Introducing the New MandiMoney.com!
When it comes to business, I love getting my hands dirty.
Not many people know this, but for the first 5 years of the Brown Ambition Podcast, I was the sole producer and editor for the show.
Each week, after recording for 1-2 hours, I would race to catch my train and edit the audio, write the show notes and schedule the episode to air on iTunes, Spotify, etc. on the way home. When I screwed up and couldn't figure something out, I hit message boards and YouTube until I learned my way out of the mess.
And when I decided to go full-time with my MandiMoney venture last June, I sat down and spent several hours building my website and setting up the infrastructure for coaching and consulting myself. It wasn't perfect, but I learned so much along the way.
By rolling up my sleeves and building my businesses "by hand", I had an opportunity to see every nook and cranny of how things worked. And I took pride in the fact that I was able to be successful without spending thousands of dollars on professional help. At the end of the day, I want to know that I can rely on myself if all else fails.
Don't get me wrong — I know I can't scale my business alone. But I think the best leaders with the most successful teams are the ones who understand the day to day grind that it takes to keep the lights on because they've done the work themselves.
I learned this myself from managing a team of 30 employees during my 5-year tenure as a content director. Before I had a huge team of writers and editors producing 400 articles per month, I was THE writer and editor. I was the one overseeing every step of the content production process and developing standard operating procedures to ensure the highest quality content was published at the end of the day.
It was grueling work the first couple of years. I desperately needed help to scale the team and I knew that. When we were acquired and suddenly had the resources to hire one, I was ready to recruit and train them. I knew exactly what I needed from them and could communicate that effectively. That is what made my team so damn productive and good at what we did. To this day, more than a year since I left that role, I know that the team there is still thriving based on the sound foundation I helped build all those years ago.
Now, it's true, I probably did wait a little too long to finally hire an editor for Brown Ambition. I should not have been editing episodes in the labor and delivery room just hours before giving birth, OK. 😆 (0/10 would not recommend!)
But by that time, at least I knew exactly how I wanted the show to sound and how to ensure a smooth production.
And when I brought on my fabulous web designer to redesign the new MandiMoney.com, I knew exactly what I needed from my website in order to take my business to the next level.
I say all this to say, if you are dreaming of building something, just do it. You can do so much more than you realize if you give yourself the opportunity to try. And don't think you need to rush to hiring help before you figure out exactly what it is that you need. It will save you so much strife down the road.
Now, I would love to invite you all to feast your eyes on the brand new
Huge shoutout to the incredible Shirley Ansley, a badass entrepreneur in her own right, for understanding my vision and bringing it to life.
Here’s a little taste of the process we went through to get here:
