• Opportunities for growth
• Creating conversation containers
• Connecting with enjoyable and relatable topics
• Designing a process you love

Welcome to Take Control with Nicole, as business owners we experience first hand the fine line between our personal and business lives. During our conversations, we will look at simple hints and tips to create time, reduce overwhelm, and help you to navigate through your journey to where you want to be. If you’re looking for smarter ways to work, and create space and time freedom in your day, then you’re in the right place. All right, let’s go.

As you start this podcast today, get excited because we have hit the number 100th episode. I am so thrilled to have arrived here today. What a journey of starting from day one, not really knowing what we were doing, just knowing we wanting to connect with our fabulous humans. And today, we are celebrating. So hello, and welcome to the 100th episode of Take Control with Nicole, thank you for travelling this journey with me if you have been here from episode one. Or if you’ve joined us at the right moment in time along our journey. I am so excited you’re here. And we are in your ears today. And excited to just continue creating this content for you. And for me, because I love it as well. So I thought I would talk about my journey of the podcast where we started why I decided to start doing it and sort of my three areas of consideration when I’m thinking about what we’re doing and crafting here. So I remember when I first started my business, I had an opportunity to join the fabulous Suz Chadwick on her podcast. Now, this for me was a momentous moment, shall we call it I remember feeling quite nervous about jumping onto the podcast. I know what I know. And I talked about it quite well. But I remember that it was the first opportunity that I had to speak as Nicole, the head of the Artisans Business Solutions, talking about processes and systems in your business and really scaling out to an audience that I had never reached before. And I remember feeling so grateful and thankful that Suz had provided this opportunity for me to come on into her community as a trusted human to share some knowledge. From that moment on, I’d always known that I wanted to create a podcast of my own, purely because I love talking. But also, I wanted to be able to create that same opportunity that I had with Suz, when you first start your business, when if it is your opportunity to look and get yourself out there. That’s what I wanted to do here. As well as create some fabulous content and some information for you to take away and implemented to your business. The people that have come on here, each conversation has been the most fabulous experience, I have walked away with some new knowledge myself. And that’s why I continue to do these podcasts. Because it’s not just about creating the content for externally, thinking about this on the cuff so let’s just work on through it, it’s really about myself being able to connect with more humans in a way that provides an opportunity for my guests to share what they’re about. So yeah, that’s what this podcast is about. Information. Yes, tick, tick, tick. Knowledge tick, tick, tick. But for our guests to be able to provide an opportunity for them to reach more humans and share the joy about what they’re doing. So the three areas of consideration when I’m thinking about the podcast here, and holding a space for not only myself and my guests, is really what we’re doing here is creating containers for conversations. So as a host, in person on the line, in meetings, our responsibilities and our role is to really create a safe space that people can feel confident to be their best human selves, to dance in the topics that they are known for, and that they live and breathe. We’re creating a safe environment, the conversations are going to flow in and out and I hope that you’ve experienced that when you’re listening on from the other side of this microphone today. The conversations may start here and then we might go off on a tangent over here and then we’ll weave back in through, having those encouraging words where we know that whatever and wherever we go, is exactly where the conversation needed to flow. From a process point of view, maybe talk a little bit more about that, in a moment, but we do create, you know, a guest questions sheet with a few sort of guided topics to flow us in and out. But that’s really there as a guide. If you know our podcast guests, if this is their first podcast, like me, I was so nervous going onto that podcast who Suz. So I wanted to be able to create some sort of structure here for our guests to come in. So they feel confident to know that they’ve got some anchor points to come back into, but also that once they’re in the room, we’re just dancing with the words and that, all of a sudden, they feel so confident to just continue to be their fabulous selves. So that’s one thing, our role here is creating those conversation containers, being able to support our fabulous humans to dance all with all the words. And it’s so fun, because in the unplanned, is where we find the moments of gold that we didn’t realise we needed to discover until we’ve actually allowed them to flow and arrive into our ears. So yeah, it’s a skill that I’ve been told by multiple guests and that I have, and it’s so beautiful, every time I hear it, I feel quite privileged to be able to do this and to create that space for them.

My second point is have conversations with people that you enjoy. And also around topics that you enjoy, or you’re interested to discover more, I find curiosity around those topics, they’re the best conversations when you go into something where you know, a little bit of information, and you kind of have an idea of what it is about. But you’re actually genuinely interested to know more to learn more to discover how one another person books and views that particular focus. It’s just wonderful each and every time I talk to someone on the podcast, or even my clients, yesterday, I had a fabulous family on podcast, we’re talking, we’re talking about podcast processes, and how we as a standard, create and collect information about our guests. It’s just we have a form, we collect the information. And that’s the introduction. My client had a beautiful different view on that, which when she posted, she’s going to post on LinkedIn. So once she does that, I’ll share it with everyone. But it was a beautiful view on that particular process that I hadn’t considered before. And it was so refreshing and lovely. And so I walked away from that conversation with something new. That’s what happens here. When you go into a conversation or listen to a podcast with curiosity. It’s amazing what you discover. And then you apply it into your experience with what you are looking to achieve. Magic things. So people, humans, relatable topics that you enjoy.

Hello, there, I’m just interrupting this episode as I would love to invite you to come on in and join us inside the Members Lounge. My community have shared with me that they joined initially, because they really wanted to discover the power of ClickUp. They wanted to be able to design, build, and connect their ClickUps within their own individual businesses. However, once they were inside, they really discovered how the power of looking at the foundations of your operational areas of your business. And designing those really to set you up for success is such a powerful element. And guess what else we have a fabulous community inside. So once you’re in, you’re never gonna want to leave. So come on over, have a look. Go to my website, theartisans.com.au and pop up to the Members Lounge button at the top. And we look forward to supporting you as you discover how fabulous it is when you’re confidently striding down easy street. See you inside the lounge.

