43. A Goldilocks Story of Getting Capacity Dialed In | Kassaundra's win-win story

Kassaundra Foster is sharing her win-win teacher business story today. Whether you are side hustling while still in the classroom, running your business while chasing littles, or finding your full time flow with school aged children, the capacity piece is a tricky puzzle. 

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Kassaundra is a former special educator turned social media strategist who focuses on data-driven and sustainable strategies to help her clients market their resources without all of the stress. She is the host of the Schooled in Socials podcast as well as the creator of the Post and Profit course which teaches how to gather and analyze your Instagram data in order to make a strategic plan that will help you meet your big business goals. She's a work from home mom with a coffee obsession and passion for helping others up-level their businesses using the power of social media!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Joining us today for a guest conversation is Kassaundra Foster.

[00:00:04] Kassaundra a former special educator turned social media strategist who focuses on data-driven and sustainable strategies to help her clients market their resources without all of the stress. She's the host of the Schooled in Socials podcast, as well as the creator of the Post and Profit course, which teaches how to gather and analyze your Instagram data in order to make a strategic plan that will help you meet your big business goals.

[00:00:31] She's a work from home mom with a coffee obsession and passion for helping others uplevel their businesses using the power of social media. In today's conversation, Kassaundra shares the real talk struggles of capacity. Today's conversation felt like a Goldilocks story where sometimes we had

[00:00:51] too much time and sometimes we had too little and sometimes we had too much work on our plate and sometimes we had too little. But over time, she learned some skills about systems and capacity, and finally found a win-win schedule that works for her and her business goals.

[00:01:36] Janice: Welcome to the show, Kassaundra.

[00:01:39] Kassaundra: Hi Janice. How are you?

[00:01:40] Janice: Good. I'm so excited for our coffee chat today. I have loved following the evolution of your teacher business over time, and I'd love you to catch up listeners who might not know you. Let us know how you got started with your teacher business.

[00:01:55] Kassaundra: Almost four years now. I was looking for a way to leave the classroom. My kiddo was young. I wanted to be able to spend more time with him. And my aunt had been a freelance editor for a long time, and so I knew about the freelancing world and I said, well, I have a degree in secondary education with a minor in English.

[00:02:20] Maybe I can do something with that. So I sought out some courses, which basically was a general, like, how do you start your own business to be a freelancer? And through that they talked about social media management and I was kind of already really into social media. Over , COVID I had started a page on Instagram following the journey of me feeding my kiddo as he became like six months old and into toddlerhood.

[00:02:49] And I really liked that and so I was like, okay, let's dive into that. So I basically figured out how to set up my own business. I started taking on clients and working evenings and weekends, and I started just the VA route. I did anything and everything for people that I knew how to do confidently.

[00:03:09] Um, and then as I progressed in my business, I got more clients. I left teaching and I began really honing in and focusing more on social media strategy and social media management, which is where I am today.

[00:03:24] Janice: And I think that's how a lot of freelancer stories start where we take on a wide variety of tasks and quickly figure out what we love doing and what we don't and what we're really good at and what we're just okay at. And once someone decides, I'm gonna specialize in this, it's such an exciting light bulb moment because you know that there was like a whole chapter before that

[00:03:45] where they did the research to figure out like, this is my secret sauce that I could really, really help people with and make an impact.

[00:03:53] Kassaundra: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:54] Janice: And it makes sense that you were doing client work on the side at the beginning. We don't always have to pivot all in in one direction. How many clients were you able to kind of balance while in the classroom?

[00:04:06] Kassaundra: I had I think three clients that I balanced while I was in the classroom. Two of those, I did social media stuff for. One of those was kind of just straight up VA work and I dreamed of doing social media for them which now I do. And so that's like a really exciting evolution, right? I was burning the candle at both ends. I was teaching all day. I was coming home, I was taking care of my kiddo till my husband came home, and I would pass off my kiddo and I would go work until bedtime and then work some more. And then weekends were basically work days. And at that point I was basically trading my time for dollar bills.

