TRANSCRIPT

Transcript: 5 Tips to Kiss Tech Overwhelm Goodbye

October 28, 2021

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AMY PORTERFIELD: What do learning how to drive, church parking lots, messages from above, and tech all have in common? Well, you might be surprised. In today's episode, I'm revealing a handful of tech woes that I've experienced over the years, how to overcome frustrations with learning and utilizing tech within your business, and a story about the time a priest kicked me out of a church parking lot. By the end of today's episode, you'll walk away equipped with all the tools you need to feel confident with tech, and probably a few laughs at the stories I'm going to share with you along the way. Be sure to stick around until the end, because that's when I'm revealing one of the most important things that has helped me with my confidence around using tech in my business. It's a juicy one. So grab your favorite beverage, and if you're old school like me, pen and a notebook to take notes, and let's tackle tech overwhelm once and for all. 

INTRO: I'm Amy Porterfield, and this is Online Marketing Made Easy. 

AMY: I was taught how to drive a car by my mom in the parking lot of our church. Well, actually my mom tried but gave up on me because she got so frustrated that I kept saying the F-bomb because of my own frustration, for the record, so instead, she got my sister's boyfriend to teach me. Fast forward many, many, many years, and that boyfriend is now my brother-in-law, so I love him dearly. Shout out to Rob for staying in it with me, helping me drive.  

So I got to be honest. I was a terrible driver from the get-go. In fact, I was such a bad driver that the priest came out and asked us to leave the church parking lot because I was making too much noise slamming on the brakes, even though we were in an empty parking lot. Now, to my defense, I learned on a stick shift. So that is a little bit more difficult, right? But still, I was kicked out of an empty church parking lot by my priest.  

But here's why I'm telling you this. Yeah, a little bit embarrassing, but I could have just given up. I could have said, “The priest kicked us out. It's a sign from above that I shouldn't be driving.” But I didn't. I kept at it, and today I'm a so-so driver. If you ask Hobie, he'd say I drive a little too fast, but that's a story for another day.  

But mastering tech as an entrepreneur to use within your business is kind of this way, too. When you're first learning it, you may drop a few F-bombs, get overwhelmed by frustration, throw your hands up in the air and say, “I'm not meant to be an entrepreneur. This is too confusing.” But that's not going to serve you or your audience or anyone else, my friend. So today we're going to tackle technology together and say goodbye to tech overwhelm for good.  

But real quick, when I say tech, I mean the platforms that you'll use in your business to help you systematize and automate the things that you do, like email-service providers so you can legally and easily collect email addresses, automate your newsletters, and set up landing pages; or platforms you use to go live on video, whether that be your weekly Facebook page or a webinar or a live event. The list goes on and on, and there are never-ending options for using tech within your business. And because of that, the truth is tech isn't going anywhere. So no matter how hard you try to hide from it, you kind of need it.  

But here's the good news. Tech is here to make our lives and our businesses simpler, more streamlined, and grant us the ability to automate things, i.e. giving us more time and lifestyle freedom in our business, not to mention, allows us to impact more people. So in today's episode, I'm going to walk you through tech tips to implement into your business to make you more comfortable with it. And while you may not become besties with the tech platforms you use in your business—I mean, I'm not necessarily, either—you'll at least become acquaintances. In between these tech tips, I'm revealing what are now entertaining tech-flop stories that I've experienced through the years. And trust me, at the time, they were not very funny at all. And all of this is going to lead to an essential tip that I'll share at the very end that you cannot go on without knowing. It's a must know. So stick around, and you'll be feeling so confident when it comes to any tech challenge you might experience in your business.  

But real quick, can I ask you a favor? If you've been loving this podcast and finding value in the content, I would love it if you'd share it with your entrepreneurial friends who would benefit from it as well. That's the main way that you can support Online Marketing Made Easy is by sharing it so that we can grow and make an impact. So if you could do that, I'd be forever grateful.  

All right. Let's dive into today's episode and get you feeling confident when it comes to setting up and utilizing tech platforms.  

