Ep 016: Embracing the Seasons in Life & Business – with Gretchen Acheson

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you
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Welcome to The Shannon Acheson Show, real business talk for real life. I’m Shannon, creative business coach, digital product lover, and your strategy sidekick. I’ve built a business that fits my life, and now I help other women do the same. No hustle, no fluff, just smart, honest conversations about building a business that works for you. Let’s dive in.
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Hello everybody and welcome to the show. I am so excited today to have my long time friend and helper on my blog, Gretchen Acheson with us. uh Gretchen, just welcome to the show. I’m so excited to chat with you face to face finally. Thank you. It’s fun to be here. um
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The best way for us to sort of get to know you a little bit initially is just to have you sort of introduce yourself and say what you do. And then we can go from there and have a little chat. All right. Well, I am Gretchen. I’ve been married to my husband Merritt for 19 years. We are second generation homeschoolers raising our four children ages 17 down to 10. We collect antiques, especially craftsman furniture, and our shelves are overflowing with books. We farm together with my husband’s family.
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raising hay and growing a market garden to sell produce at farmers markets. On my job at home, I basically fix websites as my 10 year old says, but I’ve been working with WordPress websites since 2009 and just love helping bloggers and authors take care of the details that are a little too complicated for them.
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Yes, which I have benefited from for years because I can do some stuff. I mean, I’ve been working with WordPress for a long time too, but there are some things I will not touch. And my first inclination is, uh Gretchen, can you help me? Right, even with uh my daughter’s website, she just started too, right? I was like, Gretchen. Anyway, so there’s so much in that. I love that. Like we’re homeschoolers too. I mean, granted my kids are now my youngest is now 20.
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m Um, there’s that connection. I love to read like you do. Um, but then there’s also, we actually have the same last name. We both married atchisons and like we’ve joked about this and I don’t think we’ve been able to find an actual like family connection anywhere. Like you’re in the States, I’m in Canada. we, we’ve not been able to find any actual like, I don’t know. I don’t know what we’d need to do that, but I feel like.
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I feel like it’s so feel we should look back in the family tree. know my husband’s family came from back in the Dust Bowl. They kind of migrated out west. So yeah, I’m not sure. But it’s kind of funny because- My husband’s family was actually farmers too, but here in Ontario, Canada. I just find it so funny in this whole world of online everything. And I mean, we’ve been talking for a long time. Yes.
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that we just we have the same last name. Like my kids always think it’s so funny when they’re like, wait, what? Right. And it’s spelled the same way, which I feel like is a little unusual because everybody wants to put a T and an I in there. do. They do. It’s so true all the time. Oh, my goodness. So, OK, so you homeschool your kids and you run a business that supports other business owners. What does a sort of typical day look like for you doing that? Or a typical week if it’s a farmer’s wife?
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There’s like no typical day. um Some mornings I can take it slow like this morning, you know, get up and make something hot to drink and sit outside for a few minutes. But other mornings, especially being on the West Coast, I wake up and by the time I check my email here, there is an emergency with a client on the East Coast. And so then I just go full speed ahead into that and then remember to do all of the beginning of the day things later. um
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Some days I’m running my children back and forth to pick our weed at the family farm. Other days it’s a little more relaxed just depending on the weather and the seasons. But my ideal day starts with a good breakfast and a couple of focused chunks of time to work in the morning and the afternoon. Yeah. But I guess, yeah, that’s part of the beauty of both homeschooling and working for yourself, right? Like you can kind of…
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make it all fit on different days where obviously certain things are going to take precedence, be it kids or the farm for sure. And that’s just part of owning your own business to be flexible. Yeah. Yeah, you do have to be. You can have a clinical day or an ideal day, but it doesn’t always look like that. I know at certain parts of the year you’re off at markets too, right? So that means that I sell at the farmer’s market one day a week. that’s whole other commitment. Yes.
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So how do you find balance then between sort of client deadlines? Now, like you said, some of those are emergencies, like, oh my goodness, there’s a white screen of death, like help me out with this, right? Like when I used to mess around with PHP, which I do not do ever, ever, ever anymore. And homeschooling rhythms and the farm, like how do you find sort of the balance between all those things when life gets crazy?
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So guess I’ve learned that there’s really no way to balance it all perfectly in every season, but I have slowly learned to embrace the beauty of seasons. Being tied literally to the seasons of the year on the farm has just made us kind of realize that those come in life as well. And there are seasons where we are much busier than others and that that’s okay. And so I we’ve just continued to learn flexibility.
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because sometimes the irrigation needs repaired and the berries need picked, or there’s a loved one who needs our help. And for me, my family always comes first, and my clients know that. We’ve walked through some seasons of caretaking and loss when I sometimes had to drop everything to run somebody to the hospital or to travel hundreds of miles to be with extended family. And during those times, I try to really communicate with my clients about what’s going on. I explain that I’m slower than normal on response time.
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And they’ve just always been incredibly understanding and I’m grateful because it’s allowed me to just be flexible with the seasons. yeah, you’re very good at communicating that, be it an autoresponder or a hey, I have to be gone for a bit kind of thing. Like you’re very good at communicating that. I think.
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That’s a big deal, like the communication part, right? You don’t just disappear. I don’t want them to think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth, even if I almost have. I think everybody knows that there are those seasons, right? Like we’re family, especially, and the farm, of course, needs you more than clients need you. that precedent, like that order of things needs to happen. But then… Sorry, go ahead. You know, just during COVID, that was kind of the reverse.
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because everybody was home and working on their website. And so my husband and children carried a lot of the extra load during that season. So, you know, there’s a lot of back and forth like that. But on a normal week, you know, again, normal. My older three children are very independent with their schoolwork and their chores. So, and they can help out with the youngest. But my husband also carries a lot of the homeschool load, especially in the winter. So again, it all goes back to those seasons for us. Yeah, those seasons for sure. And that’s something with like,
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you know, this new side of what I’m working on in teaching and sharing is, yeah, like you have to build something that works for those seasons, right? Like, choose what works right now, and then how can you pivot that or adapt it if it’s when this, if, not if, when the season changes again, right? That’s so important when you work for yourself and do those things. What is one sort of habit or mindset shift that’s helped you sustain homeschooling and working from home sort of long-term?
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Was there a shift in that or were you sort of always wired and built naturally to balance those things? don’t, I want to say that I have always balanced them well, but I think just realizing, you know, the days are long and the years are short. I know it’s said often, but looking back now from this perspective of having my oldest almost graduated from high school, realizing that, you know, just to embrace the beauty of each of those.
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seasons with the little season and now the fact that you know, they’re they’re doing the laundry and so many of the dishes in the cooking and that helps so much. And another thing that was told to me as a homeschool mom that has just been always a huge encouragement is that you have to realize there will always be gaps in education doesn’t matter where you go to school. will be gaps.
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So the goal isn’t to fill every gap with homeschooling, but it’s to teach your children how to learn. so when that is my goal, rather than making sure that we cover absolutely every fact they ever need to know, then I’m much more at peace with just taking each day as it comes. And some days that looks like education from books and other days that looks like education from life. Yeah, no, that’s so true.
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I love that because I’m on that side of homeschooling now, right? Like my kids are done. I actually have two graduated college now. it’s just one was just last week. Anyway, like it’s a little bit, it’s so good to be on that side and it’s so good to have that. The love of learning is awesome and the how to learn, right? Cause then they can teach themselves anything and adapt to, know, my oldest went to private college, my youngest or my middle went to like public college.
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In Ontario, in Canada, it’s a bit different, uh definitely they had gaps. Of course they did. We all did. I went to public school and I had gaps too. So that’s so good. I love that that’s sort of how you’re taking that approach. em So I’m curious, you are my go-to person for any fact and anything website related that I would rather not touch anymore.
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How did you get into that tech back end sort of thing? Because I know you love words and you love writing and you love other things too. So how did you end up in this direction? So I’ve always loved to write from the time I was a little girl. You know, the influence of Laura Ingalls and Joe March. And that led me to blogging as a teenager. We got internet at our house in 1998. So I started out with.
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blogger and that kind of led me to finding out that I enjoyed tinkering with CSS and HTML. And I’m sure my mother thought there were going to be gaps in my education because I spent so much time doing that. But then when I moved my websites from blogger to WordPress in 2009, that’s when other blogging friends kind of started asking me for help. And then when we got internet at our home as a married couple in 2010, I
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again, accepting clients more regularly. You know, it was juggling babies and laundry and the laptop all at the same time from the corner of our one large room in our house. But it’s just going from there. Yeah. And it’s so funny because I don’t know if you remember, I don’t even remember how we connected. someone was trying to look back.
