Inspiring Women in Business Podcast - Episode 29 - 5 Ways You Can Get Your Family and Business in a Routine - with Heather Greco

podcast Jun 06, 2022

Everyday tasks can be very overwhelming, especially for mums and business owners. However, creating a system in prioritising and organising can be a big help to save time and make time for the things that you need to accomplish every day.

In this episode, I interview Heather Greco from Chaos and Cookies. She shares the things you need to do to keep your family and your business in a routine. This episode is full of some great hacks and tips to help you get organized in life, family, and business.

Have a listen.

Key takeaways from this episode:

Being granular with your time management is a very big deal.
Be proactive and not reactive.
Sectioning clothes and the ingredients for meal preparations saves a lot of time.
Having organisation bins all across the house helps kids understand that there's something that needs to be done without you asking.
Creating systems makes things easy because it's just something you do naturally.
You can digitize your papers, organize them in albums, and throw them away.
You do have time; You just have to figure out what you want to make time for.
Give yourself, each day, three non-negotiable things that you will make time for.
Writing your accomplishments at the end of each day is great for the brain.
Don't overwhelm yourself and don't set too many deadlines close together.
A business is not a delivery service, and you have to put in the work and the time to build it, for it to deliver what you want.

Episode Timeline:

00:04 Episode Intro

00:21 Intro

02:02 About Heather Greco

03:00 How Heather ended up with her current business

04:55 How Heather applies what she teaches others in her life

06:18 Time management

08:10 Tips on organizing clothes and meal preparations

12:37 Delegating tasks

19:46 Heather’s advice to moms who say that they don’t have time

24:08 Heather’s advice to people starting their business

27:33 How to find more about Heather

27:57 Outro

My Guest:

Heather Greco is an Efficiency Expert. As a busy mom of three and the founder of Chaos n’ Cookies, Heather’s main objective is keeping moms from crumbling. After gaining 10+ years of experience as a Director of Marketing helping build multiple 6 & 7-figure businesses for other women, Heather has created the Chaos Control System to equip moms to overcome their objections so they can live the life they want to live and start that business they have always wanted. The Family Playbook, or standard operating procedure, is the tool every mama needs to save time and stress-less when chaos ensues at home.

Heather also helps new business owners to simplify systems on social media and other business platforms to automate processes to get their business up and running quickly and efficiently with how-to tutorials and hands-on coaching. Heather has helped hundreds of women to be more productive and self-sufficient in their homes and businesses allowing them to reclaim control of the chaos.

Connect with Heather Greco here:

Website: https://chaosncookies.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathergreco

https://www.instagram.com/chaosncookies/

More about Ruth:

Hi, I’m Ruth, a business coach specializing in helping freelancers and business owners adjust their mindset and their marketing so they can get fully booked with clients they LOVE to work with. I’ve helped hundreds of self-employed women achieve the time and money freedom they craved.

I’ve started this podcast because when I first went all in and left the corporate world to be a freelancer, I was grateful for any work that came my way. After over 20 years of freelancing and working for other people, I started to realize I’d created a glass ceiling for myself.

In 2017, I finally started listening to that voice that had been telling me for a long time that I wasn’t doing what I loved and fulfilling my true potential. It took a critical illness to give me that wake-up call. I don’t want the same to happen to you.

You can expect practical advice, inspiring stories, and a lot of aha moments as we uncover and kick to the curb all the obstacles you have been putting in your way.

I’m on a mission to inspire women to start and play bigger in business.

Connect and know more about Ruth here:

Coaching: https://www.ruthgilbey.com/coaching

Free stuff: https://www.ruthgilbey.com/the-sold-out-solution-2022

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ruthgilbeymarketingandcoaching/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruth_gilbey/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthgilbey/

Transcription

Ruth Gilbey 00:00

Hi everyone. Today's episode is with Heather Greco from Chaos and Cookies is going to share the five things you need to do to keep your family and your business in a routine. Such a good episode, full of some great hacks and tips to help you get organized in life, family, and business. Have a listen.

