Mid-Year Recap with Veronica Edwards

Ever wondered what it takes to successfully steer a business through significant milestones? Join me, Veronica Edwards, as I navigate the exhilarating landscape of 2024, marking my first full year dedicated entirely to my six-year-old business. Listen as I share the thrill of onboarding new clients like Pana Columbus from Thrive Appalachia and Nicole Johnson, a Black therapist while focusing on fractional CFO work and coaching. Partnering with organizations such as Mountain BizWorks and WNC Nonprofit Pathways, I highlight the influential power of word-of-mouth marketing and the empowering journey of taking control of your entrepreneurial destiny. As we stand on the brink of reaching 4,000 downloads for the Veronica Edwards show, I celebrate our progress and reflect on inspiring guests from season three, including Deidre Joyner, Reverend Tamika Milton, and Dr. Sophia Mitchell.

Stay tuned to hear about our exciting plans for the Veronica Edwards show, including the continuation of our cherished monthly CPA chats and the "eat, sleep, move your feet" health and wellness segments. I also reveal my plans to introduce new real estate segments to tackle the pressing questions on our listeners' minds. My mission is to provide valuable insights and experiences that can truly benefit our dedicated audience. As we wrap up season three and look forward to an even more impactful season four, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to our loyal listeners and encourage everyone to help us hit our 4,000-download milestone by visiting veronicaedwardsbuzzsprout.com.

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Balanced Virtually

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Transcript

Veronica : 0:38

Welcome to the Veronica Edwards show where we have fun financial conversations that everyone listening can apply to their personal and professional life. I'm your host, veronica Edwards, always excited and blessed to be back on bizradious. Season three Definitely wanted to have a mid-year monologue, even though the season for season three is almost over. We're in June of 2024, and I started off the year with a monologue with just some of goals and major changes that were happening. So I thought this will be a great time to just check in with everybody, let you know how 2024 has been going, which it's been flying by.

Veronica : 1:23

This is my first official year, 100% in my business, and I'm six years old in my business, so I definitely want to continue to encourage those that have started their business or hesitant to start a business just do it. You know you're never going to feel like you're ready to take the plunge. It's just like having children or getting a house and all the things. There's a hundred things that you could think about that can go wrong, but it just takes one thing going right for it to work out. So it's definitely been scary and challenging and rewarding and all that stuff, but I'm so glad that I took that leap of faith. I've been getting new clients, some of which have already been on the show this season, like Pana Columbus for Thrive Appalachia. I also am looking forward to one of my clients coming on a Black therapist, ms Nicole Johnson, and so those are things that I'm really proud of. In regards to my business, definitely focusing more on fractional CFO work and coaching, I've been blessed that I continue to get lots of referrals through Mountain BizWorks, friends of the Show and WNC Nonprofit Pathways. Pathways focuses on nonprofits specifically, so I started coaching with them this year and that's been amazing to partner with these organizations that have provided me steady clients.

Veronica : 2:49

So, again, word of mouth is still the oldest and most effective form of marketing. We've talked about that with COO of Cassie Electric. Also, a client of Balance, virtually on our small biz chats, is that, yes, I do newsletters and I have social media, but most of my clients have come from word of mouth of other clients or people that just have heard of me. So I definitely encourage folks to find folks to partner with if you're starting your business or if you want to continue your business, because just as much as I'm saying I've gotten new clients, I've also lost clients. Also, it was time to lose those clients. There's nothing wrong with that. That is the circle of business life. I think that's where sometimes people get nervous, where they don't want to start a business because they're like it's not guaranteed. Well, it's not guaranteed at your regular nine to five job either, because at any point you could be laid off for no reason and most states are at-will states, so you're not going to get unemployment and you might not get severance and all those things. So for me personally, I just wanted to take a little bit more control of my destiny. So I definitely encourage those that if you're thinking about it, do it. And for those that are needing some help with your small business and balance virtually or taking new clients so if you need help with your small business, balance Virtually are taking new clients. So if you need help with budgeting, forecasting, ensuring that you're following properly, proper, generally accepted accounting principles, check us out at balancevirtuallycom.

Veronica : 4:18

And then definitely want to talk about the Veronica Edwards show. So every week I'm always like, oh my God, we're almost to that 4,000 goal. But I want to say, as of this morning, the beginning of June, we're 175 downloads away, which is huge. I do not take that for granted, because that means that we've been averaging over a hundred downloads a month and that's over and beyond people listening to it. Live Bizradious, I believe, gets over 50,000 people listening to the station online streaming it, and I'm just proud to be a part of the show or the part of the station for the last three years. And when we start season three well, season four in September, then the next goal is going to be $5,000. You know we're always going to keep pushing ourselves. So you know, as I stated earlier about word of mouth being the oldest form of marketing and the most effective, I do also feel like, with me starting my monthly newsletter, veronica's View, back in March, that has helped because I have seen an uptick in downloads after the newsletter comes out monthly. So just these little things I've been trying to add to keep the spice going.