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I know. was like, don’t know. I don’t know how that someone must have said, hey, Gretchen’s good at this when I was looking for something in some group somewhere. Must have been or else we saw each other’s last names in a group somewhere and had to say hello. Maybe. I don’t remember. But so what’s one thing you sort of wish more business owners understood about maintaining their websites or specifically WordPress, but in general, like what was what’s one thing that you wish that we we all sort of paid more attention to?
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So it’s maybe not a great feel good fact, but especially with self hosted WordPress website, you cannot just create it and leave it alone. It’s super important to update the plugins and themes and WordPress itself to keep the site secure, just like it’s important to update the apps on your phone for security purposes. kind of again, looking at owning a website as a long haul, you have to be committed to keep it up, especially if you’re going to go like the self hosted route.
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That’s just, it’s not necessarily great news, but it’s the facts. em And you can’t just create a website and expect it to be the top result on Google anymore, unfortunately. Again, so just kind of almost having a realistic view of having a website these days, helping people understand that.
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you can create it and build it, but that doesn’t mean everybody’s going to come instantly. there’s ways to work towards that, but there’s a lot of other noise out there. Yeah, it’s definitely different than like when we started, right? Very much so. Yeah, very, very different for sure. Are there, so aside from SEO stuff, with this whole thing on its own.
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Are there tools, plugins, or systems that you find yourself recommending over and over over again, like their baseline, everybody should have kind of thing? I do lot of recommending the cadence themes. Again, they make life so much easier than back in the day when we got started. love the sharing plugin from Hubbub.
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for if you like social share buttons on your website, wanna include pins, things like that. I’m always recommending MailerLite as a low level entry point for email lists because so many are a pay a lot and you get unlimited subscribers but not everybody needs that right away. And honestly, this sounds funny coming from a WordPress website business owner. I recommend Substack a lot for people who are looking to get started these days.
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I feel like it’s kind of the blog spot of 15 or more years ago and more like 20, 25 years ago. And it’s a great way to get started to kind of try out the writing online thing. And of course there’s many other options, but I’m seeing almost more for our children’s generation, that Substack is a great place to get started and give it a try and see if this is what they want to do. So. Yeah. So I have not messed around with Substack.
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that very much. My sister actually, who’s never online, actually recommended it. She’s like, hey, I’m really enjoying this thing. I’m like, what? So are you seeing people use it sort of like the old school blogging where it was sort of just thoughts and feelings and what was happening kind of thing and then people just sort of followed along with that? Is that what you’re seeing with it? Some, yes. And then other people are moving their content there because there’s
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not all the expenses or the tech challenges. There’s also less control. Everybody’s website pretty much looks the same. So just depends on what you need it for. But I’m seeing it be a good tool or even for the retiring bloggers who kind of want to keep their content there but don’t want the ongoing maintenance. uh Right. So are you seeing it as sort of a business place or more for people who are
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more casual with it. I’m seeing both because there are people who are charging for some of their content there and making an income. And then there are others who are just kind of using it as an extension of their business or their other online presence. So it seems to be being used in a lot of ways. So it’ll be really interesting to see in 10 years if we’re still talking about Substack. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s cool. I have to, I will have to look at that more.
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There’s always so many things, I’m like, okay. Aside from Substack then, you’ve helped a lot of people behind the scenes, obviously. What are a few things you’re seeing working really well right now in online business? Is there anything outside of Substack or did we answer that with Substack? I think it’s more of a perspective of looking at online business.
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as a marathon, not a sprint, riding the wave of the Google updates over and over and over again, not freaking out because, or even changing everything just because Google changed because you know Google will change again. as we look at everything in the ever changing online landscape right now, I still believe that quality content written by real people who care about their topic will always be better.
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than content that’s been generated by bots or AI. And so what I see is that the people who are writing what they’re passionate about and writing because they love it or because it’s their ministry, because it’s something that they will do regardless, they’re a little less concerned. Obviously, when you’re at income tanks, then you’re going to make changes and be a wise business owner.
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But looking at it with the long view in mind and not the short view helps when you’re kind of confused about what to do next. Right. And I think if you’re one thing I’ve learned because I’m always shiny object person. One thing I’ve learned is to not sort of is to two things not make me jerk reactions like you’re saying like to the changes because they have changed over and over and over again. Yes.
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to ask around about who you’re gonna listen to and who you’re gonna take advice from because even the people who are so-called experts, I’ve learned, aren’t necessarily, they don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about or they haven’t. Anyways, I know I’ve made changes that didn’t, shouldn’t have made and I look back now and go, oh yeah, I should have done this or I should have left it alone instead. So yeah, I think looking It’s hard to know. Yeah. you need to jump on that bandwagon. Yeah. That can also.
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serve your business well, but just looking at it with the long goal in mind, not expecting overnight results is helpful in this current situation we find ourselves in online. And I think, what you said about people who are actually passionate about it, truly writing and creating their own content, I think that almost feels like a full circle moment back to when we started and that’s we were doing. We weren’t doing it for…
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this SEO term or that, like it was something that we loved and that we were just sharing. And it feels like the personal brand part of it’s back into it. And the, know, like just your personal, that’s is the only way to sort of beat the algorithm, beat the AI, like that sort of thing. Right. Like, don’t get me wrong. think AI is somewhat helpful for things, but, but at the same time, it’s the person, personal, because you can’t, there is no mimicking that really not well in ways. And your readers.
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know that and they can tell if you know you’re burnt out or if you’re loving what you’re doing and so sometimes it just helps to sort of step back and look at the bigger picture and remember why am I doing this in the first place. It’s true, it’s true and you know and if you are burnt out there’s nothing wrong with either taking a break or or pivoting too right like if it’s something else you know you’ve been doing something for a long time it’s okay to pivot and do something else.
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Exactly. So you bring such a sort of grounded, thoughtful presence to your work. You’re always kind, you’re always quick, you’re good at what you do. How does your faith sort of shape the way you approach business and serving your clients? Well, thank you. I guess I believe in being fair and honest and serving my clients to the best of my ability because I’m working for them. I always
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try to maintain that my client is the CEO of their business and I’m not, can make suggestions, but I’m not going to tell them what to do because I’m working for them. They’re paying me. Um, as we’ve mentioned, I do my best under promise and over deliver, especially when it’s the busy of the summer season. Um, but I truly just believe in serving the people that, you know, I’m in business with and, um, so yeah, I guess that just serving them. No, that’s awesome.
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So back to homeschooling again, like how has homeschooling your kids influenced how you think about business or vice versa, like business, like how does that influence that? There’s definitely been times I’ve dealt with the mom guilt over the fact that I’m not always available for all the extracurricular things or spur of the moment play dates because I have to work. um But my husband and I really see the value in our children understanding the importance of work.
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and seeing what’s involved in being self-employed business owners. They get an up close view of the ins and outs and the never off the clock aspects of owning a business. And that’s truly part of their education. And they look at money and their future jobs differently because of it. So I definitely see the benefits, even though there are the days where I go, I’m sorry, I wish I could take you to that thing or I wish we could just do that random play date m when we already have commitments.
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Yeah, no, that’s totally fair. think I really like that because it took me a long time to be okay with the, I have to work right now kind of thing, right? When we’ve done the things, I’ve made you lunch, we’ve done the lessons together, now I need to work and you need to do this part. That’s a good way to look at it. It is life experience for them more than even, I mean, my husband leaves and goes to work for the day.
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seeing that, no, this is how much mom actually does, this is how much dad does on the farm, this is, I think it’s really good for them to see that rather than just, oh, they’re gone all day and I don’t know what they’re doing, right? Right, exactly. Yeah. So are there things that you do not do in your business, the things that you sort of happily outsource or say no to? So definitely say no to sites that aren’t built on WordPress or even aren’t
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built on a framework within WordPress that I can work with. um If it’s a Divi site, different themes that I haven’t worked with, I just say no. I kind of have figured out what I can do and I can’t learn all the different builders that are available in WordPress now. um I also outsource challenging WooCommerce issues because WooCommerce can get basically any e-commerce plugin.
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can get overwhelming. That’s fair. Yeah, I’ve tried WooCommerce before. It can be a bit of a beast because it’s got all these add-ons and all these things and I imagine that is so messy in the back end. No, that’s fair. No, it’s good to know where your strengths are and what you’re good at and that makes it extra helpful to those of us who have you as our helper, as someone that we trust to do it because we know that you’ll tell us if it’s not something that you can do, right? And you know other people that you can pass us off to.
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Right, some of the speed issues too. I have a person I can send your way because I can’t figure out what’s going on there. Right, no that’s fair. No, that’s awesome. So what’s your favorite way to recharge when you’ve been sort of staring at your screen all day or for hours? A long walk in the cool of the evening or a good book accompanied by a cup of tea. I love to read.
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But then it’s basically looking at something again. So try to at least walk before I sit out of the book. It’s true. Your eyes are kind of like, oh, this is the first we’ll focus all day. And I’m not an audiobook person, unfortunately. I know I’ve tried and I’m like, nope, my brain wanders way too much. Yes. That’s fair. So if you could have a magic wand and instantly simplify one part of your business, what would it be?