Ruth Gilbey 00:21

Hello, and welcome to the inspiring women in business podcast. My name is Ruth Gilbey and I'm a business and marketing coach. I'm on a mission to inspire women to start and play bigger in business. Now I started this podcast because when I first went all in and left the corporate world to be a freelancer, I was just grateful for any work that came my way. After over 20 years of freelancing and working for other people, I started to realize I'd created a glass ceiling with myself. It was in 2017 when I finally started listening to that voice that had been telling me for a long time that I wasn't doing what I loved, and I wasn't fulfilling my true potential. It took a critical illness to give me that wake-up call. And I don't want the same thing to happen to you. You can expect practical advice, interviews, inspiring stories, and a lot of aha moments as we uncover and kick to the curb. All the obstacles you've been putting in your way.

Ruth Gilbey 01:30

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the inspiring women in business podcast. I'm delighted to have Heather Greco with me today. Heather, do you want to introduce yourself? Tell everybody who you are and who you help.

Heather Greco 01:43

Yes, thank you for having me. I'm very excited. I am Heather. I am a Texan. I live in Austin, Texas. I am a marketing specialist and an efficiency expert where I specialize in social media marketing and systems to make things smarter, not harder, and really teach my clients how to not be overwhelmed, especially with social media and teach them how and why we use the things that we use to give them a really much better, bigger and better picture. So they don't feel like they're not they're doing it just to do it. Because everyone owns a business. Social media is a necessary evil marketing, we have to market ourselves some way shape, or form emails, even video and so giving them a reason why and giving some science behind that as well I think is really helpful. It takes the overwhelm out of it.

Ruth Gilbey 02:33

100% Yeah, giving them a reason why to do it so that we buy into doing it. How did you end up with the business that you've got today?

Heather Greco 02:41

Yeah, so I was in corporate America as a director of marketing for a court reporting firm and I was in sales and marketing for them. I became a mom, I'm I've got three little ones, little-ish ones, I guess they're eight, six, and four at the time of this recording, and they keep me very, very busy. And I wanted to continue to work because after getting out of the workforce, it's just not in me to just sit and do nothing even though you know, I'm very busy as a mom. And so I got into health and wellness and started marketing my business that way virtually and I created Chaos and Cookies. Chaos because you have three young kids that chaos is life. There's no such thing as balance. I think it's more of controlling the chaos, so to speak. And I just got very good at juggling a lot of things. I've always done multiple jobs and multiple tasks. And it just comes very easy for me in my brain but teaching it I've learned it doesn't come naturally to others and Cookies because no matter how much you clean and organized and stay you know pretty routine. There are always problems somewhere. I mean, you have children so you get it nothing's there. Everything's always sticky. I'm in that sticky face still wherever they like has a little stickiness.

Ruth Gilbey 03:57

Yeah, I've got when 10-year-old boys but yeah, still. Yeah, all sorts. Oh my goodness,

Heather Greco 04:04

What's the stickiness so yeah.

Ruth Gilbey 04:07

And three cats as well with various things going on all the time as well.

Heather Greco 04:13

I can. Yes. I have three elderly dogs. One's a diabetic two were blind. Like they're all senior citizens. So they keep everything busy.

Ruth Gilbey 04:21

So did you have some sort of epiphany in your life about how you were applying what you now teach other people? Was there something like that? Did you start doing some of the stuff that you teach other people on to your life as well?

Heather Greco 04:36

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. So you know, you're busy mom, you're trying to run your own business. I was trying to figure out social media and also marketing on my own because when you are working for a company, they provide you the marketing, you know, pamphlets and marketing tools for you. And when you own your own business, you have to create those on your own. You have to get those out on your own and that can be daunting and very frustrating if you don't know how to, you know, do graphic design or be able to write copy on your own. So when I started marketing my own business, which was a virtual fitness company at the time, I just got super good at the social marketing piece because I was on it a lot. I feel like I was new to Instagram, I was on Facebook, but not for marketing reasons. And clients and other coaches saw me on there all the time. And they're like, how do you have the time to be on social media all the time, but you're a busy mom, you're a wife or this or that I said, Well, I'm not on it all the time. I'm just working smarter, not harder. I'm learning different tricks and tools and shortcuts. So then I can just push three buttons and be done. And that was very fascinating to them. And so now I teach that in your home, on social media on many, many things to create systems to shorten your time. So then you can open yourself up to more quality time with your kids. Or maybe you want more time to put into your business.

Ruth Gilbey 06:05

So how do you figure out what to prioritize at home and in your business? I think this would be so useful for people listening because I think a big pain point for so many female business owners is time isn't that?

Heather Greco 06:17

yes, time is definitely something that we hear, we don't have enough if I feel there are 24 hours and everyone's day, it's just a matter of how you're utilizing it if you're delegating if you have help if you're doing it by yourself. And so getting really granular with your calendar, and how much time you're spending on each thing. And I think it's very important. I have a written calendar, I have a digital calendar, sometimes things don't make it from my digital calendar onto my written calendar. And vice versa, it happens. But just having a system in place, like I have an assistant, I've learned that I am very busy. And I can't keep track of all the things anymore, which is a good thing. It means I'm being successful. And I have my checks and balances. And so just realizing that you might need that in your life. Because you have so many things, you might need to hire someone to help you just remind you about your schedule or give you a snapshot. Sometimes you need someone to color-code your calendar, just so you can get a good snapshot of it. So I think that being granular with your time management is a really big deal. And being proactive and not reactive. You start your morning out being proactive and planned. You look at your calendar for the day, you will be more prepared. Today I'm actually being a little bit more reactive today because it was freezing out this morning and just things kind of go wonky. And so being reactive and reactionary is causing a little bit more chaos than I like and but it happens. And so then, just making those adjustments through your day and then preparing for the next day.

Ruth Gilbey 07:50

So one of the things I wanted to ask you is it sounds like you're already given I was gonna ask you about your five hacks for busy moms who are running a business but it sounds like you've already started to give us a few of those already. Have you got any more for the listeners?

Heather Greco 08:03

Yeah, so I have a little bit it's kind of a mix between mom's stuff and business stuff. Is that okay?

Ruth Gilbey 08:09

Of course.

Heather Greco 08:10

So a really big piece that I've found when being a working mom, especially in the house because we were working from our home like that's our office to and running your home like a business, is home is like a business. There are schedules to keep and food to be made. And so there are the shoe racks that I like to recommend my clients are offered up as just a tip, you know, those shoe racks that hang from your closet rack, and it has like five boxes or like shoes if you put those at each of your kids' rooms on Sunday, or whichever day you choose, each of those sections will be a day of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you can lay the clothes out in each section. So at the beginning of the week, say it's like crazy sock day and you want to make sure that your kid doesn't miss out or you're not scrambling in the morning and being reactive looking for the crazy socks because you didn't realize it was crazy sock day, like yesterday was Tuesday and my son was like it's a costume day. And I'm just like, No, what's that, like? Did I miss the memo? It was to a point but we hadn't put out the two t-shirts because my nanny didn't realize it was that day. So those are the types of things you want to avoid. So if you put those days of the week in there, that frees you up and makes you less reactionary. It gives your child a sense of accomplishment because they can just go grab what was picked out and put it on. So you're not sitting there arguing with them. Because I'm in Texas, it was hot yesterday, and now it's 35 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's freezing. So they're gonna be wearing tank tops and T-shirts. I don't want to have that argument with him for 10 minutes think well, it's freezing outside so you can prepare as you go and it saves you time in the morning. So that is one quick tip for moms. It gives them just a sense of it'll give you like an extra 10 minutes to get that email out or whatnot. The second thing is pretty similar but in the kitchen. So you compare them a lot to the pre-made meals or the home chefs and things that you can order the food and they send you all the ingredients already, you know, sectioned off. So if you're going grocery shopping, or you get like Instacart, or something when you get that one onion or the one cucumber, it's usually rolling around in the drawer somewhere, it's in your fridge floating around. And then so when you go to cook, you're looking for all the things and then you realize, oh, I forgot the cinnamon or this or that. So you're going around your pantry, and you're going around your kitchen getting all these things, what do you want to cook, maybe you don't like to food prep? Well, if you do that, at the beginning of the week, and you know what you're going to cook through the week, you get these either plastic containers, or you get some sort of bin that you keep all the tools and for that one meal. So if you need the one honey and you need the spatula, you need all the things to put that all in one bin and you present in the fridge. So then when the time comes to go cook, you pull it out, and everything is right there. And you're not spending 20 minutes looking for the one onion, or this or that, or realizing oh, I forgot I didn't get XYZ. So it just cuts down a lot of your time.