[00:04:48] I was in that VA setup and so I was really having to spend a lot of time. I did that for about six months. And then one day my husband came home with a cake that had my business name on it and said, it's time. Just do it. Leave the classroom. Go for it.

[00:05:06] And that's what I did! 

[00:05:07] Janice: We love a supportive partner. That's such a good ending. That's a way to pivot. It's so good to have a sprint in your business and to hyper fixate on something that you're creatively excited about, but you have to recognize that it's a sprint and it's not a sustainable, like long-term situation.

[00:05:21] So yeah, six months. That sounds amazing. Yeah. I was doing a similar situation with mostly weekend work in my story, and it was like, okay, but you're kind of working days a week like that can only happen for so long. It was really helpful to not go from zero to 60 and back to zero again. But yeah, it has to be a temporary, calculated sprint for sure.

[00:05:42] Kassaundra: Yes, 

[00:05:43] Janice: So you dreamed of making social media a bigger piece of the pie. You went all in and then there's a lot of pressure, right? You have to make it work. Yeah. you take that step away from the stable W2 job, it's like pedal to the metal. I have to go all in and prove that this can work. I Need to make it work.

[00:06:03] So what's kind of like the pendulum swing that happened for you next? The teaching took a side. You are all in on social media, and what was that transition like?

[00:06:15] Kassaundra: It was a little scary for sure because even in to like the early days of me being all in all my business, I was still very much living the VA life and because I came from a teaching background, I exclusively worked with teacherpreneurs, that's where I felt comfortable. That's where I still work now.

[00:06:34] And I knew that not all of them would probably want to transition to some sort of social media package. So I knew when I made that leap and drew that line and said, this is what I do now, I knew I was gonna lose clients and that was really scary. And so I had to do a lot of mindset work to get to the point

[00:06:59] to say, I am going to pitch to them my social media services, and if they wanna stay, they can stay, and if they don't, that's okay too. And 

[00:07:11] Janice: you're not really helping people if you're overstretched and you're not really helping people if you're working out of your zone of genius. And so there does come a point where it's the right thing to do. And I try to think of it when it's time to offboard a client as like graduating them.

[00:07:26] I wanna make sure that I can write the email to them to say like, I feel confident you have everything you need, whether it's templates or systems or strategy that we built together. I wanna make sure I can, in good faith, say I'm not leaving them up a creek. I'm saying , now is the right time.

[00:07:42] I think you're gonna be okay. We did good work together. Here's what I would suggest next. I'm not going to be with you for that chapter of the journey.

[00:07:53] Kassaundra: Right, and basically what I tried to do is give them a good amount of time. I gave them like three months notice and I basically did a sprint too for those three months. Whatever you want me to finish for you, whatever you want me to take care of, like throw it my way, I'm gonna get as much done for you as possible.

[00:08:11] But I did pitch my social media services to some of them and some of them stayed on. We made a switch and we kind of gradually switched from what I was doing kind of in the VA world and moved me over to dedicated social media strategy and social media management and I'm still with several of those clients even now, so it ended up working out, but it was very scary.

[00:08:34] Janice: Yeah, and you can control what you offer and you can control how much notice you give. You can't control the decisions they make on the other end, right? So if what you have capacity for is what they need, we love that. If it's not a match, we love that too. You know? We want everyone to get what they need, and if we're the right person, then it's great, and if we're not, then that's okay too.

[00:08:56] Kassaundra: The funny thing is though, when I made that pivot, that was when I was like, okay, this is gonna be the win-win.

[00:09:04] Janice: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:05] Kassaundra: But because in my mind I'm gonna be doing something I really enjoy doing that I've spent a lot of time learning about that I know I can bring people results with. Um, but then I swung the pendulum the other way too quickly and

[00:09:24] I brought on too many people at once. This was when the Teacherpreneur community was really starting to embrace reels and a lot of people were looking for someone to create resource reels for them, and I was already doing that for my clients. And so I took on a lot of people to do that for, and I did not have my systems

[00:09:48] set up beforehand, 

[00:09:50] I did not fully think through the whole process.

[00:09:53] Janice: Rocky systems can work okay when there's just one or two things going on, but they get tested in a growth season.

[00:10:01] Kassaundra: I think I was also acting out of a scarcity mindset too. I had just made this big switch and then I was like, oh, these people will pay me to do what I want to do. I must serve them all.

[00:10:12] Janice: I was gonna ask that because sometimes the reason we're saying yes isn't truly because we see a spot on our calendar to put that task, but it's because we don't necessarily believe that if we say, I'd love to help you with that, but I have to be on a wait list, or I'd love to help you with that in four weeks.

[00:10:31] We don't know if they're gonna go find someone else to help them or if someone else is gonna come around. And I think that's a story at the beginning of a freelancer journey for everyone in this niche and outside of this niche. That's a mindset puzzle that freelancers do have to struggle with.

[00:10:49] Kassaundra: I had no pulse on my capacity whatsoever. I was a yes woman in that period of time and it was a good learning experience, but did end up kicking me in the butt a little bit because one, I was feeling burnt out again. Two, I know the quality of my work dipped some and that didn't make me feel good or happy.

[00:11:10] Um, and so actually that was the point where was like, um, help me. I need a system.

[00:11:18] Janice: I Help a lot of TPT sellers with systems, but it was, you know, it made a lot of sense that there were a lot of freelancers coming to me too, being like, oh, wait a second. You might actually understand the client capacity side of this game too. I could really use some help. And I ended up meeting a lot of freelancers in that way and helping them with client capacity because, I do very much understand that side of the coin too. And you had your own TPT store in the mix at one point too, right?

[00:11:47] Kassaundra: Way back when I first started teaching, I found out about TPT because other teachers were using it, and I started a little store with some of my stuff, but I was just starting teaching and it was chaotic, and so I just let that go. I ended up closing that store, but then I also decided, hey, there are stores that help

[00:12:08] TPTers, I'm gonna make a store that helps them with social media. And so I started creating things there too. And so now I had this other arm of my business while I was bringing on more people, while I had no idea about my capacity. And so that was not a win-win. But once we started chatting and really talking about like, how much time do you actually have to do these things?

[00:12:33] How much time do these things actually take? We got a great system set up in Asana. That's when it started to become more of a win-win, because I knew when I could say yes and when I had to say no. Did it make it easier to say No? Not necessarily, but I knew if I was gonna keep my sanity, I had to say no.

[00:12:54] Janice: And I think that we're all allowed an experimentation period, just like you talked about at the beginning of your teaching career. I try a lot of things and then I realize, okay, here's the two things I can do really well. We get that same experimentation, new teacher period as a business owner too, in my opinion, where you have to try a lot of different services to figure out which ones are profitable

[00:13:16] and which ones you enjoy. And you have to try a TPT store to learn more about your audience and what they want you to help them with. And then you can decide is what they actually need something I can serve up in a TPT store or is what they actually need something that is a little bit more high touch and hands on.

[00:13:33] And so I never regret those experimentation periods. I have a TPT store too. I used to have four product lines. I actually took two of them down from my store 'cause they're just not relevant right now. And so my store is half the size it used to be and it's totally fine. The two things that are up there are not crusty dusty.

[00:13:51] They are current and I won't cringe if they sell. And the things that I had feelings about, I just took down. And I enjoyed making them. I enjoyed marketing them. I enjoyed solving that puzzle. And then it's okay to say like, this is not the best way I can help people in this season, someone else can solve that problem.

[00:14:11] We're not gonna solve every problem for every person, and it takes a long time to be okay with that.

[00:14:18] Kassaundra: It does for sure. Sometimes I still wish I could solve every problem for every person. Like I literally, about two days ago, I had an old client reach out back from when I was doing VA work, who was like, Hey, will you do this for me? And I had to say, I don't do that kind of work anymore. I just focus on social media and I had to say no.

[00:14:40] Even though that person is lovely, and I would love to work with them again, but it's just not aligned for me at this point.

