Meet Tara Swiger, marketing expert, author and host of Explore Your Enthusiasm podcast. Tara works with makers and artists to create a sustainable, lovable businesses. She does this through her books, the weekly podcast, online classes, and her in-person workshops. She leads adventures for makers who want to explore your own definition of success!

In this episode, Tara shares tips and strategies from her new book, Map Your Business a workbook of exercises designed to help you create your own personal blueprint to reach goals that are important to you, and how you can use it to define success, set goals and make a plan that you can stick with!  In this book, Tara takes an integrative approach, encouraging you to align your life and business, and she invites you to take a look at your progress each quarter to make sure you’re on track. 

Episode highlights

• Tara created her own job instead of "a business." Don't just talk about it ... do it if that's what you want to do! 
• How there's a big difference between the planning stage and actually having started a business
• After you start, what's next. Now where do you go? 
• In 2009 Tara left her day job and made it known publicly. She shares why it's important to let the world know
• Her first class was a marketing path to help creative business owners
• How the Map Your Business book is not only for business, but how to "draw your universe"
• The map-making process that Tara shares can be applied to any part of your life
• The difference between a task and a project - and why understanding this difference is crucial to your success
• Why making a mindmap helps to understand things visually and in a linear way
• Why Map Your Business was created like a map and how it came from a series of pdf workbooks that she created for her students
• How the book helps you to assess your goals monthly and quarterly, and how to pivot if you need to
• Tara gives Kara advice about how to do a monthly review in her new business-- and explains that this is advice everyone can follow
• There isn't a "right way" to start a creative business, you need to find what's right for you
• Tara shares her biggest struggle - a combination of having unrealistic expectations and not getting derailed when things don't go right.
• Tara explains that there is a way to systematize the overwhelm - make a check list out of it 
• The power or making a daily list even if it feels redundant
• Why it's OK to give yourself permission to say NO to getting certain things done
• Why being a maker contributes to the quality of Tara's daily life and how knitting socks helps her to stay sane during car rides!
• English Paper Piecing #epp is another passion of Tara's. She loves it so much because this craft is portable much like knitting
• How replying to a tweet, led to her being featured in the book bestselling book, Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk 
• Before you think about the Etsy shop or marketing - you FIRST need to to create your product and spend time "practicing."

Learn more about Tara:

Website: TaraSwiger.com

Podcast: Explore Your Enthusiasm

Tara's books and programs

 Map Your Business

Facebook: Facebook.com/Tara.Swiger 

Instagram: @TaraSwiger

Twitter: @TaraSwiger

Mentioned in this episode:

Business and marketing books:

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan 

The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future, by Chris Gillebeau

Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk (the book that Tara was mentioned in and one of Kara's faves!)

Podcasts:

Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn, check out episode SPI237 with Lauren from Girly Knits

The Ask Pat Podcast - Get your online business questions answered, 5 days a week.