Episode 16: Turning Your Passion Into Your Business with Carlota Zimmerman, the Creativity Yenta

This Week’s Episode

On this week’s show, I share a recording of the first live episode of the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show! I talked with Carlota Zimmerman, the forensic coach, author, blogger, social media expert, and entrepreneur behind the Creativity Yenta©. We shared our tips for starting or expanding your business in the New Year and responded to questions from the audience.

About Carlota Zimmerman

Carlota Zimmerman is the forensic coach, social media expert, blogger, and writer known as the Creativity Yenta©. Carlota helps her clients articulate their professional goals — from writing a book to starting a small business — and then helps them create the opportunities necessary to bring their dreams to life. She writes for the Huffington Post and Thought Catalog, and was listed as a social media expert by US News & World Report.

You can find Carlota online on her website, Facebook page, Twitter (as @kittenmagix), Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

About the Show

Carlota started off by sharing her recommendation that entrepreneurs avoid feeling pressure to make 2015 “the best year ever!” She suggested starting the year off with manageable goals and by creating commitments (with yourself). When you meet these goals, you can build your own confidence as an entrepreneur. On a related note, I suggested building habits and structures for growing your business. We shared our stories about the challenges of working from home for the first time, and Carlota shared her tips for building the confidence you need for your business to be successful.

I shared some suggestions from my interview with Lindsey Stephens from Poetry in Yarn, who I interviewed in Episode 10: Time Management Tips. One of Lindsey’s tips was to know how much time each task takes. This can be especially critical when you are switching from having a business “on the side” to becoming a full time entrepreneur.

Carlota suggested creating a content cheat sheet or calendar to use when you aren’t feeling creative. This list is something you can go back to you when you aren’t feeling inspired or need to feel more in control of your business. She also mentioned that to be successful, you need to find strategies and habits that work for YOU.

Christina Sofina asked about how to generate traffic to your blog or videos. I had several suggestions:

• Join online communities of other entrepreneurs in your field (such as Facebook groups or niche social media communities within your field). If you’re in a community of likeminded entrepreneurs in your field, you can get support and share each other’s content on social media.
• Find your voice on the different social media platforms, and take a slightly different approach on each platform (even when promoting the same content).
• Share consistently (while being realistic about your time).
• Reach out to other colleagues and comment on their posts, Tweets, and shares to start a conversation. Their fans may be interested in your work after seeing your interactions.
• Connect with influential bloggers who aggregate or curate content in your niche. Many fans look to these bloggers to curate content for them (making you more discoverable), and these bloggers need regular content.

Carlota added several additional pointers:

• Show, don’t just tell. Use multimedia content when possible.
• Differentiate yourself. Share your background, journey, and lifestyle with your followers. This creates a sense of interest among your audience.
• Observe people you admire online. Consider what they are doing and what you may want to incorporate into your own social media behaviors.
• If you speak multiple languages, don’t forget to Tweet (or participate in other social networks) in both languages.
• Use relevant hashtags.
• Join and participate in relevant niche online communities.
• Be patient. It’s better to have a small number of engaged fans than a large number of uninterested followers, and it takes time to build your own community online.

We talked about trolls (or hostile, negative people) for a bit, since they tend to become more noticeable as you get more traffic to your content. Feel free...