First up, tech-tip number one. You have to spend a little time researching what platforms you want to use, but let's not make this complicated, and don't you dare use researching different platforms as a way to procrastinate just choosing one. Deal?  

Okay. So, here's a little behind-the-scenes tip. Take it or leave it, but it's really helped me, so hopefully you'll take it, especially helped me in my early years when I was choosing all the tech platforms I'd be using. If I need to make a decision on what kind of tech to use, such as my email-service provider or something like that, I go to someone I trust, and I ask them. Then, given their suggestions, I do a little research to see if that platform will, like, work for me, and, then—are you ready for it?—I make a freaking decision. I don't look at ten different options. No. I narrow it down to just three. Give myself seventy-two hours to choose—I'm not kidding about this stuff. You got to give yourself a deadline—and then, I make my decision.  

So that's what I want you to do. Ask a successful or established friend or look to your mentors, people you trust; select three, max, to research based off what you find; and then, give yourself a deadline and make the decision. And when you're doing the research, ask yourself if this platform will work for you, because even if it works for someone else doesn't mean it's the perfect fit for your business. Also, consider this. Will it work for you now and in the near future as you continue to grow your business, because you will continue to grow your business? So will this software grow with you, at least in the next one or two years? Also, take into consideration the price. Does that work for your budget? Take into consideration the features. Do they offer and have what you need and want? And take into consideration the user interface and experience. Is it easy to use and user friendly? Answering these questions will make honing in and choosing one so much easier. But, again, you choose three, you do your research on those three, you make a decision within seventy-two hours. Boom, don't look back. Moving forward. 

All right. Tech-flop story time. So there I was promoting B-School, which is Marie Forleo’s digital course. And as I'm on the webinar, which Marie was about to join so that we could share some value with my audience—I had been on for a while, and it was, like, thirty minutes in, and that's when Marie was popping on. And we were so excited. We were ready. We had over a thousand people on the webinar, so that, like, made me nervous just because, right?—and I got to the moment where literally I said, and everyone could still hear me. Everything was fine with the webinar thirty minutes in. And I got to the point that I said, “Okay, Marie. Are you there?” And nothing. I saw that she was on the webinar. I could see that she was there. But no one, including me, could hear her. In that exact minute, they heard me say, “Okay, Marie. Are you there?” and then they couldn't hear her or me anymore.  

The webinar platform that I was using, GoToWebinar, in that moment had a massive outage, and anyone who was using this platform lost audio in that moment, completely. And of course, it happened the moment that Marie came on the webinar. I'm not going to lie. I was so flustered. I mean, we had to stop the entire webinar, we had to record the part where Marie got on the webinar, and then I had to send it out as a replay. It was not nearly as good. But there's a lesson here, and I'm going to share it after we get through these tech tips, so let's keep moving on. But the lesson is important, and it might not be what you expect. 

All right. Tech-tip number two is to find the tech that you're going to use and stay there. I'm not going to beat around the bush. No tech platform is perfect. But if you keep flip flopping from tech program to tech program to tech program, believe me, you'll never really get it down, and your tech woes will continue to drag on. It's just like my driving story. I'm a good driver now. I mean, Hobie, again, might think differently. Don't ever ask him. But I'm just going to say I'm a pretty good driver. If I wouldn't have stuck with it and let getting kicked out of the church parking lot deter me from practicing some more, where I went somewhere else to practice, I wouldn't have ever gotten my license. So you find something by doing tech-tip number one, right? You do your research. And then you just stay put.  

So, for example, for me, an example of this is using Asana, which is my project-management tool. It's a-s-a-n-a. But before I got to Asana, I used probably five different project-management tools. And maybe you can relate because this is so terrible that I did this. But I had a small team at the time, when I started using project-management tools, so I would have them flip flop. So the whole team, at that point maybe I had five full-time employees, the whole team would get on one, like Basecamp, and we would use it for a while. And then I'd say, “Oh, we're switching to Trello,” which is another one. And then we'd all go over to Trello. And my team was like, “Let's not use anything, then,” because we kept flip flopping and never got good at anything.  

