Starting Strong: Beginner Strategies for Entrepreneurial Success | Ep. 01

Have a business idea? Want to create a digital product or sell a course? Want to become a coach for a particular niche? Well, in this episode, Jonathan Howard and Mimi Langley share advice for new entrepreneurs just like you. They emphasize the importance of taking action and starting, even if things are messy. They also highlight the value of using free resources and platforms, such as YouTube and Canva, to grow a business. The hosts stress the need for a realistic time commitment and the importance of testing and measuring what works. 

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
: The key to learning & growing is by taking action & just starting already!
: Do not let your budget GET IN THE WAY! There’s plenty of FREE out there!
: Check in with yourself & figure out how much you have to give to your business!
: Put things out there & see what sticks! What is working? What’s not? 

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FOLLOW
Instagram: @coffeesocialpodcast
Jonathan: @jonathanrhoward
Mimi: @mimilangley_

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ADDITIONAL BUSINESS RESOURCES
Jonathan’s Instagram Signature Reels Membership 
(Doors Close March 5th)

Mimi’s Action over Perfection Community for Aspiring & New Female Entrepreneurs (Doors Close March 5th)

* Podcast Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast.


Keywords:
Entrepreneurial Mindset and Opportunity, New Entrepreneur Motivation, Business Confidence Low, Overcoming Overwhelm New in Business, Women Entrepreneurs Ideas, Women in Business Inspiration, Online Business Starting Tips, Top Free Business Tools, Canva Digital Products to Sell, Coffee

Transcript

Entrepreneurship Advice From Jonathan and Mimi

Speaker 1 0:00

Oh, shut that shit. It's working. Keep doing more of it. If it's not, throw it away, don't chuck it.

Speaker 2 0:07

Well, we can say S H I T. Oh my gosh, I couldn't even spell for a second there. How do you spell S H I T? But, jonathan, we never throw things away. Put it nicely, treat it nicely, put it in a folder and put that away a little bit. Don't put it in the garbage. Oh my gosh, so dramatic. I love it. You're my cup of tea.

Speaker 1 0:29

It's Corfy Social the podcast, all about social media and business. And now here are your hosts, Jonathan Howard and.

Speaker 2 0:39

Mimi Langley and hi Jonathan Howard. Hi Mimi Langley, how are you? I am so stinking excited. It is episode one, Episode one numero uno. Yeah, we have to be very dramatic when we say one.

Speaker 1 0:56

It is episode one.

Speaker 2 0:59

Well, don't scare people, Jonathan. Okay, I won't. I'll try not to Do. You have your coffee.

Speaker 1 1:05

I have my coffee.

Speaker 2 1:06

Let's cheers everyone for a great season ahead. Cheers everybody, cheers, cheers. And look at, pay attention. If you're watching my YouTube channel, pay attention to the bottom sticker.

Speaker 1 1:17

You have a target sticker on the bottom, never mind.

Speaker 2 1:21

I had to. I had to. We love Target here, although my background is from Walmart. Thank you, walmart.

Speaker 1 1:29

Mine are LaCrucette.

Speaker 2 1:30

Of course, yours is LaCrucette, jonathan. I'm so excited. Today's episode is something that we can always keep talking about, right? This is advice that we would give to people who are new to entrepreneurship, that are thinking about starting a business, whether it's a side hustle or they want to go full time into it. So I know you have a lot of experience, as well as myself. I have to toot my own horn, so that's right, I'm excited.

Speaker 2 1:57

I want you to real quickly, though you have a really powerful story. Do you want to just tell us real quickly, like how you got set up?

Speaker 1 2:04

I'll tell you the story, but, mimi, you have to introduce yourself first.

Speaker 2 2:07

Oh, tip number one introduce yourself always. Hey everyone, I'm Mimi Langley. I teach women in business how to use social audio, how to moderate, how to host rooms on social audio. That includes LinkedIn audio and clubhouse, so that platform social audio itself can definitely grow your business. What about you, jonathan Howard?

Speaker 1 2:25

Absolutely Well. My name is Jonathan Howard. I'm the owner of Success on Social, and what I do is I help successful female coaches tell their story online through short form video, building the toolkit out and gaining the confidence they need so that they can build their tribe and actually change the world with their story. That's what I love to help people do is change the world. So hey there.