Ruth Gilbey 11:11

Brilliant. I love it. I've seen a hack actually, you know, your I love your one with the shoe rack. I think that's so such a good idea. Because I have seen I saw a hack where someone had done it with plastic boxes where they put a uniform for the kids in each day of the week. And I think it just went viral this post about this. It was amazing. My kids are a little bit older now. But still, we get that, you know, Mom, where are my trousers? You know, Mom, where's my top? You know, and they have different? It's just yeah,

Heather Greco 11:39

They have uniforms. Every day is different like my kids have P.E. There's three, they wear uniforms, but other days are different. And so if I lay out the wrong thing, it's like, oh, that's not my day today, am like Oh, sorry. You know, you just do what you can. But this minimizes at least the confusion and you can label it and even on those things you can label like PE day this day that day. So then you don't even have to look at your calendars like, what day is it Wednesdays and Thursdays or Fridays? And Mondays? Like, wish to hear what I answered like why can't find my trousers like, Well, did you look where they're supposed to be?

Ruth Gilbey 12:14

I know, we are really trying to get them to be it's a challenge, isn't it that thing, and I think we bring it into our businesses as well, where it's like, oh, it's just quicker if I do it myself, you know, we don't delegate enough duty. And I do that with my kids. I sometimes do that with my own business. But have you got any advice, right? What do you do? When do you stop yourself jumping in all the time? And are you good at delegating?

Heather Greco 12:37

I've gotten good at delegating because I'm a single mom. And so there's only so much I can do. And I don't like to snap at them. And I don't like to just lose it. Sometimes I'm just like, I'll just do it myself, I have learned that me doing it myself also makes me upset because they're not taking the initiative to do it. And so I have learned that no, you need to do this or you need to do that. For instance, my four-year-old is some days like is trailing behind. And sometimes my eight-year-old is already ready to go. And I'll say if your brother is struggling that morning, then can you pack his backpack, like the lunch boxes are done, you just have to go on the fridge and stick it in there. It's like just helping each other out. So Mommy doesn't have to because then we're rushing out of the house and then I'm upset and then I'm losing it on you guys. You don't want me to yell. I don't want to start my morning off like that. So explain to them if there's something that you see that needs to be done. It's a really great trait and habit to get into to just do it. And they're young. They're eight, six, and four. So like, they don't really understand that. But as they get older, I have noticed that they will start helping me more if they know that I'm already going to ask and I keep very organized home things have their place if it's not in their place. And it's mine. Like I have bins all across my house. That's another thing that I think helps kids understand that there's something that needs to be done without us asking. So there are toys, there are games, there are things always floating around the house, like no matter what age your kids are, right? I mean, I don't have teenagers but I can only assume that there are things that are sitting out. And so having some functional organization cubes or Ottomans and things in each room helps out and where you position them is very, very important. So you should position them close to the doorway. So one for two reasons. One, when you're walking into a space, if you have guests, they're not seeing the organization stuff like the cubes that you have behind me, and two, if they are taking out toys or blankets or things it's so much more efficient if they pick them up and walk out of the room and put them in wherever it is next to the door so they can't say oh I forgot, I have to go back in and go walk on the other side of the room or this or that it's more functional, it's on your way out, like, pick that stuff up on your way out the door. And then they can drop it in the bin. So having something functional and strategically placed in your house will help that. And so they know, well, I gotta clean this up before I go get something else, they actually have to physically leave the fire truck on the floor to go back to go get something else, well pick it up and trade it out. And so teaching them how to hopefully be more self-sufficient.