[00:14:48] Janice: And the neat thing about making systems is sometimes the systems get to be the boundaries and the bad guys for us. I know you just went on a journey building a gorgeous website and you have that services page and it's that moment where you have to draw a line in the sand and say like, these are the things that I offer in

[00:15:06] this calendar year and right now, if a lead comes in and what they're asking for is not on the menu, then it's okay. And you know, I have workflows set up and contracts for those situations and all of that. And for me to accept something outside of that scope in this season of life would mean all this extra work.

[00:15:26] And it's that like little voice on my shoulder saying well wait a second. That's not the plan. We don't have a plan for this on purpose. And so I think that as you get strong systems in place, they help you have boundaries 'cause you can visually see the structure that you put in place for yourself.

[00:15:43] You said like, oh no, I actually wasn't gonna do that this year. That was an intentional decision that I made. 

[00:15:50] Kassaundra: Right. Yeah,

[00:15:51] Janice: do you feel like your services page helps you make easier yes and no decisions?

[00:15:58] Kassaundra: Yeah, because a lot of thought and a lot of soul searching went into that services page. It was a balance between what people mostly ask me for and what I enjoy doing most. And so I know that what is on that services page is the balance that will be a win-win for people who typically reach out to me and for filling my own cup as well.

[00:16:26] So I feel good kind of saying, this is what I offer.

[00:16:31] Janice: And I think that you're a really data-driven business owner and you want to be helping people with the services that you know, you can get them big results in. And I think that that's part of it too. I'm happy to do a wide variety of tasks just to get them off someone's desk, but it's not always our best use of our time together.

[00:16:49] Sometimes I could help you move a much bigger rock, but I don't wanna have to say no to helping someone with a big problem because I filled up my calendar with lots of smaller problems that maybe someone else could help them with.

[00:17:01] Kassaundra: So when I kind of first transitioned, a lot of people are just coming to me like, will you make my graphics or will you just write my captions or will you just schedule my stuff? And that's all well and good, but I found I make my biggest impact when we can start at square one, we can build a strategy together, so we know that the content that I am creating for you is actually moving you towards your big business goals, and then I can execute that strategy

[00:17:31] for you.

[00:17:33] Janice: Because you don't wanna help someone post just for the sake of posting. You want them to really get to the objective they have, figure out why they're actually posting.

[00:17:42] Kassaundra: Right, because that is where the magic happens. If we post just to post. Could you make some impact? Yes, because your content is out there but thinking about the little amount of time you have, everything that you are doing in your teacher business, you want it to be intentional. And so I made sure that my services helped you be more intentional.

[00:18:09] Janice: So you went full-time in September of 2021 and we're recording this early in 2025, you just had a kid go into school. So for those first few years in your business, you didn't have like 40 hours a week to work. So what did capacity look like in that season?

[00:18:28] What were the buckets and the containers that you did have to fill? What kind of work hours did you have before Mr went to kindergarten?

[00:18:36] Kassaundra: Yeah, so I went from evenings and weekends to, um, two days a week. 

[00:18:42] Janice: Woo. 

[00:18:43] Kassaundra: went to, uh, daycare slash preschool two days a week. That's where I did everything, and that was like a marathon. Two marathon days a week, and of course some, still some evenings and weekends. And then as he got a little bit older, we went to preschool three days a week.

[00:19:01] So I had three days a week, this last year before he transitioned into kindergarten. And then it was, seemed like a huge transition for me when he went to kindergarten and now I have five days a week. 

[00:19:14] Janice: And it's so interesting to listen to you describe the seasons of your business when you were side hustling while you were in the classroom, you considered that part-time. But even as early as September, 2021, because of the absence of the classroom, you still referred to that as going full-time in your business. But it's also that moment where you're like, why am I not making full-time income?

[00:19:34] Oh wait. Because I actually only have two days a week to do my mentally full-time job. And I think we have all walked into that trap, like, why am I not making 40 hours a week of money? Oh wait, I'm actually only working eight hours a week.