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Or is it running pretty simply? I mean, I would say my schedule because it can be hard for me to go back and forth from a work project to a farm issue to meal prep and back again because it takes me a little while to kind of focus and get in the groove. But at the same time, I wouldn’t trade my ability to work from home or, you know, my youngest coming in to rub my shoulders or my older girls bringing me a fresh cup of tea during a long Zoom call. So.
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I’m not sure I’d wave the magic wand and change that. I’d have to say that’s one of those things that I struggle with too is the bouncing from one thing to another. My daughter’s like, oh, it’s lunchtime. I’m like, right, pull away from the computer and be like, okay, I have to make lunch now. I wasn’t mentally at a stopping point, but I have to be. This is the time that everyone else is on and this is where we are. So no, yes, I can totally see that. What is bringing you
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joy in this season, whether it’s business, homeschooling, or everyday life. I think seeing my children develop their varied interests and becoming entrepreneurs themselves, em watching them learn the value of hard work and initiative, hearing them discuss classic books I have never even read, it’s just like, I’m grateful that they’ve reached the point where they’ve read more and learned more than I have.
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um My oldest daughter is writing the first book for a three book contract. And so it’s just so neat to see kind of even some of my dreams come to fruition in their lives. that’s a joy. That’s so awesome. I love that. So is there anything else that you wanted to share with, you know, my audience who is, you know,
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either just starting out or pivoting to something else. I know that wasn’t one of the questions I asked you. Which I know you don’t love, but off the top of your head, is there anything, if there’s not, that’s totally okay too. But is there any advice, anything? Embrace the process, be willing to ask a lot of questions and talk to a lot of people. One of the things I learned as a young farmer’s wife is that when we went to town, we would…
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go to the grocery store and we’d run into another old farmer in the area. And the quick trip to town turned 30 minutes longer because he and my husband would sit there and talk. But what I quickly came to realize is that my husband was learning so much from this mentor in his business and because he knew how to farm in the area and it was different farmers, different topics.
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But just realizing the value of listening to those who’ve done this a little longer to ask questions. And you’re gonna learn, like we said, there’s the people who you listen to their advice and then you find out, maybe I don’t actually want to do it that way. Same as in farming. But just realizing that you’re going to need to learn and it’s gonna change because what works really well today may not work really well in a year and that’s okay.
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especially if you’re just getting started in the online space, don’t brand yourself into a corner. Right. Because if you brand into this tiny little topic and invest a whole lot of money in a website that is all so focused on that, and then you realize you need to pivot, that can be really disheartening. So true. It’s so true. So yeah. So pick a
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I think in my opinion that’s sort of like pick something to do and if it doesn’t work be ready to pivot to something else. Yes. Right? Yes. It may work, it may work great, but it also may not, right? Exactly. And give it a try before you invest lots of money. Yes. And you know, find out if you even like doing this or writing about this over and over every day. m
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It’s true, because like you said, it’s a long haul, right? It is. We’ve been online 15 years or more and yeah, it’s a long time to be doing one thing. It is. I mean, I say one thing, but you can pivot a little bit. But yeah, no, that’s awesome advice. So if anyone wanted to find you, where’s the best place to find you and your services and about you online?
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Gretchen Louise dot com when I rebranded once upon a time my friend told me Acheson is Impossible to say or spell don’t use that online And I have a sister-in-law who uses online all the time now too, but so therefore I’m
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I’m GretchenLouise.com. I love it. Louise with an E at the end, right? Yes. Yes. L-O-U-I-S-E. I know if there’s any other way to spell it. I don’t know what. Anyway, GretchenLouise.com. Got it. I will include that in the show notes so that people can find you if they have any questions about your services or anything else. Gretchen, thank you so much for chatting with me like this. I loved it. uh
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It’s your first podcast interview, so yay! I love that. No, it’s like a chat. I love these. So thank you so much for being with us today. um if anyone has any questions or wants to find Gretchen, I will put the link in the show notes below, but it’s gretchenlouise.com. Thanks for coming. Thank you for having me, Shannon.
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And that’s it for today on the Shannon Acheson Show. If you found this helpful, follow the show and share it with a friend. And hey, if you’re not sure what kind of business actually fits your life, take the free quiz at shannonacheson.com. It’ll point you in the right direction. Thanks for listening. Talk again soon. oh