Ruth Gilbey 15:33

You know what that is? It's such a simple, but I'm like, I'm gonna do that. I can't believe I haven't thought of doing that. Because it drives me nuts. Because my husband does it as well as just like bits everywhere. And I'm quite a tidy person. Why am I spending time putting these things? I'll just put them in a box? And is that what you're saying? You put it in there? Yeah,

Heather Greco 15:56

Yes. And so like in your main space, like I have a bin for my main like because everything is an open concept these days. And so yeah, their game room or they're like, I don't know about your kids, but my kids every morning are always bringing toys out before we go to school. I'm like, why you can't take those a school, you're taking him in my car, I'm just gonna take them out of the car and bring them right back inside, well, I'm not going to go and put them where they belong. It's just you taking them out, you taking them to the car, and you know very well that I don't like that. And so what I do is I have this bin in my living room where I just put everything and so at night before bed, it's going into the bin and grab whatever is yours and take it back to your room. Like I'm not going to do it but it is at least consolidated into one space. So I don't have to stare at it on my countertops, go check the bin. If it's in there, at the end of the night, guess whose it is it's mine. So if you don't take it, go put it back in your room where it belongs because it took it out by first place. And so it accumulates all there. So if I see anything and everything if it's my mom and she comes over and leaves something I put things in there, so I don't lose it. Is it one space, I don't have to look at it and then fear that it gets put somewhere else. And then everyone else can go take their stuff like it would work on your husband too I'm sure.

Ruth Gilbey 17:08

Yeah.You know, the bits of paperwork that just end up just lying around as well. I'm just gonna put them in the bin. That's right. Not the bin. Rubbish. Not the trash. Yeah, the halfway bin. I love that such a simple thing. It's like, you know, I don't know why I do think of that.

Heather Greco 17:26

It's simple. But if your brain does it, look, it just does it. And then lets you see it. You're like, oh, it makes sense. And so I think that's why I've learned that when I create systems, it's easy because it's just something I do naturally. But if explaining it to someone, it's like, Oh, I understand. And like the paper, for instance, like a solution for you. There is like your little paper hubs like I've got piles of paper like you've got bills, you've got mail that you haven't opened yet. And so going through that once a week is huge and keeping up with it. So if you have like a paper bin where you keep all of your mail, for instance, and you're like, I got to open it, or that's all promotional stuff. So I know that's junk, but I want to open it just in case I'm not throwing something away important because they always disguise it now. It's really hard to understand if it's legit really like government work, or if it's just a no, no, right? It's super hard. So then you end up opening every piece of mail. So if you go through that, like pick a Friday, and so you go through all the IN file it so you make a file and go, Okay, I need to file these or I need to scan them, and then I can throw them away. This is for taxes. So I need to put this over here. This is just trashed. But I still need to go through make sure everything got paid. And you go through that once a week. So then you're eliminating your piles each time because paper can just and then you're just like the paperwork for the kids, you know, take a picture of the artwork and then toss it and do what you need to do with it.

Ruth Gilbey 18:50

Oh my god, I've got this box of just all there. I can't bear to throw it away. But I could digitize it, can I?

Heather Greco 18:56

You digitize it? So you take a picture of it. And then you put it in an album because what are you gonna do, you're gonna look at it all. But if you have a picture of it. The only things I think keeping of my kids' stuff is if it's like a handprint with like the year, things like that I feel are better than just like the scribbles on a piece of paper, like take a picture of it and toss it but if it's something special, I'll keep but I'm a very nostalgic pack rat person as well. And I've learned I've had to learn like it's okay to release it. It's okay to throw it away. Just don't let them see that you're throwing it off.

Ruth Gilbey 19:28

That's another great hack. One thing that comes up a lot, and you probably hear this as well. What would your advice be to a mom who's a business owner who's saying I don't have time? You know, don't have time I'm not getting that thing on my to-do list done. What would you what would be your advice for somebody?

