Newsletter November 14, 2024
A Note from Christi 🚀
Hey there you Entrepreneurs!
I can’t believe we’re already turning the corner to the end of 2024! I’m both excited for a restful holiday break and trying to hold onto the last bits of what has been one of the most rewarding (and challenging) years in business.
This year, we’ve made some big changes and pivots in how we bring Automation on a Mission to our community. Through it all, we’ve stayed true to our mission and the promise we’ve made to our community—even when, honestly, it sucked!
Today’s newsletter is full of juicy tidbits and resources we’ve leaned on this year as we scaled back, took a deep breath, upleveled, and launched new things.
As we head into the final stretch of the year, I hope these insights inspire you to keep pushing forward in your own journey.
Tip of the week 💡
Embracing Both Passion and Business Competency
For many of us, it was a passion or calling that led us to entrepreneurship—not necessarily a desire to run a business. Heck, if you've ever read my About section on the website you'll find that as a young entrepreneur I lost my Girl Scout cookie sign up sheet and ate the entire inventory of chocolate bars I was supposed to be selling.
But here’s the key: to keep that passion alive and thriving, it’s essential to be engaged not only in the work you love but also in the business side of things.
Even if you have team members or outsource certain tasks, understanding the basics of essential business skills—like marketing, sales, reporting, finances, and customer service—keeps you in the driver’s seat. Being hands-on and knowledgeable in these areas helps you protect what you’ve built and make empowered decisions that align with your values.
This week, I challenge you to set aside some time to strengthen one business skill that supports your mission. This approach lets you honor your calling while building a foundation that sustains and grows what you love.
Client Spotlight 🌟
Meet April Chavez, Driven Livin' CEO & Co-Founder
April is so many things, from a talented speaker, a hard-working podcast host, a connector of people, the CEO of Driven Livin', an incredible graphic designer and social media post guru and now, an instructor for her very own course!
Highlighting April on today's newsletter is so fitting because if "working on and in your business" were in the dictionary, her picture would be right next to it. I have personally watched April throw her heart and soul into learning all the new technology, every new advancements in our system as it drops, and show up to all our Q&A's with 20 questions at the ready. No new challenge phases her, and she is determined to create something beautiful and impactful with her business.
If there is a new feature, she is testing it out. If there is a new opportunity, she is first in line! And I admire her bravery so much!
What she is most importantly to our community right now is the trailblazer of our new app feature for our courses! She is paving the way, walking through the red tape of verification with Apple and Google, and pushing through every challenge so that all of our current and future clients that want to walk this road have a clear and easy path.
April has so much to offer this world as a teacher, guide to positive living, speaker, and graphic artist, and I would love for you to get to know her better. You can find all of her offerings, her blog, and so much more here: https://drivenlivin.com/
Stuff we are loving 🤝
The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
This book was an oldie but goodie when I started my business 10 years ago and at 20 years old (yep it was written in 2004) it is still a must read for anyone interested in starting and building a thriving business.
If you're in business and haven't read The E Myth Revisited, I highly recommend. I think the big lesson that I got from this book was about how important it is to build and scale by mastering every element of your business. You don't need to be the person that does everything, but you do have to know what it takes to make a business run and run successfully. He teaches the importance of finding the sweet spot between working on your business and in your business.
Here's what I love and why: Michael Gerber tells the story of a cake baker that loved baking cakes with her grandmother as a little girl. Friends and family would rave about her cakes and tell her how amazing they were and she should do this for a living. So she did! She took her fond memories of her baking with her grandmother and her love and passion for the craft and turned it into a profitable business. But quickly she found herself drowning in the daily tasks required to run a business. Tired and burned out she hired someone to bake cakes for her so she could focus on the other elements of her business. Now, I'm not going to tell you what happens next, you'll have to read the book, but what I can say is that for years I have worked very hard to NOT be the cake baker. To find ways to balance my time both in and on the business and I have found myself at times totally in the same trap as the cake baker, detached from what I love, out of touch with what's going on in my business, and my reputation and livelihood at stake.
So, if you want to learn how to build a scaleable business doing what you love and keeping the love for what inspired it in the first place, take a read!
Free Resource for you📚
In a recent newsletter we spotlighted Jen Bee with GROW and well I guess we're not ready to be finished, because let me tell you she is a power house and you want to get to know her!
And the best way to do that is in her upcoming workshop. Why is this in our free resource section? Well because not only is it free to attend, it's also chocked full of resources you can implement in both life and business and I owe it to you to make sure you know about it.
🚀 Supercharge Your Business Impact and Income Goals! 🚀
Women Entrepreneurs, are you ready to experience the breakthrough that will supercharge your business growth? I’m thrilled to endorse the upcoming Dream ❤️ Dare 🔥 Do 💥 Workshop by Coach Jen Bee, a powerhouse in the world of purpose-driven entrepreneurship.
Coach Jen Bee has achieved extraordinary success, growing her business from under $1K a month to six figures in six months by focusing on the 3 keys that will get you unstuck, build trust and clarity in your marketing, and develop easy and consistent habits that propel your business forward.
This FREE and VIRTUAL workshop is designed for women entrepreneurs who:
Are driven by purpose and want to amplify their impact 🌍
Believe in creating a better world through their business 🌱
Are ready to build sustainable income and an abundant money mindset 💰
Whether you attend the December 11-13 series (one hour per day) at 12 pm MST or the intensive December 17 session (2.5 hours) at 5:30 pm MST, you’ll learn how to monetize your dreams and step fully into your business.
Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to become the badass entrepreneur you were meant to be!
Reserve your spot today at Dream, Dare, Do Virtual Workshop with Coach Jen Bee!
Keeping it Real 💜
Keeping it Real
Amber here! And I have the most amazing news to share! For the first time in two years, I will finally have a real home! Like many of us, Covid completely crushed my boyfriend and I 's credit and finances and left us scrambling from hotel to hotel to extended stay after extended stay. This has been a hard, weary, disheartening journey with nowhere to truly call home for far too long.
But along came Jodi (our leasing agent)! She took one look at Dominique and I, saw two happy, resilient, hard-working, and dedicated youngsters, and fought hard to get us approved for a brand new apartment in the heart of the nicest part of Kansas City. She waded through all the paperwork, red tape, vouched for our character and moved mountains to get us out of the hole we couldn't have climbed out of ourselves!
We got to tour the place yesterday, and you better believe there were tears... so many happy tears. There are hard wood floors for us to dance on, a HUGE granite countertop that I can cook on to my hearts content, an in-house washer and dryer (NO MORE LAUNDROMATS!!) and so much room! We are beyond happy!
To all of our amazing clients who endured countless zoom meetings from crowded Paneras, noisy Starbucks', and some really bad internet and to my caped-hero Christi Stafford, THANK YOU! Thank you for never giving up on me, always believing in me, and for trusting me with your businesses! It is because of all of you that this girl gets back in a real home, and thank you just doesn't feel like a big enough word to say.
Cheering you on to bigger and better things! Let's end this year well together!
Stay awesome,
Christi Stafford
Founder & CEO
Automation on a Mission
[email protected]
www.automationonamission.com
Amber Smith
Operations & Member Success
[email protected]
www.automationonamission.com
Follow us on:
