where we are duplicating the values and ideologies of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. And, like, who wants more of that? I certainly don't. I want my business to be a place where me and all of the people who take part in it are able to dream and do things differently.
Amelia Hruby:So first trend, it's all about world building. The second trend I have been into is a little late to the game, but something I thought I'd still mention here on the podcast because it brought me a lot of delight last month. So the second trend is Selena Gomez's 18 hour social media break. So Selena Gomez, our favorite pop artist, has a history of taking these super short social media breaks, like announcing she's leaving social media and then being back in apparently less than 24 hours. So what I love about this as a trend is I just think that we're seeing more and more broadly how uninhabitable social media is for people at every scale of follower size.
Amelia Hruby:Whether you have 10 followers or 10,000,000 followers, the space of Instagram particularly is just feeling so bad to everyone, Selena Gomez included. And I think what makes me chuckle about this trend is that it also feels inescapable. Like, it feels uninhabitable and inescapable, and I think that that bind is what's bringing people to this here podcast. Welcome, my friends, if you've ever felt this way. But when it's illuminated on this, like, broad scale with famous celebrities, I just think we're seeing more and more of how untenable these platforms are for building businesses or careers on, and I'm hoping that this trend is encouraging more and more of us to start to imagine how we can do our marketing differently, build our businesses differently, and frankly, like, live our lives differently.
Amelia Hruby:So that's another trend I've been into this month. The 3rd trend I'm gonna highlight here that I've really been appreciating is that this month I am super into really thoughtful on being a human being who runs a business in a time of global crisis. So I may not have mentioned it on this podcast, but I have been paying a lot of attention to what's happening in the world, particularly what's happening in Palestine right now. And I've also been paying attention to the writers, artists, business owners in my life who have been speaking out very vocally and clearly about the work that they're doing to support Palestinian Liberation efforts, to learn and unlearn what they may have known or not known about Israel and to think of their platforms as places where they can do public political activism, but also to think about what it means to do that and if we have an obligation to do that or not. These are conversations I've been having with the people I'm close to and have really admired how other people are having them much more publicly.
Amelia Hruby:So I will just say that I've really enjoyed reading Cody Cook Parrot's personal essays on this on their newsletter Monday, Monday. I also really appreciated that the music licensing business, Marmoset, which I use all the time through Softer Sounds. In December, they shared how they've donated $20,000 to humanitarian efforts in Gaza, and I'm just really observing and taking in and integrating what I see other, again, writers and artists and business owners doing so that I can make decisions about how I wanna show up and how I wanna discuss political crises and things happening in the world in my business and in my life. So that's our 3rd marketing trend I'm into right now, is people just being really open and reflective about how their business intersects with things happening in the world and with their politics. And now that you've got my 3, I am so curious about what marketing trends you are paying attention to right now, you are noticing right now.
Amelia Hruby:And if you wanna share them with me, send me an email, send me a voice note. All the links to do that are in the show notes. Okay. Moving on from marketing trends. This is our February biz forecast, and I wanna tell you about a couple of the biz care tasks that are on my radar this month.
Amelia Hruby:For me, biz care is like self care but for my business. So, like, what are the things that I need to be doing this month to take care of my business and that perhaps you too might want to consider doing this month? So number 1, it is tax prep time. The IRS officially starts accepting taxes on February 1st, which means that we can start submitting our taxes. If you are a beautiful golden angel who's already ready to do that, I am not, but at the very least we can start gathering all of our documents, making sure we have our ducks in a row.
Amelia Hruby:If you do your taxes yourself, making sure you can find your Intuit or TurboTax or whatever account. For me, it's getting in touch with my accountant and saying, okay. Here's what I've got. What am I missing? All of that I like to do in February so that I can spend March just, like, finalizing and filing.
Amelia Hruby:And I am definitely somebody who, if I haven't filed my taxes before April, I am stressed, so I like to get it done in advance. So, you know, maybe if you're a more tax avoidant person, consider this a gentle invitation to start early this year. Or if you're way ahead of me and you've already done this, go you. It's tax prep time. That's our 1st February biz care task.