Heather Greco 19:46

You do have time? It's just a matter of do you want to make the time? Is it something that you want to even do if you're saying you don't have time, it might not be something you want to do? So that might be a mental block and a mindset thing and so if you have to tell yourself like, I don't want to do that, I don't have time. And that's probably why I don't have time, then either A, go find someone that will do it for you. So then you know what it'll get done. And you can free that up in your mind or change your mindset a little bit and look at what it is exactly that you want to go do. And then look at what you have to do the rest of your day and see where you can fit it in and combine and consolidate. So when I work with clients, I have them look through their schedule, and I have them literally time themselves when they do tasks every day, like how much time are you spending in your email, and then at the end of a few days, they can see like, oh, I was in and out of my email, you know, two minutes here, three minutes there, 15 minutes here, but what was I doing probably just checking in scrolling, we can consolidate that and say, Well, we're gonna check it in the morning. And then at lunchtime, we're gonna work on the things that can not be urgent and just find different ways to spread those tasks out or consolidate those to three minutes that are like six times a day and put that somewhere else that frees you up somewhere in your day to do a house job. Or maybe it's something that you shouldn't be doing at all. And you're like, Why was I even spending my time doing that, like, that's something that my kid could go do, and just putting it down on paper and writing it down. And another thing is to give ourselves some grace as well, I really highly recommend giving yourself like three non-negotiables each day those are the three things I'm going to do today, whether that be working out making dinner, getting a project out for work something, but those are the three things that you will make time for. And you need to set aside like 20 minutes an hour and stick to that like you don't go 25 minutes if you gave yourself 20 And just really try to stick to your guns, and then your three high priority tasks you go to next. And if you don't get to those, those become your non-negotiables. For the next day, you don't keep those high priorities and put something else in front of it. Because that's how we get things kicked down. And that's your non-negotiable so that at least your mindset could be alright, I didn't get to that today. But I am going to get to it tomorrow, and so on and so forth. It's just a mindset change.

Ruth Gilbey 19:46

Yeah, I love that. And I love that actually, through that process, you're doing a proper audit of what's really going on. Because sometimes we tell ourselves a story, don't we that we don't have time. One of the things that I do, and I was thinking about this, when you were talking about it is if I am scared of something, something's a little bit scary, something's out of my comfort zone, I make myself busy. I know this about myself because I'm like you a coach as well. So I understand what's going on. So I can step back and go, Oh, what does that mean? Why am I procrastinating or maybe really busy about it? Maybe Why am I actually avoiding? Am I actually avoiding something here?

Heather Greco 22:45

Are you scared about what's going to happen? And I think it's a really great exercise that not a lot of people do is looking at at the end of your day, you look at all the things you accomplished writing down is huge. I think it's a huge thing. It's great for the brain. I know we all like to digitize things, but I'm big I have notebooks and stuff all over the place. And asking yourself how it made you feel when you did it? Does it make you feel accomplished? Because you got it done? Was it scary and you didn't like it at all? And you don't want to do it anymore. So you need to go offload it. Is it something where you're like, Oh, that was terrible. Like I would prefer to pay someone to do that. But looking at it that because you want to do things that bring you joy that doesn't overwhelm you that it's life, there are things that we don't want to do always like I hate laundry, I hate doing it, but it's a necessity, have to do it. I tried to get my nanny to help me as much as I can. But just some days, I'm just gonna have to do it too. But just trying to offload some of it. So I'm not so overwhelmed. I'm okay with that. And so how does that make me feel? Hey, pretty darn good, because I just eliminated my loads from six to two. You know, just seeing how it makes you feel because you want to hone in on that for mindset and for self-care.

Ruth Gilbey 23:51

I love that brilliant tips. And Heather, I just got the last couple of questions for you. What's your last bit of advice for someone who's starting a new business? Because a lot of my listeners or maybe they're moving from full-time employment into having their own business, what would be your tip for them?