So, I eventually ended up in Asana, and my team will tell you that I was terrible at using the technology in the beginning. I wasn’t using it consistently like I should have been. But then, finally, I got on board, and thank goodness we didn't jump ship. We've been with Asana for years and years and years. So I have been known to flip flop in my past and it was painful. But more importantly, not only was it painful for me, but my team members, my contractors. So we don't want to do that. 

And the good thing is when you stick with one software—none of them are perfect—it does get easier every single time you use it. And that's the beauty of this. So commit the time, devoted time, to learning the program, like really learn it, and schedule time in your planner to use it and to show up and figure out what you need to figure out and just watch it become easier.  

Another thing I suggest you do here is to utilize any videos or support tools that the program offers. These days—I know I sound like I'm so old when I say, like, “Back in the day, the tech videos weren't that good,” like, the tech how-to videos—but these days the videos are really good. I think customer support in the software world has skyrocketed from when I first started. So you'd be amazed at how good the support tools are. The forums, even the blogs, the videos, the live calls they offer, they're really solid across the board. So take advantage of that.  

So here's another tech-flop story, and if you've been around, you may have heard this one before. But when I was working for Tony Robbins, we were doing a webinar, like, the very first webinar that he ever did. And it was a paid webinar. And we had all these people signed up, over eight hundred. I think it was eight hundred and five, to be exact. That's how involved I was on this very first webinar that Tony ever did.  

Now, he had never done a webinar. I had never done a webinar. And so what happened was the night before we actually did this paid webinar—I think everyone paid, like, a hundred bucks to get on it—Tony was at his house in Palm Springs, where he lived at the time. I was in the San Diego office. It was, like, ten o'clock at night, and we were practicing. We're just doing a quick test run, or whatever you call it. So we were doing this tech test run. Everything went well. His slides were showing. You could hear his voice. He, like, got comfortable with the technology, and so did I. And then I clicked a button to end the test run, and Tony said, “Amy, why did I just get an email that says this webinar has been canceled?” And I’m like, “No, it must mean the tech test was canceled.” And he's like, “I don't know what it means, but just so you know, I just got that email.” And so I said, “I'll look into it.” So he gets off the phone, and I look into it, and I had deleted the entire webinar that was happening the next morning, very early. And all eight hundred and five registrants, who paid money to be there, instantly got an email that said, “This webinar has been canceled.” I was mortified.  

I have told this story probably twenty times, and every time I tell it, I feel like I am back there. I'm sweating already. The thought of it is mortifying. Tony was very frustrated, of course, right? He should be with me. It was a really bad, bad moment. I cried. I tend to cry when I get nervous. Don't judge. And I didn't cry in front of him. I cried when I hung up the phone. And then I called GoToWebinar, and they got on a phone call with me, and they stayed up all night with me to try to figure out how to get that webinar back up and running. Like, I never went home that night. And to their credit, they did. And we basically sent out an email that said, “Just joking. This webinar is happening. We'll see you there.” And thank goodness, we had a great show-up rate, so it was, like, a non-issue the next day. I'm pretty sure I lost a year off my life, just saying. So the lesson here is take it slow when you're setting up and QCing anything techy for an event you're hosting.  

So this, obviously, podcast episode is how to get more confident with tech, and I cannot stress this enough. Slow down. Slow down just a moment and QC what you're doing. Whether it be you or your virtual assistant or someone on your team, you have to be QCing, especially for any kind of live hosting, live stream that you're going to be doing. But you should be QCing your landing pages, your webinar-registration pages, your shopping-cart pages.  

I remember back in the day when I sold my first thing online. I never once tested to see if the shopping cart would work. Now we do, like, a hundred test runs. We've got a whole system down for buying our own product in the QCing phase. So, it’s important. It’s so important that you slow down and QC. 