Speaker 2 2:45

I am.

Speaker 1 2:46

So there you are, there I am. I don't know I'm weird, I can't help you.

Speaker 2 2:51

I'm weird too. Who's weird? Let us know in the comments.

Taking Action and Starting a Business

Speaker 1 2:54

Okay, go ahead. Yeah, let us know in the comments. Also, let us know what coffee you're drinking, because coffee you're drinking.

Speaker 2 3:00

Honestly, I have no idea. My husband. We have a 12 cup coffee brewer. My husband brewed it, so I'm not sure what he chose. What about you?

Speaker 1 3:08

I'm having cold brew, very sweet cold brew.

Speaker 2 3:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:11

Sweet. I don't like sweet. I like sweet. I put a little like too much sugar in it, though.

Speaker 2 3:17

My gosh, Jonathan Howard, like sweet coffee and he drink and he has sugar.

Start Where You Are

Speaker 1 3:21

I guess I'm starting with the start, where you are story, yeah, so it's really about, you know, taking action. We always have to be willing to take the action. So when I um, you know, there was a whole series of events. I used to work for a? Um, a company that ran college bookstores, lots of college bookstores, um, and I was there for 18 years and, over the course of time, the writing was on the wall. I wasn't going to be able to stay, um, so, you know, one black Friday I'd rush back to get back to the store and my regional manager showed up, didn't know he was coming, um, and I was like, oh, this isn't good news, um, and you know the proceedings and everything. So I was like, hey, I'm, I'm good, I'm done, you know, and we, I walked out the door, but the thing is I lived right over, like literally, the store was one level and my apartment was right above, so I wasn't going to let them win one and two.

Speaker 1 4:18

I didn't know what I was going to do, but I needed to do something, cause I needed to have a job. I recently divorced and all these things. I needed to have a job, um, so I walked down to the business office in DC right past the store where I used to work and I went and I got my LLC. I had no idea what I was going to call my my business. I was just like uh JRH graphics. I now do business under another name. But yeah, it's like it was crazy. I went and then I walked back that same day with my business uh license, right past the store and I started working on social media, helping people with their social media. I could have collected unemployment for a month and thought about it, but I just took action.

Speaker 2 5:02

Jonathan, you know it's so crazy. Right, we'll take action for sure, but real quick. When you were pretending like you were well, not pretending, cause you actually did it, but you were walking past the store window with your little paper. I was thinking of goodwill hunting when he like puts the paper up to the window and he's like, how about them apples?

Speaker 1 5:20

Anyways, how about them?

Speaker 2 5:24

apples, yeah, but seriously take action and I'm so happy you did. You didn't, you didn't sit on it for five months Like literally. You're like I'm doing this. It's time, Yep, Yep.

Speaker 1 5:36

I love that and it had to be time. It had to be time. I mean, there was an opening in the marketplace that I had identified, Like a little bit earlier, a couple months prior, and I was like I have to and I was going to wait on it, and it was silly to wait on it.

Speaker 2 5:52

So I love that Jump right in. It is the you know, not a problem, but I have come across that, and for myself as well, where we'll just delay and delay and delay, cause we're trying to find the perfect time to do something. So I love that you just, you just did it. It was the perfect time, I love it.

Speaker 1 6:10

Well, let's jump in.

Speaker 2 6:13

So we talked about just taking action, just doing it. If you have an idea for something like who cares if it's messy, just take messy action. I think that's like one of your favorite lines to say, Jonathan.

Speaker 1 6:24

One of my favorite lines and you know post it is better than perfect. Take messy action, just do the thing Right. We all try my best not to curse.

We All Have A Day One

Speaker 2 6:33

Well, we all have a day number one. Like your day 50 is not going to look like your day number one. I mean, look at us doing this podcast. We have no idea what we're doing.

Speaker 1 6:44

It's not really day one. This is our 15th take of the first episode no stop.

Speaker 2 6:48

Don't tell people that, ok, it's our day one. But seriously, though, like wait till we're in season 10. We're going to look back at season one and be like what were we doing, but what are we doing? But it clearly got us to season 10, which is the whole point of this, the whole point of taking action, so I love that Absolutely.