[00:19:50] Kassaundra: I'm working 16 hours a week. 

[00:19:52] Janice: I love the full-time business energy, but um, did you know that 10 hours a week is not going to make 40 hours a week of work happen?

[00:19:59] And so I think we have to really pay attention to the language we're using. That's part of how a capacity puzzle breaks you say Yes to the number of projects that would get you to that full-time number. But then you're like, oh, but I also only said yes to two days of childcare, so maybe that's why the math didn't math.

[00:20:22] Kassaundra: And then you throw in sickness and you throw in snow days and vacations and it's even less than that. And yeah, the last few years have, have been an interesting ride. Until my kiddo went to kindergarten in September, I did not have any dedicated CEO time. I have no idea how I started a podcast when my kid only went to preschool three days a week and I served all of my clients.

[00:20:47] Janice: Yeah.

[00:20:48] Kassaundra: I don't know how I did that, because now that I have that dedicated time on my schedule to work on into my business instead of like in my business for clients, I never wanna give that up. 

[00:21:01] Janice: I counted down and counted down until my last kid went to kindergarten, and then she ended up being a covid kindergartner, and everyone came back home and I was like, 

[00:21:08] I guess we'll hold on tight a little bit longer, but we do have a way of counting down to like, oh, if I can do this in two days a week, imagine what I could do if I had you know, more than 15 minutes to work at a time.

[00:21:21] Kassaundra: But now that I have honed in more, like I'm looking ahead to the summer, and I am realizing that I don't have to send my kid to summer camp all summer. I can shore up some things. I can do some things ahead of time and I can spend a good amount of my summer with my kiddo. And so that's really exciting to think about.

[00:21:44] Janice: I remember around April last year, I really looked at like, what can I batch ahead? What a blessing. And that was very motivating. I can have all my emails batched. You can have all your long form content batched. you can have a launch mostly scheduled if you create the content and all you have to do is show up on social, but it's all in a folder ready to go for social media and planned out and in a folder scheduled in your email marketing software.

[00:22:08] You can still do that. And then there are other things that you know are more client work focused that need to happen a little bit more in real time. And I was like, okay, but now this is a more manageable load. I can't always be batched ahead 12 months a year, but I can do it in June, July, and August if it's really important to me.

[00:22:24] And spending the summer with my kid is really important to me.

[00:22:28] Kassaundra: For sure. We almost fell into a trap of having him go to summer camp all summer, because we got an email from the place where he does karate, which also does summer camp, and he's really loving karate. And it was basically a really scary email at the beginning of January that's like, we're opening up summer camp, you have to sign up all summer if you want to get in on this.

[00:22:48] We like sold out of spots last year and my husband and I were like, do we, what do we do?

[00:22:53] Janice: summer camp emails almost feel like threats, right?

[00:22:56] Kassaundra: Oh my gosh, I did not realize the stress of summer camp coming into having a school aged kid. I did not. I will be more prepared next year, but I kind of had to stop us and be like, this isn't what we wanted.

[00:23:11] I have this business so I can have the flexibility to spend more time with our kid.

[00:23:16] Janice: I might miss out on this if I don't act now, and that might be okay.

[00:23:21] Kassaundra: Right. And so I was like, we're, we're not doing this. And do you wanna know what happened? They do have weekly spots open now, and now he's gonna be able to go to karate camp for two weeks this summer and it's gonna be fine.

[00:23:32] And even if they hadn't, it would've worked out. But it was just that moment where I was like, yes, this feels scary, but this is not aligned to what we want our life to look like.

[00:23:42] Janice: That's not what we were building. We were building this for flexibility. Why doesn't this feel like flexibility? Wait a second.

[00:23:48] Kassaundra: And knowing that I could like pop into my asana and I took a look and I did some like moving around of stuff and some puzzle stuff, and I realized I need like four weeks of childcare essentially 

[00:23:59] in the summer. 

