08 | Quinn Tempest, Business & Marketing Strategist
MEET EXPECTING CEO QUINN TEMPEST, BUSINESS & MARKETING STRATEGIST
There are ladies who claim to be Type A (in an endearing way of course), and then there are ladies who tell their fiance “Don’t talk to me unless it’s in a spreadsheet!” Guess which camp today’s Expecting CEO falls into?!
Quinn Tempest, the founder of Create Your Purpose℠, laughs about her honest-to-goodness Type A tendencies… because they’ve relinquished some intensity now that there’s a little bun in the oven. At the time of recording, however, Quinn wasn’t pregnant and was definitely a planner. That’s why she was the ideal person to chat with at the very beginning of her trying-to-conceive journey.
Quinn is an entrepreneur and brand strategist based in Phoenix, Arizona. She helps entrepreneurs and small business owners uncover their unique purpose and bring it to life in everything they do in their business - both online and off. She is the founder of Create Your Purpose℠, a philosophy, mindset, and a membership community made up of like-minded entrepreneurs dedicated to living their lives and building their businesses on purpose and with purpose. Her expertise is in branding and holistic digital marketing strategy, and she’s a highly-rated speaker and workshop leader at conferences and organizations around the country.
WHERE IS SHE IN HER EXPECTING JOURNEY AT THE TIME OF RECORDING?
Actively trying to conceive
In business for 5+ years
RECONFIGURING THE BUSINESS TO ALIGN WITH PARENTHOOD
Quinn mentioned she was a planner right? While there wasn’t a definite date on the calendar for #ttc, Quinn knew well in advance that she and her husband desired to grow their family. So as soon as she got back into work mode post-honeymoon, she felt compelled to look at her business from a scalability perspective. At the time her business was entirely 1:1, which she knew wouldn’t be sustainable.
Planning in advance gave Quinn the advantage of having a long timeline to make decisions and tweak, without feeling too pressured. She was also able to tap the moms in the Create Your Purpose community for a bit of advice on things like insurance, scheduling, and child care.
She shared, “I made a decision then that I needed to start to shift things. And so looking at my numbers in 2017, my one-on-one revenue was 97% services. 2018 it was 93%... And that was like around the time I started to make this decision. And now today three years later in 2021, it's 14% of my income. And so that decision was based on the idea of, I wanna not give up my business, but I wanna have a baby. I wanna be present. And honestly, this has taken me four or five years to work on.”
Despite feeling a little crazy for planning so far in advance, Quinn is grateful for her foresight telling me, “I'm more fulfilled by what I'm doing now.”
Ask yourself:
How do I want my business to feel what would light me up?
What would excite me?
And then on the flip side, what is draining me right now?
Are these things compatible with my personal/family goals?
THE PART THAT YOU CAN’T STRATEGIZE
We often celebrate intentionality and strategy in business, but the truth is there are many, many parts of this journey that cannot be strategized. Aside from business, there was obviously a huge personal stake in making the decision to try to conceive. Quinn shared that she and her partner had frequent conversations after getting married. Those conversations started to reveal that maybe the ideal image of where her business ‘should’ be didn’t quite match up to reality.
She told me, “I got to a point where I looked at my business. I looked at how I felt in it. And I realized, although it looked different than what I had expected it to look like when I thought I'd be ready, it was okay.”
A MUSEUM OF THE OLD ME
It’s not uncommon to combat negative beliefs and thought patterns as an Expecting CEO – especially at the beginning of the trying-to-conceive journey. As an entrepreneur, Quinn struggled with letting go of the ‘pusher’ persona that comes with hustle culture. While that go, go, go spirit may have served her in the past Quinn shared that her mentality has shifted, “I've been looking around lately and like feeling almost like I'm in a museum of old me like there are artifacts of what I used to carry with me every day and what used to serve me and what helped me build my business. But I no longer feel like I need them and I crave space. I crave creativity. I crave ease.”
A TRIAL MATERNITY LEAVE
Thinking about maternity leave can send a spreadsheet-loving CEO right over the deep end. Instead of getting too wrapped up in the details, Quinn decided to keep her planning light and flexible for the time being. After all, until there’s an actual bun in the over she’s got time!
In August of 2021, she chose to use a vacation as a trial run. It was the first time she’d fully disconnected from her business in years! Two weeks in Costa Rica with her husband revealed that she’s built a business model and had the right team members to keep things going while she was away living her life. She reflected on the experience sharing, “I never, once on that trip felt like I was missing something or that I wasn't there… Obviously, maternity leave will be longer, but for the fact that I hadn't taken one in five years, I think that was, it went well.”
FINDING GRATITUDE AT THIS STAGE
It’s the people in her life that Quinn is most grateful for. From the members of Create Your Purpose to her own business coach – Quinn gives credit to the people who deposit into her for her success. The common denominator however is Quinn herself! “I'm also grateful to myself for putting myself in those positions because for a long time I couldn't do that. I couldn't ask for help.”
A WORD TO OTHER WOMEN TRYING TO CONCEIVE
Quinn believes the clues to your path and purpose already exist. Her advice is to tune into what’s already happening within you. “...start to pay attention. I think that's the biggest thing. And one of the reasons why I made that decision five years ago was because I started to notice, I was feeling dread. I was feeling drained. I wasn't feeling fulfilled in my work or my life. And those are clues. Those are clues to pay attention to.”