I’ve been very privileged to date that we have been attracting the most amazing humans to come and join our conversations. So this is an invitation out there to you if you are interested to come and have a conversation with me. And if you’re listening to the podcast I had someone reached out the other day actually, they said they’d been tuning in and they just sent a form on the website to come and have a conversation with me. So if this is you and you’re just sitting there a bit, nail-biting or I’m not sure, please do it. As I said, I’ve created these containers that are safe and comfortable for you to come in and be your fabulous self. So I’d love to hear from you about a topic that really makes you shine and enjoy the way ClickUp does for me. So the third thing that I know, really helps, and I guess supported us to get to this 100th episode is surprise surprise designing a process that I love now when I first started, I was doing all the things. So I remember, actually, I remember when I first started, or before I started, I really wanted to create this podcast and I was beautifully creating all the barriers for me to stop. There was a particular microphone I wanted to order, it wasn’t available. So of course, I couldn’t do it. And there was all these things that were just maybe show me that it wasn’t exactly the right moment. Then, I was part of a musical theatre online production musical which was during COVID lockdown, and I bit the bullet and I bought my microphone. And ever since that was the green light, okay, fab, we’ve got the kit, we’re ready to go. Let’s do it. And I created a place in ClickUp, a list in ClickUp in my marketing folder, I designed the process what needed to happen. So from a top level, gotta pick a topic, invite a guest, do a solo, got to record the episode, we’re going to edit the episode, got to create a show notes page, we’re going to do all the things that are part of that process. If you are interested in in starting your own podcast, I would highly recommend you go and hop over and speak to the fabulous Cass Ponton, who is our Podcast Producer. So I will get her to, Cass’s editing this right now, hello Cass can you please pop all your details for these fabulous humans into our show notes. Pop on over, Cass runs these beautiful podcast strategy days as well. Highly recommend you go and speak to Cass but from my point of view, from my experience at the start, I really had no idea, I did some googling. I had some guidance from some people who are already experienced in the podcast world. Where do we host it? What do we do? How do we get music? How do we set a graphic? What size graphic do we need? How do we actually get it out to the world all those fabulous things. So I I navigated through and in my way of connecting with a process I like to understand all the bits and pieces, how it works, what doesn’t work well, all the bits. So we arrived, and then I engaged my first VA and then I delegated some of the process over to her. So the creation of the socials the creation of the online page, the show notes that inviting the guests the podcast planning, she helped with that. Previously, I had Chloe actually she started to edit my podcast and then we had Cass. And now our cast has been really instrumental alongside with the fabulous Chloe from Audacious Empires, my OBM team. Now they really helped me to shape and navigate what our podcast is doing each and every week. But I love this process. I love being able to choose a topic, we have now a new structure for our solo episodes, which we’re just finessing which you’ll start to see flow through this year, and being able to really have the experience of what we’ve done in the past 100 episodes. And what we want to do going forward. So really refining the strategy. And being able to put those things into play. We know processes are evolving and never fixed in one spot. So this is the next evolution as we move through from 101 onwards or even 100 and onwards. So finding the process that you love, you may love to edit your podcasts. I know one of my clients is a voice specialist. And so she loves the whole process of listening, editing, refining the conversations that she has on her podcast. Other people like myself, I love to get the fabulous Cass because she’s a trusted human in my world that will and does produce these beautiful sounds in your ears each and every week. So connecting in with what works for you, the format, the name all the bits and pieces. So that’s really it for today. A little reflection. I’ve had some fabulous humans on here, the conversations have been so enriching, walked away every time learning something new one or two points, being able to change the way and evolve the way that I look and feel and experience those particular topics. And just the entire support that I’m getting from my team to be able to bring this to life each and every day. So thank you so much for being here in your ears. I’ve got a couple of action points for you. If you are looking to enhance your podcast, look at starting a podcast, come and join me on my podcast, whatever it might be my three sort of points/takeaways are; connect with your role as a host for your podcast. What does this mean for you, what experience you’re looking to create? Are you wanting to have it really structured or are you really excited to experience those beyond the lines of curiosity? What can you explore? Talk and connect with people that you’re actually in interested in having a conversation with. I know that I’ve listened to some podcasts and you can really hear where the conversation is quite strained and it’s quite rigid. Find people that you would go and have a drink with or have a coffee with. And they’re the people that you want to have conversation with. They’re more engaging conversations, people want to really hear what’s going on. And then the topics as well. Our podcast is all about humans and businessing humans. So our topics range such a wide variety of topics. Whereas some other podcasts are very specific and focused on on a particular type of conversation. And finally, enjoy the process. If you’re not enjoying it, maybe it’s time to think about is this actually an activity that is serving your marketing strategy? Do you want to continue doing it or not? And it’s a okay to end your series. Say, thank you so much. I’ve enjoyed the process. But this is no longer serving me. If you’re loving it like me, watch out. Here we come another 100 episodes, I’m so excited. And I cannot wait. I’m so so so thrilled that you’re here, as I’ve said a number of times. And I’m really looking forward to what the next 100 episodes brings. So thank you so much for joining me for this little quick and sharp episode. Have a wonderful rest of your day and enjoy creating space and time freedom. Bye now.

Well, there we go. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a pleasure having you on board. Have we connected on social jazz? If not, please come on over. Say hi, I’m on all the platforms at the artisan solutions. So I’d really look forward to seeing you over there. And if you enjoy today’s episode, don’t forget to tag me and I’d love it if you could leave a review. And of course, share this with others so others can come and join us next time. All right, that everyone have a fabulous rest of the week and until next time, see you then.