Veronica : 5:34

So, with that being said, I definitely want to highlight some amazing shows this season Family friend Deidre Joyner, licensed therapist. She was on early in season three. And now her husband, lamar Joy joiner, who is a seasoned realtor. He's going to be on the show in june. And I've had my cousin, reverend Tamika milton, who is an amazing singer. She um is a minister. She's a chaplain, she's does so many things and she's also an amazing entrepreneur. So she gave a lot of feedback on purpose and passion Very inspirational. Definitely have to shout out one of my oldest friends, dr Sophia Mitchell. She is now the second most downloaded show for all of Veronica's efforts in the three seasons. So it was amazing.

Veronica : 6:22

So I definitely want to for those that are listening if you have not heard Deidre Joyner, reverend Tamika Milton, dr Sophia Mitchell all African-American women, of course, all originally from the South. Tamika is going to represent up top. She's in Georgia right now. These are all amazing African-American women that are very inspiring and definitely looking forward for more women of color the remainder of the year. I'm super excited. I am going to drop a little nugget.

Veronica : 6:53

I had the pleasure of speaking with recently Ms Brandy Mills of Brandy Mills Consulting. She's an Asheville native. She's Oprah in my mind. I'm like I love Brandy, I'm a fan. She's coming on the show also before the end of season three and she's coming out with a book and she's all about empowering women and it's just a breath of fresh air. So again, this show has allowed me to meet so many people, learn so much about people and that's helped me personally and professionally and I hope it's helped you guys too.

Veronica : 7:27

And last but not least, just for me personally, just trying to do a reset this summer. You know all working parents know school's out, your whole life is going to change for two months and then you kind of have to reset it. But I was 33 when I had my son, so I always would say when I have a kid I'm using him for an excuse for everything. If he's sick, if he's this, it is true, like I will say it is nice to say hey guys, it's summertime, I got to switch my schedule. I'm not going to make these meetings or I'm only working these hours and people respect it. I think, coming from that corporate world where you felt like you could not say no, even though you that's how you know the vibe was, at least for me starting my career in the early 2000s, you kind of sucked it up and you had to do it and I will say it's been nice.

Veronica : 8:18

After COVID People understand like we're working from home. Some people are still homeschooling their children. There's all type of different dynamics happening and you can still get the work done. But it might be sometimes where I'm working three, four o'clock in the morning or I'm working later at night so I can have that quality time with the family. So that's what we're focusing on this summer.

Veronica : 8:40

We're going to Legoland in Atlanta in June. We just came back Memorial weekend from York, pa, visiting family. We're going to be rolling down to Greenville. I have a grand nephew now. I have another great niece that's coming. Our brand ambassador, jylan, is pregnant. So we're looking forward to all these new babies, all these good things going on and praise God I have a hysterectomy and I won't have any more, so I'm leaving it for the younger generation to keep multiplying and helping us lead the future with these young people.

Veronica : 9:16

But that's all that's been going on. In a nutshell, it's just been pivoting and changing and having some slow months with business and then having crazy busy months where I'm like, okay, I need a reset in the summer and in the midst of all of that, just continuing to be grateful every day for the things that I do have, grateful for my amazing husband and my son and my family, the amazing network and support that I have with the Biz Radio family, all of my clients with Balance, virtually my church family, just everything. I think a lot of times. That's the biggest thing I want to leave you guys with is just remember to be grateful, to daily, write down or say what you're grateful for, because I think it is very easy in the midst of things to just complain about what this is wrong and I don't have this and this happened and blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day happened and blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day you woke up this morning.

Veronica : 10:17

Hopefully those listening you're in your right mind, you're in as good as a health that you can be and if you're not, hopefully you have the options to change that narrative. And I just had my mom on recently and she's talking about your mindset. My mom's 69 years old and she's in better health than some people half her age and it's not because she's the smallest and it's not because she's working out all day long and has all this money. It's because of her mindset. She wants to live and she's doing things that gives her life. So that's the biggest thing that I want to leave everybody with listening to this mid-year monologue and I definitely want to invite the V team to send me a direct message or make a post on Facebook or Instagram and let me know, if you want to be a guest next season, what topics you would like to hear.

Veronica : 11:06

We are definitely doing our monthly CPA chat segments. We want to keep the eat, sleep, move your feet, health and wellness segments going. I'm thinking about doing real estate segments and all these other things that I know are on the forefront of a lot of the listeners. So please let me know and we'll make sure that we can share this knowledge and experience and we can help everyone that is listening. So, as I always say, I just want to thank all the listeners for tuning in to bizradious for the Veronica Edwards show, which airs on Wednesdays across all platforms, and if you missed the live airing and want to help me reach 4,000 downloads, you can go to veronicaedwardsbuzzsproutcom.