[00:24:00] Janice: And I love that

[00:24:01] Asana gave you that visual of the puzzle pieces. Like these are projects, I know how many hours they take me. This takes me two, three hour bursts. This takes me one six hour focused day. And I think when we aligned your capacity, we really tried to move things into like half day containers or full day containers, and we really had to have some hard conversations about how long certain tasks take and then the puzzle, the visual, then 

[00:24:27] it came into something that we could actually work with and we could pick things up and move them around and swap them. And that's when you can actually see, oh, how much childcare do I need? Does this work or does this not work? And that's a much more peaceful place to be running business I'm guessing.

[00:24:42] Kassaundra: Oh, for sure.

[00:24:44] Janice: And so in the meantime, in that not win-win moment when your work quality is dipping and you're feeling the burnout creep in, and you know that you've said yes to more than you have to. When we do that real talk and we have more tasks than we have containers and time slots, what's the first step out of that mess?

[00:25:03] Kassaundra: Finding someone to help you if you don't have someone to help you set up a system I think. I knew I needed some sort of system. I went into it thinking that having a system would help me manage everything I'd already put onto my plate. 

[00:25:16] Janice: I could just do it all. If I could do it more efficiently.

[00:25:20] It must be possible mathematically.

[00:25:23] Kassaundra: That was a lie. And so through our talks around capacity, it really honed in on the time I had what is most important. And then I was able to kind of get through the projects that I had and say, Hey, I'm not available to do this for you until X, Y, and Z. And so obviously I had people fall off of my client roster.

[00:25:45] But that was fine because I wasn't running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I could do better quality work for the clients who stayed on it, and I could be more in depth in their business, which is what I wanted anyways,

[00:25:57] Janice: And you wanna feel good when they reach out for a question and when they wanna talk strategy. And you wanna have the white space to have those big, meaty data-driven conversations. And so I think when we really get clear about the amount of time we have to work and the buckets we have to fill, and we're really clear on how long certain tasks take, we started filling up the pieces of your puzzle with the things that were profitable and

[00:26:20] you enjoyed doing. And then when we ran out of containers to put tasks in, we had this little pile to make a decision about, right? Like, okay, these didn't fit. The best systems in the world won't make eight days in the week.

[00:26:34] Kassaundra: Right.

[00:26:35] Janice: So now then you can make an action plan for what really was overflow.

[00:26:38] And that feels better to maybe take one or two things off your plate if they're the right one or two things. It's easier to make that decision with kind of a sounding board and a neutral third 

[00:26:49] party. Um, and then I think it makes showing up for the other tasks more enjoyable too because you know that you can get that work quality back up to where you want it to be as quickly as 

[00:26:59] possible. 

[00:27:00] Kassaundra: and I think that was just so beneficial, having that third party, having you, because now when I made this big pivot to my kiddo going to preschool, I went into my system and I played with things and I figured out my capacity for this big transition. And so I was like able to do it on my own, which felt like really nice.

[00:27:22] And now I've been able pretty seamlessly, I mean, there's always gonna be some friction as you move into like new seasons of your life, but fairly seamlessly move into this new schedule with my kiddo going to school and what I want to accomplish. And so that felt. Like a very big win-win for

[00:27:43] Janice: Yeah, and I think the big moments you realize that the schedule is working is when you get that inquiry and someone says, Hey, can you help me with this? And you know exactly where to look to get that answer. And so it's not an emotional decision. It doesn't have to do with your mood or where you are in your cycle.

[00:28:00] Right? How much sleep you got last night, how caffeinated you are. It's not an emotional decision. Where are you gonna put that on your calendar? I'm so curious. That's a good conversation I have with people all week. That sounds so fun.

[00:28:12] When are.

[00:28:14] Kassaundra: Yep. Um, full disclosure to all listeners, Janice and I just had this conversation this morning because even though, even though I know my capacity, I am always dreaming of going over it. And so there are times when I float things by Janice and her response is like. That's great. When is that gonna happen?

[00:28:33] And I know when she responds to me that way, I'm like, Hmm, okay. Is this important enough to find space in my schedule? Or is this something that we table until later when I can more easily find the capacity for it? 