Speaker 1 7:07

But our. This is a different chapter in our experience. This is something new that we're doing. This is our chapter one here, but obviously we've got a lot of other chapters in business. So you know, if you were just starting in business and you're just starting a podcast, your chapter one would look different than my chapter one, Mm hmm.

Check Out Free Options First

Speaker 2 7:25

Mm, hmm, oh my gosh, I love that. Ok, I want to give a piece of advice, jonathan, other than just taking messy action, just doing the thing, and that is for me. Like, don't think that you have to pay for everything. Ok, like you can run a business, I want to say almost for free. There's so many services out there that will let you, you know, use them for free, at least the beginning tier. Right, like, if you want to do email, like you want to send emails to people, right, like MailChimp is an example, you can do that for free. I mean Canva, oh my gosh, can we talk about Canva for a second?

Speaker 1 8:02

Canva is incredible tool, an incredible tool that you pay. If you pay their level that they have, it's like $12. And you can make so much money off of Canva.

Speaker 2 8:14

So much money? Oh my gosh. We said that at the same time. I mean seriously, though, but even I have the free version of Canva, ok, and I have been able to create so many digital products just with the free. So, and then the other thing too with free, like, before you jump in and pay a $500, you know, pay for a $500 course you can go and use YouTube or Google, right, jonathan?

Speaker 1 8:41

Oh yeah, this is the thing guys like. Why spend money? And this is me. I sell courses, I help people do things, I coach people. But if you're starting and you want to get to that next level, there's no proof that you taking a free course on YouTube or you're taking my course that costs $5,000. You don't know if it's going to work for you. You won't know until you try. So why not try the one that's free and then, if that doesn't work, pay $5,000.

What About Business Tools

Speaker 2 9:12

I mean seriously, like there's a lot of good stuff on YouTube. People are like willingly giving it away for free, you know. So I love that. Can we talk about equipment real quick and then we'll move on to our last piece of advice? But equipment like, what about? What can I do If I want to make a good video, jonathan? What do I need? Do I need to go and buy all the things at the store at Best Buy?

Speaker 1 9:36

No, you need your face and your phone. Period. That's. All you need is your face and your phone. Your phone has a good enough camera on it that you're going to be able to take the video that you need. And you know what, if it's today here in New York, it's kind of a partly cloudy, mostly cloudy day that's perfect for shooting video. Perfect. You want that dappled sunlight. It softens everything, it makes you look younger, it makes you look sun kissed. It's perfect. That's the kind of light you want. So why buy exactly? Why buy ring lights? Don't buy ring lights, ring light.

Speaker 2 10:10

You can sponsor coffee social at any time. Okay, I had to do that, jonathan. I had to because I know you love ring lights. Okay, jonathan, I love that natural lighting. Literally, I'm using my camera on my computer to do the recording for this podcast. I mean, honestly, you can start with what you have, start with, start where you are. Last piece of advice, before we wrap up the episode, jonathan, because we try to keep these short, right Enough for you guys to digest what we're saying. We'll be back with more, though there's definitely going to be a part one, two, three, four, five, 10,000. 10,000.

Speaker 1 10:43

Yeah, probably about that, right now Time commitment.

How Much Time Do You Commit to Your Business

Speaker 2 10:48

What do you have to say about time commitment, Jonathan?

Speaker 1 10:51

That's a really good question. So if you you need to commit to what you can do Consistency is really important. I know we're going to talk about this in a future episode. Consistency is really important. So, if you can commit to creating content for an hour a week, then commit to creating content that hour a week and no more. And if that's only these two pieces or these platforms or this one podcast, then that's what you're able to do and commit to. Don't kill yourself trying to do more, because that's where the burnout happens and that's where people lose their business. It's really because you're you don't know what to do. You're spinning, spinning, spinning. I call it the hamster wheel of content.

Speaker 2 11:33

You didn't have to get off it if you keep doing it like that it's so true and it's so easy to get sucked into the hamster wheel of content, right Like because you know, you hear these. I don't want to say big wigs or whatever, but you hear so many people saying, oh, you have to be on here and here and here and here and here to be successful. And that's not necessarily true.

