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Name: Unfiltered
Rating: 4.2 (185 reviews)
Author: Rachel Pedersen

Rachel Pedersen

Proven Strategies to Start and Grow Your Business by Not Following the Rules

4.2 (185 ratings)

17 mins

Table of Contents

Unfiltered
summarized in 7 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? A guide to building a successful business while staying true to yourself.

In 2016, aspiring business owner Rachel Pedersen came up with the clever idea to crowdfund the money she needed to open a franchise of a popular restaurant. She worked day and night – handing out flyers, posting on social media, and spreading the news all over town.

The day her campaign launched, she sat down at her computer and excitedly checked the balance – zero dollars. That couldn’t be right. After all, she’d put in the work and the idea was solid. She refreshed the page – zero dollars.

Rachel was humiliated and felt that she had let everyone down. This would be the point where a lot of people might have given up, but Rachel refused to let this setback stop her from achieving her dreams.

After learning from her mistakes and putting in the hard work, Rachel went on to become the founder and CEO of two multi-million dollar companies, win multiple marketing awards, and be labeled as the “Queen of Social Media.”

In this Blink of Unfiltered, we’ll take a look at some of the most important lessons and strategies that Rachel Pedersen has learned throughout her business journey. We’ll begin by discussing the initial aspects of starting a business and how to get into the mindset of the business owner you want to be.

We’ll also learn some helpful tips for creating a solid business foundation and connecting with your dream audience by being your most authentic self. Finally, we’ll discuss how to overcome obstacles and create more positive thought patterns when the road to success gets bumpy.

Reasons for starting a business are different for everyone – and they change with us as we grow.

One of the most important first steps to starting your business journey is to discover your “why.” Why do you want to start a business?

This may seem like a pretty simple question, but finding the answer is often easier said than done. This is also complicated by the fact that people change. As we grow into different seasons of our lives, our dreams and goals grow with us.

You could ask a thousand business owners how their journey started and get a different answer every time. The desire to start a business can be purely financial, which is perfectly fine. However, it can also be deeply personal and require a lot of soul-searching.

A clever way to frame this idea in your mind is to separate your reasons into three categories of “fire starters” – kindling, sticks, and logs.

Kindling is important for getting a fire started, but it tends to burn out pretty quickly. Reasons that fall into this category may be short-sighted ideas like “I really need money right now” or “I hate my 9 to 5 and want to quit.”

Sticks represent reasons that are a bit more solid – think “I want to have more flexibility at work” or “I want my family to have a better life.” Sticks are easy to find and keep the fire burning longer, but still won’t last as their own structure.

Finally, there are logs. Although they take longer to really get going, logs provide a solid base for your fire and will burn for a long time. Logs represent reasons that feed a bigger purpose in both your business and personal life, like wanting to create change in your industry, community, or even the world.

Pinpointing the exact reason you want to start can sometimes be difficult, but it’s a crucial element of building your business on your own terms. When the journey gets rough, it’s important to be able to remember why you started in the first place.

Before you start a business, you need to get into the mindset of the business owner you want to be.

Once you’ve identified your own personal reasons for starting a business, the next step is to get into the mindset of the business owner you want to become. This includes deciding which type of business makes the most sense for you and your lifestyle.

Rachel likes to refer to this step of the process as finding your “Square One.”

Most conventional business advice will tell you to “hustle” or look for a quick fix.

Throughout your business journey, you’ll be subject to a lot of welcome – and unwelcome – business advice. This can be overwhelming, especially because our society is partial to the idea that you can only reach success if you hustle hard or find a quick fix to all your problems.

Often used interchangeably, hard work and hustle are not the same thing. Hard work involves taking actionable steps toward achieving a specific goal. Hustle is more of an unfocused state of constant movement.

Staying true to yourself on social media will help you connect with your dream audience.

There’s no doubt that social media is a crucial part of getting your business seen – especially in the early days. That being said, the only predictable thing about social media is that it’s…unpredictable. Platforms come and go, audience appetites change, and algorithms seem to evolve overnight.

So how exactly do we craft a killer online profile in a space that’s constantly changing? First, let’s start with the basics. While Rachel has a lot of valuable advice for growing on social media, she swears by two golden rules.

Work/life balance requires healthy boundaries and careful planning.

Picture yourself shoveling your driveway during a heavy snowstorm. No matter how much snow you manage to get rid of, it will just keep piling up until it becomes too much to manage. This is what it’s like to run a business without a solid plan.

In the first few years after starting her business, Rachel said yes to everything and took on far more than she could manage. This meant that she barely had time to eat, let alone sleep. Realizing that things needed to change, she created a solution that she calls “Business-By-Design.”

The journey doesn’t end when you reach “success.”

A lot of prospective business owners see “success” as the light at the end of the tunnel. If they could only just reach it, everything would be better. This is a nice idea in theory, but it doesn’t make sense for a few reasons.

First, everyone’s idea of success is different. What you consider “making it” could be someone else’s step one. For example, your goal might simply be to help your family live more comfortably, while someone else might not feel that their journey is complete until they reach one million dollars in sales.

Final Summary

The decision to start a business is not one that you’ll make only once – you will have to continuously choose it, each and every day. There will be failures and times where you will want to give up, but how you react to these challenges is what really matters. In times of trouble, we find out what we’re truly made of.

Success looks different for everyone and changes as we grow. As long as you put in the work and stay true to who you are, you’ll be able to build the life you want and the business of your dreams. Even when you’ve achieved your goals, there’s always room to make new and even bigger ones.

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What is Unfiltered about?

Unfiltered (2022) blends a practical business handbook with Rachel Pedersen’s inspirational journey from a single-mom on welfare to the CEO of two multi-million dollar companies. Using the challenges she’s faced and the lessons she’s learned along the way, Pedersen gives aspiring entrepreneurs the tools to start and grow their dream business on their own terms.

Who should read Unfiltered?

Aspiring entrepreneurs
Business owners looking to grow
Anyone in need of an inspirational story

About the Author

Rachel Pedersen is the CEO of the award winning SocialWorks digital marketing agency and founder of Social Media United, a leading online center for social media education. As a full-time social media consultant and strategist, Rachel helps empower business owners and social media professionals to leverage social media and fast-track their growth potential.

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Entrepreneurship

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