And another thing. You're not going to die. It's not the end of the world when the tech doesn't work. I mean, I'm still standing, and I could tell you, like, fifty really bad tech stories. But it's just part of being an entrepreneur. I think if you take just one thing away from this entire podcast, this is normal. Tech issues are normal. The minute you embrace them, like, “Oh, yeah. Here we go. This is normal,” they're not a big deal. But here's a little secret that I think I did and you might do as well. When things wouldn't work out, like when GoToWebinar went out and no one could hear me or Marie, I instantly thought, “People are going to think I'm an idiot. People are going to think that I can't run a business. People are going to think that I'm super non-techy and I can't figure things out.” A GoToWebinar outage had nothing to do with me. But in the old days, I would go right to “What will people think of my ability to be an entrepreneur?” And many of you don't think that, but some of you, someone out there needed to hear that right now, that I used to do that as well, and it didn't serve me. And now all I do if something happens, and I'm like, “Oh, okay. So, yeah, I'm not even surprised. Tech issues happen all the time. Here we go.” But I will say that they happen less for us now, not because we're super techy on this team, but because we have started to slow down and QC see over the years. So it makes a huge difference.  

And when you mess up, your audience is going to be so supportive, if you build a real relationship with them. I recently had an issue. This literally just happened. I was doing a Facebook Live, and we still don't know why it happened, but my slides wouldn't show up. I was using Ecamm, the software I use, and no matter what I tried, my slides would not show up. They did show up ten minutes before I went live when I tested it. So I just said, “Well, I'm not going to, like, monkey with it and try to get it to work when I'm live and everyone's waiting for me.” I tried, like, two times. It wouldn't work. So I just went ahead and did my whole presentation without slides. I had an outline in front of me. I used the outline. I didn't make a big deal of it. And I got so many messages from people in my audience that they said, “Holy cow. That was smooth. You moved right into, ‘Oh, well, I don't have slides. Here we go.’” And the reason I was able to move into it, because I thought “It’s going to be okay. It's not the end of the world, and I'm not going to shut this all down because you can't see my slides. I'm just going to go for it.” Now, if that was a webinar, that would have been harder, but it was a Facebook Live. I was teaching on something I was familiar with, so I just said, “Let's just do this.”  

So shake it off. Laugh it off. Do not wear it like a heavy cloak that is just weighing you down. We're just moving on. That attitude is going to save you so much stress. 

Okay. Moving on to tech-tip number three. Don't be super fancy. Here's what I mean. If you're at a point in your business where you can get away with a basic tech platform that might not have all the bells and whistles, then please go for the basic option. I actually see this with my students often. They hear about a big fancy platform that they see everyone else using, and they won't even use half of the features if they got it. But they sign up for it because they think that's what they should be using in order to be successful. And that's not the case. I always tell people, like, my students who want to know, like, “What do you use for your CRM?” which includes my email-service provider. And I say I use Infusionsoft, but I don't recommend Infusionsoft to my newbie students. I actually like ConvertKit get better. So anybody who's listening right now that hasn't signed up for an email-service provider, by all means, check out ConvertKit. Go to amyporterfield.com/convertkit. So amyporterfield.com/convertkit. It will take you to a page that gives you all the details you need to get started. You can even get started for free. But anyway, I don't think newbie students need to start with the software that I use today.  

Another thing I see my students fall into is purchasing a program and then not getting comfortable with it or not taking the time to implement it, and then they get charged month after month because they think they're going to use it, but they never actually do.  

My content manager—we call her Jilly—she actually tells a story of this exact experience, before she came onto my team. She was a blogger before she started working with us, and she had purchased a platform because she saw someone farther ahead of her in that entrepreneurial space using it, and so she thought she needed it. She had to have it. But in truth, she probably didn't and actually ended up not using it. But that didn't stop her from paying for it every single month. Like, for a very long time. Don't worry, no judgment because we've all been there. I have so been there. This is very common. But you can fix it. If that's you, you can fix it.  