Speaker 1 11:55

It's not necessarily true. If you want and I always use this number because it's based on the thousand true fans concept but if you have a hundred of those thousand true fans, when you're starting your business you're in really good shape, like really good shape, because that those thousand people, they know people, they're going to start recommending you, they're going to start to trust you and that starts to magnify and grow and you'll get your thousand true fans. You need your hundred people, but they're your hardcore, like die hard, not going anywhere kind of fans.

Speaker 2 12:29

but you'll find them, yeah, and you know we don't want that number to scare you. I mean because it does, guys. It takes work. It takes work, all right, and it's not an easy road.

Speaker 1 12:43

But there are two billion people on Instagram. You'll find your one hundred.

Speaker 2 12:50

Did you see how, if you guys are watching the YouTube channel, hi, everyone subscribe. But did you see how Jonathan got like really close to the camera to tell you?

Speaker 1 12:57

guys that Really close to the. There's two billion people on Instagram.

Speaker 2 13:01

Well, I wanted to. We're going to talk about Instagram in a future episode. I think we have one in season one that we're going to talk about Instagram. So, but yeah, don't let the number scare. You Really show up, can continuously show up and do your thing, pick a couple platforms. We're actually even gonna have an episode about platform choosing, so yeah, Jonathan, a lot of episodes coming up.

Speaker 2 13:23

I mean so good, so many good things, but at the end of the day, we want you guys to just do your thing. Remember, just start. Put things out there, see what works, see what doesn't. So, Jonathan, are we ready to wrap up? I know it's a lot to put in, but I feel like we did a good job.

Create & Test to See What Works

Speaker 1 13:38

Yeah, I think you know. I just wanna highlight one more thing that you said, which is put stuff out there and then test it and see how it works, Because you'll never know until you try it. And my platform and what I teach and what Mimi teaches and all of that, things are different for each and every audience, because each and every audience is different. Your people aren't, my people aren't, you know. Well, hopefully there are people for this podcast, but separately they're not the same people necessarily.

Speaker 2 14:08

Well, yes, and Jonathan. The other thing too is it's like I think the more you take action and the more you show up, you're gonna get clarity on who you're actually trying to serve. Like, who is my audience? So, again, going back to just take action.

Speaker 1 14:24

Take action, do things and then measure what's working. If it's working, keep doing more of it, if it's not, throw it away. Even if somebody says you have to do this, they don't know your business. Ooh, chuck that shit.

Speaker 2 14:41

Well, we can say S-H-I-T. Oh my gosh, I couldn't even spell for a second there. How do you spell S-H-I-T? But, jonathan, we never throw things away. Put it nicely, treat it nicely, put it in a folder and put that away a little bit. Don't put it in the garbage, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 14:58

So dramatic, I love it. You're my cup of tea, All right, Jonathan. So real quick, since we are wrapping up this first episode, make sure you guys check out all the other episodes that we have on our podcast page Anywhere you listen. Wait, no, I'm gonna let you do that line.

Speaker 1 15:16

Oh, this is my favorite line that I've always wanted to do yes, yes. So you guys can make sure that you subscribe to this podcast anywhere, that you listen to your podcast Apple, google, anywhere. And also You're so funny. Make sure, make sure, if you enjoyed any of these episodes, to give us a five star rating on the platform, especially Mimi. She loves stars, she is a star.

Team Mimi or Team Jonathan

Speaker 2 15:40

And I love five of them. Thank you so much. I love five of them. You'll get my autograph later, jonathan. And also, if you're watching the YouTube channel or maybe you're not you didn't even know we had one. We're on YouTube, you guys. Quaffee Social. We'll put all of the details in the description. Make sure you subscribe and give us thumbs up on the videos, and then we will leave you with this question. This is the most important question to ask yourself every single episode that you listen to on Quaffee Social. Do you want me to do it or do you want to do this For this one? No, you have to start. Oh, yeah, I do. Okay, we've been practicing. The most important question is are you team Mimi or?

Speaker 1 16:19

Team Jonathan, obviously.

Speaker 2 16:22

That was my witch laugh.

Speaker 1 16:25

Cheers guys.

Speaker 2 16:26

Team Mimi Cheers. Thank you guys. Bye, Jonathan Howard.

Speaker 1 16:30

Bye. Team Jonathan. Team Mimi Bye.