Month: June 2022

Did you know there are astrologists who focus exclusively on money matters?  I didn't, until I re-connected with Susan Abbott Gidel, an old high school mate.

Susan, a Financial Astrologer, joins The Savvy Entrepreneur to share her journey from commodities trading and journalism to a self-employed astrologer.  You'll hear how to become an astrologer, and what financial astrologers do.

You'll also hear how one entrepreneur methodically and internationally pivoted her career into something entirely new, and some tips for coping when your planned side hustle becomes suddenly becomes your full-time business.

Click on the arrow to listen to the interview, or if you'd prefer to read a transcript, go here.

 

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Laura Barnard, CEO of BREAKTHRU Brands, joins The Savvy Entrepreneur show to talk about personal branding.  She shares what personal branding is, how to tell if your brand is strong or weak, why a strong personal brand is so powerful, and tips for helping build a stronger brand.

Laura works with women to help them find their voice — their passion, their purpose.  Then she helps them craft that into a powerful story and then shows them how to amplify that voice.  And she helps them uncover hidden obstacles that stand in the way and how to power through them.

We chat about some of the things that hold women entrepreneurs back, including self-confidence and the imposter syndrome.  And talk about some of the ways to overcome those fears and voices inside our heads.

Laura's passion for what she does is clear from the first few minutes of our interview.  She offers tons of tips and suggestions to help women entrepreneurs — all entrepreneurs, really — improve their personal branding.  And to find and amplify their voice and make a bigger impact in whatever they're doing.

Don't miss this episode!

Click on the arrow to hear the interview, or go here if you'd prefer to read a transcript.

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Popular YouTuber ProfessorBlackOps joins The Savvy Entrepreneur to share his top cysecurity tips for startups and small businesses.

He talks about passwords, routers, and printers, and how to avoid the increasingly-sophisticated phishing and vishing schemes. He also shares tips for what you should do WHEN you get hacked. Because as he stresses, it's a question of WHEN, not IF.

Finally, he shares his predications for future cybersecurity risks, as well as some of the job & business opportunities arising from cybersecurity.

Listen in — the interview is full of lots of practical tips that will help individuals as well as small businesses stay safer.  Or go here if you'd prefer to read a transcript of our interview.  

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Kavnia Coffee Company was established by Olivia vonNieda as part of her quest for perfect cup of cold drip coffee.  For non-coffee afficionados, cold-drip coffee is the next evolution beyond cold brew coffee.  Cold brew is made by soaking the coffee grounds in cold water.  Cold drip passes a mist of water over the beans, creating coffee one drop at a time, creating a more intense flavor and picking up more of the subtle flavors of the coffee.

Cold drip coffee is beloved by coffee buffs, but to date, it's difficult and expensive to produce at home.  It's really only available at high-end coffee houses.  vonNieda set out to find a way to make it more accessible, applying her formidable engineering and business skills.

Along the way, she needed to find money and resources to help her.  She found resources at mHub and The Hatchery, both incubators based in Chicago.  And she was eventually successful at pitching for funding, although it required a major pivot in Kavnia Coffee's business model.

vonNieda shares the story of Kavnia Coffee with The Savvy Entrepreneur, along with plenty of advice and tips on pitching for funding and how and when to successfully pivot.  Not to mention it will whet your appetite for cold drip coffee!

Click on the arrow to listen, or go here if you'd prefer to read a transcript of our chat.

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Rieke Office Interiors, owned & managed by Melissa Kehl, is no startup business.  It's been in business for 27 years.  But Melissa explains why small businesses today need to think and act like startups, and why you need plenty of entrepreneurial skills to meet customer needs, keep ahead of the competition, and stay in business.

She explains to The Savvy Entrepreneur some of those entrepreneurial skills.  She stressed the need to delegate early on, even when cash is tight, and offers some creative ways to do that.  Doing that, she says, allows you to work ON your business, not necessarily IN it.  She also articulates why it's so important to take time to step back from the urgent, day-to-day crises, and always stay focused on the strategic.

Both startups and established small businesses today also need leaders who are willing and able to take big risks, she says.  If you're not comfortable with that, you're probably in the wrong spot.

The interview is full of candid, no-nonsense advice from a CEO that has regularly pivoted her company in a market space full of competition and highly susceptible to economic downtowns.  And yet, under Melissa's guidance, the company continues to grow.  Her advice is relevant to both startups and small businesses.

Click on the arrow to listen, or go here to read a transcript of the interview.

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