The Boss Profiles is a weekly series featuring women entrepreneurs, artists, and creative business owners who make a statement in Megan Auman Jewelry. I couldn’t be more excited to kick off the series with Brigitte Lyons, who is not only a kickass business owner, but also a really great friend.
Brigitte is the founder of Podcast Ally, a service that matches guest experts with amazing podcasts. And I can say from experience that she is damn good at her job, as her company has placed me on many, many podcasts! So without further adieu, I’ll turn things over to Brigitte:
Let’s start with a #nothumble brag. What’s great about you and your business?
I had to answer this question last! It’s so funny how difficult it is to brag about ourselves.
My business is great, because it supports my family and allows my husband and I to travel as much as we’d like. This is quite a lot — we’re moving into a travel trailer in the spring to travel around North America!
Beyond this, I’ve been able to create a company ethos that is based on my values around caretaking, excellence and leadership, in an industry (public relations) where that can be difficult.
If you only had an hour a day to work on your business, which hour of the day would you pick and what would you do?
10 am! I’m not a morning person, but I also like feeling like I’ve accomplished something important before lunch.
I’ve been making the switch from do-er to boss and manager in my business, so the most important thing for me to do in this hour would be to keep projects moving along. My first priority would be ensuring that my team isn’t waiting on anything from me, so they can do their jobs well.
Once that’s managed, I’d use the rest of my time to focus on the big picture of my business. That could be anything from brainstorming new ways to make our clients feel cared for to identifying a new package we could offer in the next quarter.
What is the bravest thing you’ve done in your business?
This year, I both gave myself a raise and changed our business model to one that charges less!
I had no real idea whether either decision would pay off, and I honestly didn’t know if I would be able to follow through with the raise once I cut our rates.
However, I have a mid-term vision for my company that calls for more recurring revenue, and my former rate structure was at the high end of the market. I wanted to make it easier for clients to pay our monthly invoice, so we could work with them longer.
My hope is that, while my monthly project fees are lower, my overall revenue will double in 2020.
So far, things are on track! I had my top year in terms of both personal income and business revenue (although the clients at our former rate early in the year are a big part of that revenue boost).
I’m making some big investments right now, which is yet another leap of faith, but I’ve learned that it’s important to invest in your vision and not sell yourself short.
How do you pick yourself up after a bad day or bad spell in your business?
I am naturally a person who looks for the lesson in everything — positive and negative. This means that when I have a challenging time in my business, I will mope for a day or two, but very quickly, I move to processing the experiencing and seeing what I can learn from it.
The most important thing I’ve had to learn about myself in running my business is to honor my own process and not fight it. I know that I will want to lay around in bed for a day or maybe do nothing but play video games, but that I will bounce back if I allow myself to grieve whatever has gone wrong.
Sometimes I will start to have obsessive thoughts about a bad spell, and if that happens, I will go for a hike. I’m a big believer in physically processing your stress.
Megan Auman Jewelry is all about celebrating strong, confident women. Who’s a woman who is inspiring you right now?
I just checked out Becoming by Michelle Obama from the library, after 4 months on the waitlist!
I’ve been wanting to read this book, not just because of Obama’s popularity as First Lady, but also because I’m from the near-south suburbs of Chicago. Obama writes so vividly about her upbringing in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood that I find myself getting emotional reading about it. My maternal grandparents grew up in that neighborhood, and although I’m only a couple of chapters in, I recognize so much of the city I love — and that occasionally lets me down — in her writing.
So far, this book is striking such a chord with me. I’d like to share a passage from the preface, because it’s so relevant to our journey as women and entrepreneurs:
“Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child — What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.”
This is from a section where Obama talks about having ambition as a child, but not really knowing what she was shooting for. That’s something I can definitely relate to, and I don’t think that makes either of us any less strong, capable or confident.
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