Heather Greco 24:08

I would say don't overwhelm yourself and don't set too many deadlines close together. You should pace out your deadlines. If you're trying to set yourself up like I want to leave corporate by this time. Great. That's your goal. So then you need to set realistic goals and piece them together really look at what do I have to do first? What's really how much time really is it going to take me I might want to have it done by next week. But is it really going to happen within a week? Probably not. So set it for two weeks and set those deadlines realistically but stick to those as much as you can and piece it together. Don't say like I want this, this, and this done by this date. You're setting yourself up for failure. So really just strategically looking at a reasonable timeline. We're all instant gratification these days, especially with social media and things at our fingertips with DoorDash. Like, I'm hungry, I make I order it, it's here on my doorstep, right? Those types of delivery services. So you have to understand that a business is not a delivery service, and you have to put in the work and the time to build it in order for it to deliver what you want. So just remember, it's not instant gratification when you're doing it.

Ruth Gilbey 25:27

Yeah, I love that. It's something I say as well progresses like small, consistent actions, rather than just like throwing it all together, and then going, this is too much. So yeah,

Heather Greco 25:38

I did that. When I started my business. I was like, I need a website, I need this, I need a lead magnet, I need all these things, and it gets very overwhelming. And then you're ending up either doing it halfway, or you're not doing it to your full potential. So then you're creating a situation where you have to go back and redo it. So now you're spending double the time when I could have just been like, let's get this first, let's get this set up. I can put the words coming soon. Like there's nothing wrong with that. Because I was all like now now now. And then when I create it, I can do it the right way where I'm not going back and trying to reinvent the wheel because you just are going to end up spending more time later.

Ruth Gilbey 26:15

So true. One tip I heard from a copywriter friend of mine, she said put a landing page up and say my website's not ready, but I am. Just one grade doesn't mean just because you don't have a website doesn't mean you can't take get clients or start to get going. So yeah.

Heather Greco 26:31

I won't be paid as your best friend. Like it's automated. If people sign up, it gives you an email, you can send them something nice like that. It's you do not need a website to get started. Now you do want a website because it is something that is yours. It's real estate, it's got your name on it. Because we all have borrowed space, like social media is not ours that is borrowed, they can do whatever they want with it. They can delete our accounts, they can go change, hey, we're not social media anymore. We are a grocery store like you have no control, but you have control over your website. So yes, that is a key. But you don't need it to start.

Ruth Gilbey 27:05

No, I'm we're totally in alignment there. I think a lot of people actually and I think this is probably another episode for another time. But a lot of people skip that part and think, oh, no, I'll just go to social media. I'm like, but yeah, your website belongs to you. So we're totally in alignment.

Heather Greco 27:20

Their goal with social media is to get off of social media. You want them off of social media onto your website, so just remember social media is its own business. But that's a whole other situation right there.

Ruth Gilbey 27:33

Absolutely. So how can people find out more about you, Heather,

Heather Greco 27:37

So I have my website at chaosandcookies.com. I spend a lot of time on Instagram. I teach how-to tutorials. I also have lots of mom humor on there along with organization tips like the ones I shared today. You can find me @theheathergreco or @chaosandcookies. I have two handles one heavier on social than not when it comes to social media tips. And I love to connect if you have questions I love to teach if you have questions about content creation or just an idea of like how to save a song, so you could do it later. I'm here for you to help. So.

Ruth Gilbey 28:09

That was amazing. Packed with tips. Thank you so so much other it was lovely to meet you.

Heather Greco 28:13

Oh, you too. And thank you for having me.

Ruth Gilbey 28:22

Thanks for listening and subscribing to the inspiring women in business podcast. Please do take a few moments to leave me a review. I love getting reviews they absolutely make my day. Also, go and check out my business-building hub. In there, you're going to find lots of great resources, free resources for business owners who are launching, running, or growing their businesses and I have a brand new masterclass for you. It's called the Sold Out Solution and in that, I share my exact roadmap to help you get your first online clients in 30 days. And guess what? It's only a 29-minute masterclass as well. So I get straight into the value. Lots and lots of great advice for you in there. And also, for those of you who watch the masterclass a freebie for you within the masterclass as well go and check it out.