Amelia Hruby:Okay. My second February biz care task is website cleanup. So I don't know about you, but for me, February is typically a kinda slower month in my business, and I find that this means it's a really good time to just, like, go reread every page of my website and clear up, you know, any typos, anything that's new or different, anything I don't do anymore, anything I just want to sound better, and that practice really helps me just keep things tidy. I like to do it once or twice a year, and then my website is like Chloe and glistening and dewy and wonderful all the rest of the year. Maybe, sort of, I don't know.
Amelia Hruby:But I think that February is a good time to do this. Now, you know, I say, like, I read every page in my website. You may have a website that has, like, hundreds of pages, so I just would go with your, like, top menu pages, But, again, this is a great time. Make sure that you are catching typos. Make sure that you are updating your pricing.
Amelia Hruby:Make sure that you are actually, like, selling the things that you sell or talking about the things that you do, make sure your bio's updated, make sure your contact form actually works. You know, all that kind of stuff is great to do in February. And our number 3 biz care task for the month of February is to love on your clients. So I know that Valentine's Day gets a bad rap for being a super corporate holiday, but I am here to say that I fucking love it. I am a fan of Valentine's Day of Galentine's Day, and I like to bring that energy to my business as well.
Amelia Hruby:So I like to take some time in February to love on my clients. Sometimes that means sending them Valentines in the mail. This year, I'm hosting a client appreciation party, which is a fun little Zoom call where we do client superlatives, and I give away prizes, and everybody gets to meet each other. For you, it could simply be that you send each client a thank you email this month, and that's the way that you love on your clients, or maybe you send all your clients a care package. I don't know what exact structure your business has or how big your client community is, but I think that February is just a great time to take a minute to check-in, to show them a little love, and, you know, maybe to kinda stoke some referrals to kinda, like, build that goodwill, fan that fire so that you're seeing more business for the rest of the year.
Amelia Hruby:So, again, our 3 biz care tasks for February are basically tax prep time, website cleanup time, and love on your clients' time. Now what's coming up on off the grid this month? So if you want a sneak peek of what's gonna hit the pod feed, we are going to continue our 24 in 2024 series. So that'll keep going next week with an episode on 24 ways to nurture your biz community just in time for this February client love. We will also have an episode later in the month on 24 ways to make more sales, which could really kick start your spring plans if you're hoping to increase revenue in q 2.
Amelia Hruby:Also on the podcast this month, I had an amazing conversation with Kristen Drozdowski of Worthwhile Paper, which is one of my favorite paper goods and stationery stores. She's been in business for 10 years as of this year, and we have a conversation about kind of her journey selling physical products and how that evolved from starting at markets to these major wholesale accounts to kind of pulling back to her own creative practice. And we also talk about her decision to leave Instagram as a small arts business, and she kinda becomes, I think, the first product based business owner I've talked to about leaving Instagram. And it's just a really great conversation. You're gonna love it.
Amelia Hruby:It's coming to you on Valentine's Day, so look forward to that. And then also, I'm gonna have a conversation on the feed with Samara Bey. So Samara wrote a book called Permission to Speak that is fantastic. It was blurbed by people like Rachel McAdams of The Notebook fame. It's just amazing.
Amelia Hruby:Samara's amazing. The book's amazing. And this conversation we had is amazing. It's all about how to show up as your full self in business and life. And we really have that conversation on so many levels, like, on a personal level, on a political level, and on a, like, are some practices you can do to warm up your voice level.
Amelia Hruby:So I think that that conversation is really gonna support you if you are deep in the, like, 24 ways to boost your visibility conversation, and you need a little more support even feeling comfortable with visibility in the first place. So that's gonna be a great one. And then that's basically February, but later in the spring, I will also be continuing our money conversation with some really great episodes. I'm gonna talk to a financial therapist about money and mindset and pricing and rates and taxes. I'm also going to have Nicole Antoinette back on the podcast to talk about the concept of making enough money and how we can do some behind the scenes marketing to support more sustainable revenue.
