March 26, 2020
Today’s show is a Q&A treat for you! Lindsey and I polled our Heart and Hustle Facebook community group for questions, and we picked some that we haven’t talked about yet and are excited to answer.
We are answering what it’s like being business partners and best friends, how to navigate college while wanting to be an entrepreneur, and consistency tips for posting on Instagram.
It’s the best thing in the world and can feel like a long sleepover at times!
Communication is VITAL. Be honest. You can’t be afraid of the tough conversations. If something comes up, we go to God first, and then immediately approach the other person. It’s so necessary, as business patterns and friends, to not let feelings or unmet expectations build up and fester. This will hurt in the long run. You have to force yourself to be uncomfortable, be upfront, and be honest.
Honestly, in a lot of ways, it’s like a marriage. It’s a big deal. Your lives end up being so intertwined. You make huge life decisions together. And you’re stuck with each other for a VERY long time. So treat it seriously. We continuously work to maintain our friendship outside of the business partnerships. We do talk so much, but it’s often about work items. It is so important to be intentional about fostering our relationship outside of work. It’s easy to go on autopilot.
It’s the best thing in the world but it’s also scary! It does feel like a life long commitment and partnership. You have to put in the work to make it work.
Be very careful WHO you work with. Your values, goals, and worldview HAVE to be the same for you to succeed together long term. You need to be on the exact same page on fundamental issues.
Your values, goals, and worldview all need to be the same for you to succeed together longterm. It’s like a marriage and your business is your baby. You both have to be willing to put in the effort and need to be on the same page on what your disciplinary methods are, what do you want to teach your kid, etc. This is what it feels like a lot of time. It’s okay to have disagreements on how to do certain things in our business because we are two different people, but our values and our core are the same. This is so vital to have in place if you are looking to go into business with someone else. When you hit hurdles you are able to approach them on the same page.
It’s important to have an operating agreement. It doesn’t matter how close you are, you need to sign a legal document that sets out expectations and protects both of you.
We try to split the responsibilities based on the natural skill or passions of each person. For example:
Evie loves law and legal jargon. She strongly considered becoming a lawyer for a bit in high school and went through a good bit of law school training as AP classes. Lindsey hates it. Therefore, Evie handles the majority of the legal side of The Heart.
Lindsey is really good at managing a lot of the nitty-gritty day to day marketing operations that can sometimes overwhelm and/or bore Evie. For example, managing The Heart’s Instagram account every day, approving certain graphics, etc. Evie can get frustrated by repetitive operations tasks, whereas Lindsey handles those a lot better. Therefore, Lindsey spearheads a lot of the day to day marketing.
Another way to approach it, if you both have skills and/or passion for the same areas, just talk through and split it up! Divide it equally and don’t both try to do everything together. That takes twice the manpower when you could be getting twice as much done.
Unless you NEED to do something together, assign roles and responsibilities to harness the power of two people working together!
Before we get into this, we just want it to be said: college can be GREAT! College is an incredible life experience and a lot of jobs require it can be necessary.
That said, with entrepreneurship it gets sticky because if you’re starting your own business, you don’t technically need a degree. You don’t have a boss hiring you or not. College in today’s society is not the same value as it once was 20-50 years ago. It has changed so much with entrepreneurship and the Internet.
If you do not have a specific career that you really truly believe you want to pursue that requires a college degree, maybe don’t pursue college as your first choice after high school. College doesn’t have to be the automatic next step after high school.
Self-education is slowly becoming more of the norm.
Your family’s opinions are valuable and should be taken into consideration.
How far into college are you? If you’re already in the middle of it and you’ve already spent the money, you might as well finish it. That said, a college degree is NOT necessary for entrepreneurship. This is a case by case basis. Is your college teaching you the skills needed to thrive in the career you want to go in as an entrepreneur?
Don’t just quit because speech pathology isn’t fun and photography is. Don’t quit just because you don’t want to do something hard. Owning a business is freaking hard. Photography is fun. But photography is about 5% of running a photography business, the other 95% is the nitty gritty backend work.
Batch write your captions and plan out your feed in advance! UNUM is a great app to use! Pick a day of the week and site down to batch write a group of captions. Plan 30 minutes into your schedule every day to post the already written caption and engage with people on the app. Respond to comments and DM’s and also send DM’s. Give the engagement you want to receive.
A good rule of thumb for consistency is to never let your stories run out. Story throughout the day and save them to your phone. Then upload when you’re on the app actively!
In regards to the algorithm, it does seem to be best to post in the morning, afternoon, and evening.
Put activity monitors on your social media apps so you can only be on it so many hours per day. This is a great way to track the time you are spending and make sure you are regulating your time and not wasting hours on the app.
Put some heavy boundaries on your phone as far as touching yoru phone. Don’t go for your phone first thing in the morning right when you wake up. Get an old fashion alarm clock. Treat your phone like a tool for work. You don’t touch it before work in the morning, and you don’t touch it after 5pm when you sign off of work. Be very strategic to view your phone and social media as work. It is a tool for work. If you view social media just as entertainment, the line becomes blurry and you can keep scrolling on your phone day after day.
Don’t be afraid to take the weekends off! Your business won’t die. Your life will be better. Breaks are necessary.
Quality over quantity is sometimes the best route you can take. Consistency over quantity is really good.
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WASSUP FRIENDS. We’re Evie + Lindsey, co-founders of this wild partayyy called The Heart University. Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs to kick freaking BUTT in their businesses, dive down into the heart of their why and how, and serve you with all possible tools you’ll need to up-level your business game and CRUSH those goals of yours.
Whether you’re coming to an in-person workshop, joining our online course, or soaking up all the strategies via this blog or our podcast, we’re STOKED you’re here + can’t wait to see you out there kicking butt.
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