If you're a mom to little's who wants to start a business or you're a mom already with a business trying to figure out how to grow your business while still prioritizing your family, this episode is for you! I'm chatting with the lovely Amy Hanneke of Hello & Co Creative. Amy is a brand new website designer for wellness professionals and she's also a wife, a boy mom, a cat mom, and a St. Louis native. She started her brand and website design business just 11 months ago at the time of recording this and her business has grown a ton since. She’s really built the dream part-time business as a stay-at-home mom, and I can’t wait to share more of her story today!
In this episode, she is specifically sharing 4 principles that she believes have HUGELY helped her grow a part-time business as a stay-at-home mom!
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Who is Amy Hanneke of Hello & Co Creative?
Amy Hanneke (she/her) is a brand and website designer for wellness professionals who want to stand out in a crowded clinician field. She's trained as a registered dietitian and eating disorder expert, and spent the beginnings of her career working in the nutrition field.
Amy has experience serving both clients and clinicians through her past role as a leadership member at a residential eating disorder care center, as well as through her former private practice. She uses these experiences in combination with her design training to help clinicians clarify their message, convert more clients, and market with confidence through standout brand identities + websites.
You Signed Up for Booked Out Designer Shortly After Starting Your Design Business. What Made You Make That Decision?
Yes, it's crazy because it was only 11 months ago, but it feels like it was forever ago just in terms of how much has happened since then. I wouldn't say I decided on a whim to turn it into an official business, but it was one of those things that was kind of just at the back of my mind for several years before taking action. Then because of a few personal and professional things that were going on, it almost created this perfect storm of it being the right time to get started.
I also decided to drop the “all or nothing” mentality and challenge myself to just go slow. Not to say I didn’t start with my whole heart, but I let myself start slowly and was okay letting it evolve as I’m evolving. Then shortly after I registered for my LLC it was Booked Out Week and so I felt like it was the right time to learn the business side of things!
You became a Booked Out Designer really quickly! Any advice for mom’s hoping to do the same?
When I started out, I had a baseline goal of bringing in enough revenue to send my children to a part-time daycare so they could see other kiddos and socialize and then make a certain amount on top of that to make it feel like it was “worth it”. The truth is that it was a pretty low number of projects that I needed to book to make that happen, but I think one of the great things about Booked Out Designer is I did not waste any time figuring out my systems and processes. I wasn't starting from scratch and I wasn't spinning my wheels trying to figure out exactly how to do things. Here’s my full review on how I got a 755% return on investment after joining!
How were you able to prioritize taking the course with building your business and taking care of your kids?
Yes. The thing I love the most about it is that it is this kind of living, breathing, educational resource. I did not watch it in order (which you encourage!), so once I had that permission slip I let myself skip around. I tried (and still try) my best to make it to the coaching calls because those are so fantastic and they help keep the content really alive for me.
But as for the rest, what I do is try to figure out where the weak points are in my business. Every month or so I sit down and then I try to make it a point to go back and listen to the modules that I think will help me address that. Once I ask, “what do I need out of this at this moment?”, I know it's all there and it's instant access. So it's kind of been nice to just be really flexible about how I take it, and then I feel like it makes the content more valuable to me because I'm not listening to something abstract. I am really intentional about taking what I need and then I try to go implement it pretty much that next week.
Now, let’s move on to the 4 principles of growing a part-time business as a stay-at-home mom!
1. Do Things Less, But Better
The first thing that has really helped me grow my part-time business as a stay-at-home mom, is this concept of doing less things but doing them better. I am constantly trying to dig into the quality of what I am doing rather than trying to do a million things really poorly.
To be more practical about this, here’s an example. I don't have the capacity to create a lot of social media posts. If that's how I was generating leads, I would want to make the time for that, but that's not necessarily where my leads come from. Instead, I'm digging more into the quality of the work I'm actually doing with clients, and I found that by letting that speak for itself, that is how I actually do my best lead capturing and conversion.
Most of my client’s are coming from word of mouth right now so I have kind of a tiered priority of how I create content, and it's based on what I think will be the highest ROI in the future (like blogging and Youtube videos). Right now, what works for me is blogging because I can do it in such small increments of my time. From that, I create smaller snippets from all of that content for social media.
Read More: 14 Things That Make Growing Your Business MUCH Harder (Your New “To Quit” List)
2. Automate and Templatize Everything You Can
If there is an email that I have to send more than once ever, I make a template out of it. It has saved me so much time. I think I’m probably doubling the amount of work I can get done because when I onboard a client now, I'm not sitting there and creating a whole checklist from scratch or creating all these folders for them to share their content with me from scratch. When they sign the contract, I have automations set up that will start and set up the whole project for me. Then, it’s 80% done and I come in and personalize it, record them a video, and send it all off. Don’t be afraid of technology!
PS: Amy & I both use Dubsado for all of our automations! Use code ELIZABETH30 to snag 30% off!
3. Track the Life Out Of Your Time
For a good couple weeks, I tracked every minute of everything I was doing for work with Toggl, and it was really interesting to see where I was wasting time. I would be working, but I wouldn’t be working on things that are going to make a significant difference in my business. And because I was prioritizing other things, I would constantly need more and more time which would then cause my focus to be split and my family to get frustrated.
A good example of this was Instagram. I wasn’t wasting time SCROLLING on Instagram, per say, but designing graphics and planning out the content was taking a lot of time and I wasn’t getting a huge ROI from it.
Ironically, I also found out through tracking my time that when I have these nitty gritty categories, I'm actually wasting time trying to figure out how to categorize things. So I have broad categories like: client calls and communication, the brand phase of a project, the copy phase, and the website phase. I try to keep it as simple as I possibly can so that it's not hard for me to do.
Read More: Juggling too much? 4 Keys to Maintaining Your Sanity as a Mom and Business Owner with Ashley Freehan
4. It’s Always Worth Investing Time and Money Into Your Vision For Your Business
The last principle I have for growing my part-time business as a stay-at-home mom, is kind of at the core of all of these. It's always worth investing time and money into your vision for your business. What is it that you actually want out of your business? It is always worth investing in things that are going to support that, whether that's investing your time or part of your business budget.
I feel like because I have a very clear picture of what I need my business to be in my life right now, it's really easy for me to say yes if the client/project/opportunity is a great fit, or no, this opportunity is not a great fit for what I'm trying to do right now. And so continuing to really come back to what matters most in your business, I think is the biggest thing as you start a part-time business as a stay-at-home mom.
And let me just say - sometimes that means saying no to things I really do want to say YES to. I’m saying it like it’s easy but I want to acknowledge that it’s not always easy to say no. So for example, I'm planning out what my summer is going to look like for my business and trying to figure out where I'm going to get leads, and then I remembered part of the point of this is I was going to take summers off.
Rapid Fire Questions with Hello & Co Creative
What's a bad recommendation you hear in the motherhood and business world that new mamas need to ignore?
I really think that one of the biggest things has been this idea that you have to be a hundred percent where your feet are at all times. It’s this idea of 100% parenting or 100% working at any given time. That’s just not how this season of my life works. So I’m letting it be flexible. Sometimes I do really need to get back to people and my kiddos get to watch an episode of Bluey while I do that. On the same note, sometimes I can't get back to people because my kiddos really, really need my undivided attention right now. So I think one of the worst pieces of advice I hear is to really focus and be a hundred percent where you are. And I think what I've ended up needing is just the ability to be able to assess and pivot in the moment rather than hold myself to these rules. My rule is to be flexible not to follow a rule, if that makes sense.
What’s an unpopular opinion you have about design?
One of the things I wish we said louder is that there is so much power of simplicity. I love the power of more streamlined, simple design, and having white space (not only in design but in your life). I think sometimes I will have projects start and the expectation coming from clients is that things are going to be really busy and really intricate and all of these things. And then when we actually get to the final concept, the most simple one is the most effective because it makes you feel calmer when you're looking at it. It creates and communicates the vibes that we're going for. I wish we said louder that it doesn't have to be complicated to be good.
Connect with Amy Hanneke with Hello & Co Creative
You can check out my website here or come hang out with me on Instagram!
Read More: If Being a Mom and a Business Owner Feels Really Hard, Listen to This with Joy Michelle
Links Mentioned:
Watch the Episode on Youtube
Watch Amy's Testimonial on Youtube of Booked Out Designer
Read About How Amy Got a 755% ROI After Joining Booked Out Designer
Try out Toggl Time Tracking
Automate Your Business with Dubsado
Join me inside Booked Out Designer
Connect with Elizabeth on Instagram
Connect with Amy on Instagram
Check Out Amy's Website
Shop Elizabeth McCravy Templates
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