I had the pleasure of speaking at my first large scale conference in March...two weeks before Covid-19 hit the US hard and things started shutting down. I’m thankful the conference happened and that I could share my tips on reclaiming your creative time using automation. Here’s a picture of me on the stage delivering the goods :)

I attended so many sessions and took so many useful notes and wanted to share the most memorable gems that I caught there.

1. “Success is doing what you want when you want to” -Soledad O'Brien

Opening Keynote

The opening keynote was with Soledad O’Brien and I was so stoked to listen to her speak. It was the perfect way to get the positive energy flowing and kick off the conference. I loved this quote because she’s simply saying success is freedom. The thing is, freedom to one person is totally different to another. It’s important to know what your definition of freedom is and strive to accomplish it rather than trying to replicate someone else’s definition of freedom.

2. “You must customize your process to who you are.”- Sarajane Case

Making Content Creation Work For You- Solo Talk

I loved the Solo Talk by Sarajane Case. This quote flows perfectly from Soledad’s because your processes must align with who you are. For example, I’m a lover of digital tools (apps, note taking tools, automated tasks, etc.), but digital is not the way for many people...and that’s okay! Everyone does not thrive equally by taking the same approach as someone else. You have to know what works well for you even down to the time of day when you’re most productive. I am a night owl and get my best work done in the middle of the night (like right now at 3:30am). Others thrive early in the morning. Each approach is fine...whatever works best for you is what you should do. Don’t let others shame you for not getting up early to work on your blog/biz, and don’t let them shame you for not staying up late to work. Cliche, but everyone’s path is different including the vehicle they’re driving to get there.

3. “Content attracts brands, not always the numbers” - Rosie Nguyen

How to create content that compels- Roundtable

I loved this roundtable session because Rosie dropped plenty of gems as a successful online influencer. We tend to get caught up in our social media numbers and get down about them if it’s not growing at a rate that we want. One important thing to remember here is that we shouldn’t be investing so much time into social platforms that we do not own or control the data and algorithms on. We especially shouldn’t get down about the numbers when it’s well known that people buy followers. Sometimes you’re comparing your numbers to an account with followers that aren’t even real. Of course the most important thing is your engagement rate; who wants 500k followers and only 30 people engaging with the content? Brands are getting smarter and are now asking for engagement rates because that is much more meaningful than just a following. So instead of focusing on the numbers all the time, start focusing on creating helpful and useful content that your audience will be excited about and actively engaging and sharing. I always tell my friends that you never know who is watching your feed, so run it as if it’s being watched by huge brands. When you think with that mindset your quality will instantly improve.

4. “Know your audience and why they’re there.” - Rosie Nguyen

How to create content that compels- Roundtable

This is such an important gem! It’s important to know who your audience is so you can create content, products and services that they want. There is no purpose in creating content that you love and not even thinking about your audience. You should be surveying them and getting their insight so you will know what content to create. Don’t be a fashion blogger then post a random post about cars. Stay on brand and aligned with your audience and their needs.

Related: Automating Market Research

5. “What sets your course apart- It's YOU that the course is coming from, it's your story, perspective and expertise” - Pearl Pilbeam/Pearlybird Creative

Creating Amazing Online Courses - Workshop

Pearl broke this down in a simple way. Just be you! There is no one else you can be better than but yourself. Individuality is a great thing and what makes the world such an interesting place to be. Though Pearl taught strategies for creating an amazing online course, that quote can be applied to life at all times. Here’s something to think about…there are so many glazed doughnuts being made by different brands…and they’re all selling. It’s the same product, but each brand has put their own spin on it to make it unique and appealing to their audience. This goes for bloggers and content creators as well! Sure, there are plenty of people blogging about food, but they each do it in their own unique way tailored for what their audience wants to see. It’s important not to get caught up in thoughts of an over-saturated market and instead think of how you are going to stand out from the crowd.

6. “Only you can be you and you're as awesome as you need to be” - Alison Faulkner

Closing Keynote Speaker

Alison was an awesome closing speaker because her energy and message was the perfect thing to ponder on as you left the conference and traveled home. She had plenty of awesome quotables, but this quote stood out to me. With social media, bloggers, influencers, etc. it is difficult not to get caught up in thoughts of imposter syndrome. You see people that are in the same niche as you and they seem to be doing things better than you are. They seem to have it all together meanwhile you’re just trying to figure out what your next blog post is going to be about. You start feeling like an imposter and like you’re not really an expert in your niche, because someone else was doing it so much better than you. To this I call BS. While imposter syndrome is real, it’s important to stay focused on the right things and channel those thoughts into positive energy and action. You don’t need to change anything about yourself because your uniqueness and personality will attract your audience.

7. “Let go of your agenda and have an open mind” - Cyndie Spiegel

Keynote Speaker

I feel like this is a bonus tip because although I didn’t attend Cyndie’s session, I did see an image that someone shared containing a few of her quotes from her keynote.

I feel like the word Agenda is a double entendre here. In one sense, Agenda can be the plan you have set for yourself and sticking to a planned path to get there- so Agenda meaning your main goal. In another sense, Agenda can be a literal agenda of how you run your day- so Agenda meaning schedule. Schedules and routine are definitely great, but it’s important to expose yourself to new and different things so you can constantly get new and different ideas. It’s also important to think outside of your box and be open to pivoting. Sometimes the things that we are working on just aren’t getting us where we want to go and pivoting is necessary. Change is not always a bad thing; it’s all in how you define it!

I felt compelled to share these quotes because although Alt Summit was nearly 5 months ago, these quotes can be applied at any time in your life. I think especially now that we are all going through this pandemic, we can use some positive words to keep us encouraged and in the right headspace for blogging and running a business (ex: not falling victim to the comparison monster).

Have you attended Alt Summit before? If so, what did you think? Leave a comment below!

BONUS!

Since this is an Alt Summit post, I’m going to share a few photos that I took at Alt and around Palm Springs. Enjoy!

My smiling face after a LONG day of traveling (a 1 hour drive to the airport, 5 hour flight and 1 hour drive to the hotel from the airport with two stops along the way). — My smiling face after a LONG day of traveling (a 1 hour drive to the airport, 2 hours waiting to board, 5 hour flight and 1 hour drive to the hotel from the airport with two stops along the way).

Ace Hotel and Swim Club- one of the locations where Alt Summit took place

The Saguaro Hotel- this is where I stayed in Palm Springs as well as the main site of Alt Summit

Kachét Jackson-Henderson delivering her awesome roundtable session on pitching local media.

Colorful installations were placed at all locations for the conference.

I always sniff out coffee shops when on vacation. Ernest Coffee shown here.

Happy Hour hosted by Flat Top Hills Wine

Monique Melton- a closing keynote speaker delivering a powerful speech on anti-racism.

I hope that things are more stable by the time Alt Summit 2021 comes around because I can’t wait to go back again!

As I sit here and type this post, we are three months into a (hopefully temporary) new way of life due to Covid-19. Most of the country was under shelter in place orders, but now things are starting to open back up. Three months of being home was sure to cause many days and nights in deep thought on a variety of topics. You may have thought about so many things and came up with some awesome ideas and now you don’t know what to do with them. I experienced the same. I had a long period of time where I didn’t think about business or blogging because I was mentally exhausted. I then had a period of time where many ideas came to mind (I believe this is because I took that needed break and made room for new ideas to come in). I had so many ideas, I needed to figure out what to do with them. If you find yourself in that situation now and want guidance on how to move forward, I will be discussing the 6 step process of how to organize your many great ideas and what to do with them.

1 / Data Gather

The only places you likely have been while shelter in place orders were in effect were the grocery store, a drive-thru, a gas station and work if you held an essential position at your job, so this step shouldn’t be cumbersome (maybe just the part of searching through the house for all of the papers your ideas are on, ha!). Gather all of your notepads, sticky notes, napkins, etc. that you wrote your ideas on because you need to get an idea of what your thoughts were and put them together.

2 / Group

Read through all of your ideas and group them together based on the topic. If you had ideas for new courses, put them in a pile together. If you had ideas for new blog posts, group them together. This will help you see if there are more ideas on a specific topic than others and guide you on what to work on now and what to save for later.

3 / Filter

The important thing about content creation is that it all needs to align with your goals. This means to focus on topics that will continue to show your expertise. This doesn’t mean that an idea you had that may not fit in with your current goals isn’t good to keep. On the contrary! From these piles, pull out the ideas that are not aligned to the topics you already post about, or that do not fit into the puzzle when thinking about what you need to do to accomplish your ultimate business goals. You need to filter the ideas down so you don’t waste time working on something that is not directly related to your goals and so you don’t overwhelm yourself with what you want to do.

4 / Digitize

Once grouped and filtered down, it’s time to put these into a digital system so you won’t risk losing them. Add the ideas to something like Trello, Evernote, etc. Utilize a tagging function for your notes so you can easily find them in the future. The notes that you removed from your pile should still be added to your digital note tool because you don’t want to get rid of the ideas. They may fit into your strategy in the future, so add a Future tag (or something similar) to them for later.

5 / Apply a Realistic Timeline

You will also need to create a realistic timeline for executing these ideas. A realistic timeline means don’t try to launch a brand new course in two weeks. You want to allocate a realistic timeline to these tasks because although you still may be in self-quarantine or just not going too many places away from home, you still have regular, daily activities to do such as work, cook, clean, decide which pair of slippers and pajamas to wear for the day, etc. (ha!), so you don’t want to overload yourself. Though I’ve been home for the majority of this time, I still find myself exhausted at the end of the evening. I still need to use Trello to organize my blog tasks and schedule things out, otherwise things just won’t get done. I also feel like we have a false sense of time right now. If you tell yourself, “Eh, I’m home all day, I have all the time in the world to work on this”, you will likely push it off and find yourself at 11pm with nothing on your list complete for the day. So just be mindful of having a realistic timeline to complete your tasks.

6 / Create Content

Now comes the fun part- working on the tasks you’ve deemed important to reach your goals…content creation! There are so many mediums you can create content for. You can also re-purpose content for different platforms! Here are a few things you can create from the ideas you had:

a. Blog posts

b. Instagram content (feed, stories, IG TV, Live)

c. Email marketing content

d. Products/Services

e. Podcast topics

f. YouTube content

g. Online or email courses

h. Free and paid downloads

i. Email marketing content

There are so many ways to put your ideas into fruition! Sometimes half the battle is knowing what topics you will create content around. When I hear someone say I have too many ideas as if it’s a burden, I have to disagree and spin it so they will see it as a good thing!

As we slowly try to get back to some sort of normalcy (let’s be real, some things in our reality are not things that we want to get back to), just remember that being restricted to your home and essential places is not a terrible thing. Ideas will continue to come to you, but now you have the steps to help you organize and execute them!

So tell me…how have you been handling this time at home? Have you had plenty of ideas that you are acting on, are you slowly getting back into the swing of things or are you taking a mental break from everything? Leave a comment below.

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