[00:28:46] Janice: Yeah.

[00:28:47] And it's okay if something else gets traded, but over time you start to think, what would Janice say to me? And you know the answer, and then you don't have to ask me. And I don't mind that people ask me that question, but you're not surprised when I'm like, okay, but I just pulled up your Asana calendar and girls got questions. And sometimes I say things right, like I'm less excited for that. Maybe if we can find a space for it, but like, I'm not sold yet. I don't know.

[00:29:12] This doesn't feel profitable. This feels like something you're gonna be crying about. I don't know. Um, sell it to me, right? And if you have picked up the containers and you've got the visual and the math maths, and you're pumped about it, then like, I'm all for it.

[00:29:26] But you gotta sell it to me before we put something new on your calendar. Or like we color code things on your calendar as available blocks. This is available for this type of thing. I'm always so specific when I label a white space block, I almost never leave people with just blank days.

[00:29:42] Kassaundra: Yeah.

[00:29:43] Janice: Like, this is available for a VIP day.

[00:29:45] This is

[00:29:46] available for a networking type activity, that's what this block is for. And so I think it's just that process of selling things to others. Having a sounding board to check your work. I would rather you check someone before you put something else on your plate than get yourself in that crying in your Cheerios moment where your capacity is overstretched and you don't even have capacity to fix it.

[00:30:12] Kassaundra: Yeah.

[00:30:13] Janice: So you don't always get the answer you want. Oh, mean Miss Janice. 

[00:30:16] Kassaundra: No, that's okay. That's the answer I need.

[00:30:19] I need you to bring me down to earth a little bit. 

[00:30:21] Janice: I also love the full-time business energy, but in part-time seasons of life, full-time means it's your full focus. But we still have to really be able to answer the question like, how many hours a week do I have to work and how long did the really important revenue generating tasks on my plate take?

[00:30:42] Kassaundra: right.

[00:30:43] Janice: And we don't always like the answers to those questions.

[00:30:46] Kassaundra: No, but they are always helpful.

[00:30:50] Janice: And so it makes my heart really happy to see that you have a better handle on the capacity. You can see the visual. And in those moments when a decision tests us, you have your services page crystal clear, you have your calendar crystal clear. And that also saves us from going down a rabbit hole of emotions making every decision that comes across our CEO desk, because that takes time too.

[00:31:15] Right?

[00:31:16] Kassaundra: Yeah,

[00:31:18] Janice: A client wants one more thing, you have one more shiny opportunity, you have a new lead, or let's be honest, in the world of online business, are you ever tempted with the newest like technology or software or thing that you can do?

[00:31:33] What are some of the tech things that feel shiny to you in in an exciting way in 2025?

[00:31:39] Kassaundra: So maybe not a, um, tech thing. Um, but I recently just qualified for the Amazon influencer storefront. And so that's a whole whole other thing that I am super excited about, but also is going to take some work to get up and running and to optimize and add content to, and figure out where that fits into the puzzle and how important of a piece of the puzzle I want it to be.

[00:32:13] Janice: Right.

[00:32:14] Kassaundra: So, yeah, that's my newest capacity

[00:32:16] Janice: You have a data-driven content strategy and you have goals that you made before that was available and you have to make sure that those big important goals don't suffer.

[00:32:26] Absolutely. I know that manychat is really big in 2025. You've put a ton of PD into automation. Is that still a big thing for you in 2025?

[00:32:36] Kassaundra: Definitely. I think that is definitely in my plan because of the results I'm seeing from having that DM automation tool with my clients. It is helping them gain more engagement, more visibility, and it's helping them make more sales and so I wanna help my clients get their best results as possible

[00:32:56] and many chat has proven to help them get the best results as possible. So I have been to a manychat summit, I've dove into PD for ManyChat. I actually just put up like a mini manychat course. If you're someone who wants to get started with it, it just takes you like step by step, getting started.

