#Smallbizchat LIVE is a monthly video chat where small business owners can get answers to their questions. The focus of #Smallbizchat LIVE is to end small business failure by helping participants succeed as your own boss. 

Please join us live every third Wednesday of the month from 8-9 pm ET Live on my SmallBizLady Facebook Page, YouTube Channel and LIVE on Twitter. Follow @SmallBizChat on Twitter and follow the hashtag #Smallbizchat to join the chat.

Refreshing Your Business Brand in 2020 with Naly Rice @NalyRice

Naly is the Founder and CEO at LN Creative Group, a Technology Marketing-as-a-Service company with clients in technology, healthcare, nonprofits, and government sectors. www.NalyRice.com

SmallBizLady: What are minor ways to refresh my company brand without changing my logo or doing a complete overhaul, which can take months?

Naly Rice: Sometimes a full rebranding isn’t required. It’s costly, time-consuming and sometimes risky depending on your business. Minor ways to refresh your brand include color palette change, add a slogan or saying, color grade your images, or add fun design assets to email newsletters and print items.

SmallBizLady: What is a brand experience and how do I apply that to my business?

Naly Rice: Brand experience is basically the journey that a lead takes from initial touchpoint to client. To build this at your business, first, write down every interaction someone at your company has with leads to becoming a client. Map out the opportunity you have to wow them. Whether that is an amazing website, a cool and valuable automated email campaign, an easy and fast customer service experience, and fun freebies and interactions on social media.

SmallBizLady: How do I start fresh with social media updates and talking with clients and leads in 2020?

Naly Rice: Assess what worked/didn’t work from 2019 and create a new communication strategy. Analyze how you’re speaking with and to clients and prospective clients. Are you serious, funny, sarcastic, friendly, caring, etc.? Look at the tone of the content you’re writing and which social media posts received the most engagement. Learning how to effectively communicate your business in 2020 is even more important as more companies move to create content, video, and podcasts.

Planning For Your Retirement with Carole Hodge @MENOPAUSEMILLIONAIRE

Carole Hodges is the author of “Menopause Millionaire” which will be released in April 2020. Carole is a business coach who shifted to financial professional after seeing the roadblocks to retirement which are experienced by many business owners, especially women. Menopause is not only a physical change, it is a wake-up call. This mid-life change is a time to take a new look at your finances, your health, your relationships, and your life purpose.

SmallBizLady: What is a “MENOPAUSE MILLIONAIRE?”

Carole Hodges:  Menopause is a significant, undeniable and noteworthy shift in a woman’s life.  For most women, it occurs around 50. At age 50, things might look good. You might still have good health and an optimistic attitude toward your business or earning prospects.  But there is a simple FACT that SHIFTS your FINANCIAL FUTURE. That is TIME and RISK.

I can now look back on that time as foundational for the second half of my life. EVERYTHING changed.  It wasn’t just hot-flashes and memory loss. The one change that no-one talks about is your relationship with money.  It is time to WAKE UP or you may slumber through the biggest opportunity of your life.

Being a “Menopause Millionaire” is about changing your attitude toward money.  Most people feel that a million dollars are a fortune. Here is a reality check – by the time you reach age 50, you will have had $1,000,000 or more flow through your hands.  That is an average of $34,000 per year.

And if you live another 30 years, to age 80 or beyond, you will need another $1,000,000 and probably much more.  The longer you WAIT to set money aside, the shorter time you have for growth.  To watch your money GROW, you must have it EARNING for many years.   

SmallBizLady: What are some of the other considerations you should be making by age 50, around issues other than money?

Carole Hodges:  By 50, you’ve probably gained some WISDOM, so it’s time to chart a new path.

• Raising a family can bring you a new sense of both pride and humility.  But once kids are grown, your role changes. You need a new identity beyond Mom or Dad.
• Heath becomes IMPORTANT.  New aches and pains grab your attention.  How can you live a healthier lifestyle?
• Relationships often change as YOU change. 1 in 10 senior marriages end in divorce.  Even long- term marriages need to re-examine their future needs as partners reach mid-life.
• It is time to reconsider your life goals.  Once it becomes clear that all of us have an EXPIRATION DATE – the big question is WHY AM I HERE?  WHAT DO I STILL WANT TO EXPERIENCE IN THIS HUMAN ADVENTURE?

SmallBizLady: How can you get clear about how much money you’ll need in retirement?

Carole Hodges:  Einstein called COMPOUND INTEREST – the 8th wonder of the world.   Remember the RULE OF 72 for compound interest?  Take the interest rate you are earning on your retirement investment and divide into 72.  The result is the number of years it will take to double your money.

Let’s say you have $10,000 saved in an investment account that earns 10% per year.  

• Using the compound interest formula, it will take 7.2 years for it to double to $20,000.
• At 5% return – it will take 14.4 years to double

You are ON THE CLOCK to save money for the day when you don’t choose to work.  

Yet 34% of small business owners have NO RETIREMENT SAVINGS.  In fact, many have raided their retirement plan to start their business.  Small business owners are not alone. According to a study by “Nerdwallet”

• The median 401K balance at age 50 is $60,900
• At age 60 is $62,000
• At age 70 is $51,900

How to Boost Your Peak-Performance 

Delatorro L. McNeal, II @Delatorro is a peak-performance expert, renowned public speaker and the best-selling author of 7 books and over a dozen Personal and Professional Development Courses. He is ranked as one of the Best Motivational Speakers in the World. Delatorro is best known for his life-transforming live events including Crush The Stage, Speaking Business Mastery, & The Full Throttle Experience. For more information www.Delatorro.com

SmallBizLady: You’ve coined a moniker called “Performance Beyond Gold” what does that mean and how does that apply to all of us? 

Delatorro L. McNeal: The best all have one thing in common. They continue to top themselves to remain the best. They have the ambition to always up-level themselves realizing that they are always their best competition. PBG is simply that inner knowing that you can always perform higher than what you did in the past. 

SmallBizLady: So it’s the top of the year New Year – New Decade, but you have some advise that goes against the current grain of what most are saying? What are some of your Peak Performance tips for 2020? 

Delatorro L. McNeal: Before you set BIG GOALS……STOP, and get rid of all the crap that’s on your plate that doesn’t belong anymore. 95% of people that set big goals for the New Year do so without first MAKING SPACE in their lives and calendars for the new stuff they want. So they get overwhelmed by February and give by March. 

SmallBizLady: I know you talk to High Achievers a lot. In those talks, you share some “Secret Struggles” that all High Achievers have? 

Delatorro L. McNeal: Most High Achievers Struggle with 

1. Asking for Help
2. Building a Team
3. Loneliness & Isolation
4. Imposter Syndrome
5. SelfCare

Would you like to be a guest on #Smallbizchat?

If you are a small business owner, author, or subject matter expert, we’d love to have you appear as a guest on #Smallbizchat LIVE. Submit your name, headshot, Twitter handle, bio, website, topic and 3 questions and answers in paragraph form to demonstrate your expertise. To submit your materials to be a guest on #Smallbizchat click here.