Amelia Hruby:So that's gonna be a good conversation. There's just, like, so much greatness coming up on the podcast, and I hope that you're as excited as I am about it. And then speaking of money and some of these future forecast episodes, I will be sharing more about softer sound's business financials throughout the year. My episode on overcoming under earning that kicked off this season was very popular. Thank you for listening.
Amelia Hruby:And I heard from some folks that they loved that sort of behind the scenes approach and they want more of it. So I'm gonna be doing that quarterly in these forecast episodes. I thought I could do it every month, but what I realized is, like, I haven't even processed all my January invoices or expenses. Like, I can't tell you about them yet. I need some more time to get all the numbers together and have it make sense.
Amelia Hruby:Because as I talked about in that episode, it's important to me that these income reports provide a lot of context so that they don't just feel like, you know, icky income claim marketing. I want them to feel, like, really well rounded and informational for you so that you can learn from them and take away what you need to from them. So I'll be doing those quarterly in these forecast episodes, and we're gonna wrap this one up with 2 requests to you lovely listeners. So I basically have an ask and an offer for you. And my ask is that I've got a couple requests for guests for the show that I don't know who to talk to.
Amelia Hruby:So I wanna know if you know these people. Do you know someone who has navigated, a real serious downturn in their business and either quit running a business, maybe started a new one, maybe didn't, or kinda got to the bottom of the bad time and then turned it around and came out the other side. I'm hearing from a lot of folks that they're just really struggling in business right now, and I'd like to talk to someone who's really navigated a business downturn, whether that be revenue wise, client wise, mental health wise, and can talk about, you know, the highs and the lows of business. So if that's you or someone you know, please send me an email, let me know. I also have had some requests to have another conversation about SEO and SEO strategies.
Amelia Hruby:So if you are that SEO person, hit me up. Let's talk about it. And I'd also really be interested in talking to someone about offering design specifically. So I talk about offerings on the podcast. It's part of my business ecosystem framework that includes your core channels, your core offers, and your core community.
Amelia Hruby:But I've realized like I don't have a method to teach offering design. And if you do, I would love to hear from you and interview you for the podcast. So that's my ask. Are you that person? Do you know those people?
Amelia Hruby:Will you get in touch with me? Head to the show notes, grab my email, reach out. I'd love to hear from you. And then my offer is that I would love to end future forecast episodes with a q and a. So I would love to be answering your questions, kinda doing some, like, free coaching here on the podcast.
Amelia Hruby:So if you have a question for me, if you wanna know something about leaving social media, about creative marketing practices, about how I think about something in my business, or if you're just like, Amelia, I've noticed this trend, will you please like break it down for me? I would love to do that. In the show notes, there is a link to my SpeakPipe voice mail box, and you can just send me a voice message. It's super quick. It works on your phone.
Amelia Hruby:It works on your computer. It limits you in 90 seconds. So just, like, get in there, me who you are, tell me what your question is, and I may answer it on an upcoming episode. So there you go. I got guest request asks.
Amelia Hruby:I got free q and a offers, and we are gonna wrap this episode up. These forecasts are intended to be fun, quick, easy, enjoyable times for us to check-in, talk about what's happening in the world, for me to share a little bit more about my business, for you to ask me some questions, and then we, like, get out of here because, honestly, this goes live on Friday. It's the weekend, babe. So, like, let's get off our computers and get out of here. Right?
Amelia Hruby:All of that said, my friends, I will be back in your AirPods next week with our 24 Ways to Nurture your biz community episode. Thanks so much for tuning in, and let me know what you think about this format. I only wanna do it if it serves you. So if you're not into it, we don't gotta do it anymore. Alright.
Amelia Hruby:Until next time my loves. I will see you off the grid and on the interweb. Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Don't forget to grab your free leaving social media toolkit at offthegrid.fun/toolkit. This podcast is a Softer Sounds production.
Amelia Hruby:Our music is by Melissa Caitlin Carter of Making Audio Magic, and our logo is by Natalia's studio. I'm your host, Emilia Ruby, and until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the interweb.
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