[00:33:14] So that is something that at first from like far away seemed like maybe kind of a shiny object. Should I chase this? And with more, deep diving into the program and the results that I can get, realizing this needs to be an integral part of what I offer and do for clients.

[00:33:34] Janice: And professional development time will always be something that I really guard for the freelancer calendar because I want the social media strategists to dive into these tools to decide if these are rabbit holes we should go down, or if these are things that we can skip. I want my copywriters to check out the new techniques that are working and not, and the new ESPs and the new sales page strategies, I want them to check on the trip wires to see if they're working in this niche in this year. I want the freelancers I work with to have white space on their schedule to stay up to date on the tech stacks and the PD so that the individual business owners they work with don't have to.

[00:34:15] Kassaundra: Yeah.

[00:34:16] Janice: And so that's really hard, but knowing how to adapt your services suite to make sure that you're always leveraging the best tools that are out there at the time.

[00:34:25] Kassaundra: Yeah, making sure that that ends up being part of your capacity puzzle. For a long time, that stuff had to happen outside of my work hours for me that had to happen in my quote unquote white space, evenings, weekends, things like that and so it feels so much better to have built that time into my schedule and have a dedicated time to dive into those things now.

[00:34:47] Janice: It's a mindset shift, like my content is part of my responsibility as a business owner. My professional development is part of my job. And I think that we have to create those rules for ourselves and be a good boss for ourselves because if you were in a traditional job in a building with a boss, of course there would be PD days as a teacher to do PD.

[00:35:10] You would have planning time, in theory, never enough. Right. Um, but at least it would be in there. And sometimes we're our own worst bosses when we go out in the freelancing world and start our own business, and suddenly we give ourselves no professional development time, no planning time, no white space.

[00:35:27] And you're like, oh no. That's why I left my first job.

[00:35:31] Kassaundra: Why is my battleship sinking? Yeah.

[00:35:33] Janice: I left that job because the schedule stunk. Why does this job have a terrible schedule too? And I think that that's something I love about, this particular niche is that teachers have never had much autonomy over their schedule, never had any choices. And I think intrinsically, sometimes we don't believe that a peaceful, productive schedule is out there for us.

[00:35:56] Because we were always drowning. We always had more work than we could do in a week, and that just became the status quo. When you get a taste of a schedule that works, you're like, oh, wait a second. All my bills got paid and I actually could go out to eat with my family this weekend, and my business will still be here on Monday.

[00:36:19] I did it.

[00:36:20] Kassaundra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:36:22] Janice: Takes a lot of trust and mindset work together, doesn't it?

[00:36:25] Kassaundra: It sure does. I am still on that road and probably will be for the entirety of my business.

[00:36:32] Janice: Same. I'm just grateful that we'll all be on it together.

[00:36:35] Kassaundra: yes.

[00:36:36] Janice: So Kassaundra, I hope this conversation is really helpful for people to hear that we're all struggling with a lot of the same things, even though our businesses look a little different. I think there's just something unique about that transition out of teacher land and into business land that is so similar for all of us, but you are sitting in a better place than you were

[00:36:56] and it 

[00:36:56] is possible. Little baby steps.

[00:36:59] Woo. They make a difference.

[00:37:01] Kassaundra: Sure do.

[00:37:02] Janice: Thank you so much for sharing your story and your pro tips and your strategies today. If people wanna catch up with you, where's the best place to send them?

[00:37:10] Kassaundra: I spend most of my time on Instagram, so that's at Foster Content Solutions. Um, and like Janice alluded to, I do have a shiny new website that has all my info on there, all my services, my podcast on there so you can find that@fostercontentsolutions.com.

[00:37:28] Janice: Amazing. And that new ManyChat course, is that available now?

[00:37:32] Kassaundra: Yes, that is available. You can find that if you go to my link in bio in my Instagram, you can purchase it right through there.

[00:37:40] Janice: Okay. I don't think I have a link for that yet, but if you pass it to me, I will tuck it into the show notes. I would love to share that with others. Thank you so much for chatting today, Kassaundra.

[00:37:50] Kassaundra: Thank you.