The 3 Things That Have Impacted my Business Success
Success in business does not take place overnight. Before I started my first business, I was a high-school math teacher that had a passion for teaching and helping others, but had absolutely no business experience. Throughout the past six years, I have learned a ton, and I was able to scale my first business to 6-figures in 2 years and then resigned from teaching to pursue my passion. I want to share with you the 3 things that have really impacted my success over these past six years.
1. Treating my business as a business and not as a hobby
From day one, I have always treated my business as a successful business and not just something that I ‘sort-of’ did. There are many people out there that actually treat their 9-5 job way more seriously than the business that they started and run themselves – that’s crazy! Why would you work harder for somebody else than for yourself? If you treat your business like a hobby, then you’ll get paid that way. If you run your business like a CEO, then you’ll get paid that way. I decided six years ago that I was in business for the long-haul and that this wasn’t going to be some sort of ‘thing’ that I tried. There was never any ‘in the middle’ or gray area for me.
One exercise that I have my personal coaching clients go through is to ask them what characteristics successful CEO’s possess. Here are some examples:
- They take their business seriously
- They have specific goals mapped out
- They are extremely efficient with their time
- They have set work hours
- They show up every day ready to serve their clients
- They have set systems in place
- They are consistent with their actions
- They put themselves out there and take risks in order to grow
If you want to truly be successful in your business, you have to show up professionally and as the bad a** boss babe that you are each and every day!! Don’t treat your business like a hobby.
2. Separating yourself from your business
This is one that I honestly had to learn the hard way! When I first started my business in 2014, I used to let my emotions get the most of me and I was constantly making decisions based purely on emotion. After working with my first business coach, she taught me a ton about emotional intelligence and how to separate myself from my business. One common theme that I see some of my coaching clients experience is a lot of fear and anxiety around their business. Those are definitely valid feelings but what you need is a plan in place to help navigate those feelings and not let them run your business. If you choose to let fear and anxiety run your business, then what do you think is going to happen? You’re probably not going to put yourself out there and take the risks that you need to in order to help your business grow.
What has helped me most to separate myself from my business is to treat the things that need to get done as tasks in my business that are necessary in order to grow. For example, I used to be terrified to do live videos in my Facebook group, which is so silly now that I think back on it! I was a high-school math teacher for 10 years and was used to getting up in front of hundreds of high-schoolers each day. For some reason, the thought of going live in my group was just super scary, probably because I hadn’t done it before. I used to make up excuses and just try and put it off. I knew that I needed to go live in order to better connect with my audience. So, I made the commitment to start going live every Tuesday to teach a different business topic and it didn’t matter if the video was 3 minutes or 30 minutes. Although I did feel fear around this, I didn’t let my fear run the show! Below are some specific mindset shifts that I made:
- If I want to become the expert in my field and help educate my audience, then I need to show up for them and be the leader.
- The live videos are not about me; they’re about helping you, so I’ve chosen to separate myself from that emotionally so that I can serve my audience in the best way possible.
- If I want to grow a following on social media then I need to be transparent, real, authentic, and consistent.
Once I started doing this on a regular basis, it all just felt really good and aligned to me.
3. Developing a strategy that gets results
This is the third piece of the puzzle that has definitely impacted my business success. I cannot emphasize enough how important strategy is! Let me give you a concrete example. Let’s pretend that person A and person B are running a marathon in 5 months. Person A does a little bit of training here and there, takes a couple of weeks off, and procrastinates because they are anxious. Person B has a set training plan each week, where they gradually increase the mileage over time in order to feel fully prepared for the race. Who do you think is going to perform better in the marathon? Of course, person B! This is the exact same concept with business. You can’t just do random actions each day hoping that something is going to stick. It’s essential to have a set marketing and visibility plan in place. I have a very specific marketing plan for both of my businesses, and this is what I specialize in when I work with my coaching clients. My content is planned in advance, I know what offers I’m promoting and what emails are going out each week. I map out my live trainings in advance and have an engagement strategy for Facebook and Instagram to make sure that I’m getting in front of my ideal clients and forming relationships with them. There’s no guessing and hoping each day and it feels great! I know exactly what I need to do on a daily basis to get consistent clients.
I want you to know that I did not have these 3 things in place when I first started my business and it did take me some time to really figure these things out. I don’t want that for you! I want you to start a business and know exactly what you need to do so that you can really focus on growing your business. If you want to start taking the guesswork out of your business and are committed to your growth, then we need to chat. Your next steps >>> Join the waitlist to work together!
Sending you lots of love and light today. :)
