Courtney Hanson is a licensed energy healing therapist, reiki master, mindset coach, and author with a strong desire to help women turn their darkness into light and master manifestation to live life healed and as their highest selves. She has helped thousands of women step into their divine purpose. The Sweetest Little Life Podcast was developed to connect the mind, body, and soul for women in business. She provides her clients with the tools to heal, set intention, and gain the knowledge to thrive and feel empowered in living a life they love and desire.
Tell us how you created this brand and what was the sole idea behind it.
When I started The Sweetest Little Life it was to teach mama’s how to create a successful Etsy business. After I had my daughter in 2015 I realized I wanted to stay home with her and shut down my salons which were the typical 9-5. I was missing so much and I no longer wanted to miss a moment with my littles. After being a stay at home mom for a few months I kept having this urge of now what? I knew I was meant for more. I was crafty and heard about Etsy through a friend, at first it was just to kill time when my husband was at work and then within my first year I brought in $60,000 and I felt like I had hit a gold mine. I had to share with the world my research on how I accomplished this. So…I did just that. I created a course and began posting tips and tricks to my Instagram. Within a year my page grew from 200 people to 10,000. I slowly started getting the opportunity to do influencer jobs and loved the freedom it gave me. I was getting paid to take pictures of my littles all dressed up, of home decor, but rarely of myself.
I slowly began the transition to mama blogger and in 2018 wrote my first book “The Sweetest Little Life – A Mompreneurs Guide to Success” I was always getting asked how I juggle everything and still run a household and so I decided to spill all my secrets of work-life balance and my journey in this book. For three years I ran my Etsy and focused on all things, mommy. During this time I became pregnant with my third child. I was sick my entire pregnancy and had severe postpartum that almost took my life. I was lost and felt like everything I knew was swept out from under me. I didn’t have a fluid brand anymore, I was saying yes to everything, and had become so blurred in what I wanted for myself, for my brand, and my business. I began to spiral during my postpartum and started to lose everything little by little. I wasn’t consistent, I felt no drive, and I wasn’t being authentic to the purpose that I was made for.
It took six months to halt it all. I needed to be still and ground in what I wanted for my life. During this time I finished my reiki master, NLP, yoga & hypnotherapy licensing and I became crystal clear on who I was and what I was supposed to do in my life. My soul lit on FIRE, I had this crazy stirring energy to help women heal, to help them feel whole, and to guide them into feeling love and passion for life itself. In 2020 I rebranded the entire esthetic, mission, and niche of The Sweetest Little Life to empower women to heal and find purpose. When I rebranded I wanted it to stand out to my target audience and to do this, I had to get very clear about who my target audience was. I also wanted to make sure to incorporate my style and feel with the brand. With a little bit of spice, it came out just as I envisioned.
I use PLANN to content batch and make sure everything flows seamlessly on all of my social media platforms and I repurpose content from vlogs, blogs, youtube, keynote events, TikTok, reels, and my podcast to constantly be delivering the same message of my brand but mixing it up in creative ways so I am not always staring at a screen or trying to create new content. It’s also super important when building your brand that everything is like eye candy, visuals are so important. A huge trick to keep it consistent is picking lightroom preset you love and that matches the esthetic and use that for all of your content. I’m a firm believer in working smarter not harder and batch scheduling is a beautiful way to do just this.
Explain the challenges you went through while you were working on brand creation. What are the challenges you go through on an everyday basis?
One of the biggest challenges in my opinion is imposter syndrome. It sneaks up on the best of us as we are researching to get into for our brand and content so I can’t urge you enough to not fall into the comparison game, there is room for everyone and there is only one of you on this planet which makes your brand and your dream that much more unique and one of a kind. It’s also so important when building a brand and making a mark in whatever niche you choose that you are paying attention to all the free resources available at your fingertips when it comes to numbers. When is your ideal time to post? When is your audience engaging the most? How many visitors are going to your site? All the details matter. Find out what’s working and do more of that. For finances, I have used quick books since my Etsy days. I have the app on my phone which is linked to my bank account and makes it super simple to swipe all of my business expenses and income for a profit and loss at the end of the year. I have personally never received financing and have built my brand from the ground up. There have been years of loss financially but the silver lining is I gained knowledge in experience worth more than gold and I kept going even on the days I wanted to quit. Each year my personal goal is to at least double what I made in the previous year, not only in income but also in numbers. I am now close to 70,000 followers on the gram and building my team to expand in 2021. Outsourcing is so important to avoid a crash and burn. Sometimes as business owners it can be hard to let go of the reins but when we develop a team it is so powerful with what can be accomplished in our goals. When starting Upwork is a great site to find help per project. I also take part in my income and invest it back into myself. Every niche is constantly growing and changing with the world evolving right before our very eyes and I learned the hard way that we have two options as entrepreneurs. 1. To beat our heads against a wall until we figure it out and walk away exhausted and bruised. 2. Learn from experts in our field who are where our goal is to be. One of my all-time favorite Tony Robbins quotes is “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.” When you invest in yourself you are investing in your brand’s future and it is empowering to step into the knowledge of so many great teachers around us.
Tell us your future vision about the brand. How far do you want to take it? What is your dream about taking it to the next level?
In 2021 my vision for The Sweetest Little Life is to do more speaking events, have my podcast thesweetestlittlelife.com/contact in the top 10, and grow my coaching business to seven figures. I want to inspire women to know their worth and know that the only thing standing in their way is themselves. You are capable of absolutely anything you put your mind to with the right tools in your belt and a clear vision of exactly what you want. If you are taking the leap of entrepreneurship this year my biggest piece of advice to you is to just do it. Stop waiting on the sidelines for the perfect situation to align, step out of fear, and step into knowing your worth and that you have something valuable to offer your target audience. Rejection and speed bumps are just a part of the journey and sometimes it’s just the universe telling you there is something better on the horizon. If your heart is feeling called to step into a different direction or go full-time in your brand there is no better time than right now. Our entire world is pivoting with covid and online businesses are thriving. I would love to personally chat with you and guide you with a free 30-minute consult for The Entrepreneurs audience. calendly.com/thesweetestlittlelife/30-minute-coaching-call if you resonate with this article or feel just plowed in your business let’s chat!
The Sweetest Little Life
For more information visit:
Website: www.thesweetestlittlelife.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/thesweetestlittlelife