Also, if you're trying to be super fancy with anything online, ask yourself, “Does this really matter?” At Tony Robbins, we used to have this plaque on the wall, and it said, “Does the customer care?” because we might care immensely about something. Like, let me give you an example. You might care immensely about how, let's say, an opt-in page, a landing page looks. So you feel like you need the fanciest of software to create the most beautiful opt-in page. Does the customer care that it allows that many fonts and that many colors and images placed in ten different places? No. They want to know how good your content is. They want solutions to their problems. They're not really that focused on all the esthetics that likely most of us are. Does the customer care? And if you aren't sure, ask, “Okay. Well, what does the customer really care about?” Typically, it's not going to be your software. You don't need to be fancy with any technology. I really don't think it's necessary at all. The simpler you make it, the faster you'll get it done, and you'll start making things happen. So keep this in mind when you’re selecting a platform, do you really need all these bells and whistles? Likely not. 

All right. Moving on to tech-tip number four. If you have a little extra money to spare, contract it out. Now, there's one thing I will say. If you hire setting up your tech, if you hire that out, and if you don't go first and get to know it intimately, have whoever you hire take the time to teach you. So this part's important. You're probably thinking, “Well, why the heck would I hire it out if I still have to learn it?” But here's the thing. This will serve you well because when you have to make a quick change or update something on the fly and they aren't around, you want to be prepared. You never want to be tied to somebody that the only person on your team that knows tech is a contractor that doesn't work for you full time and may not be around when you need them. So you want to at least know the basics of the software that you have so that if you need to, you can tackle it on your own, if it comes to that.  

But the good news is that you don't have to be the one to figure it all out. They can get to know it, work it out, implement it, and then come back and show you how they worked it and how they set it up, so you understand what you're using.  

So, again, I love the idea of hiring someone to help you with the tech. I'm all about it. If you have the budget to do so, if you can swing it, yes, yes, yes. Do that. But the thing is, just don't be so reliant on them that you lose the control of being able to fix things when—when, not if—when things go wrong in the business. 

Let me give you a quick example. We have a web developer as a contractor on our team. Her name's Melissa. Shout out to Melissa. We appreciate you. She's been with us for a long time now. And whenever she makes some big changes to our website, she goes into Slack and she educates us. She'll say, “Hey, guys. I made this video to show you how to change this font on these pages” or “Let me show you where you get into the back end to change these images,” or whatever it might be. Because, one, she knows she's not always available, and she sure as heck doesn't want, like, ten messages on Thursday before closing time because my team is freaking out because they can't figure something out that's probably really simple. So she takes the time to educate us. Not on everything. It's not like my team knows how to code and program, but the things that she knows we would like to be able to do and not be held hostage to do them, we ask her to teach us, and she does. So something to think about. You might have to ask your contractor to fill you in, but if they're a great contractor, they will.  

And remember, do not hire this out if you're on a shoestring budget. I personally think it's a huge benefit to set up tech on your own first, because then you know all the ins and outs of your business. So if you can afford it, look at that as a blessing because you will be better in the long run for it. But that being said, as you grow, having a VA or a team member tackle the initial set up and teaching you is a great thing as well. 

Okay. So, time for another tech-flop story, and this one was actually in the last year. So the answer is yes, things like this still happen, thirteen years in.  

So, I was on stage at my virtual Entrepreneur Experience event that happened in December 2020. And the live stream kept buffering, which means it was pausing for our audience, and it was not transmitting like it was supposed to. It was a nightmare, actually. So I was on stage. It was a virtual event, but we were at a theater, so I was on stage, and this was all going down, so I stopped. And then, they had me start again. And then, boom, it went down again, so they stopped me. And then, I went again, and then, boom, third time it happened. And I went back stage.  

So I had camera people looking at me, and my team was staring at me from the bleachers or whatever, the chairs in the theater. And I had to go behind this screen, and I was like, “Okay, Amy. Get it together,” because when I feel nervous or anxious or like, “Oh, my gosh, this is really bad right now,” I feel like the tears could come. I hate to admit that to you. It sounds ridiculous sometimes, but it's just—I've been like that since I've been really young. And I don't like it. So I'm like, “Okay.” And I didn't want to mess up my makeup, so I was like, “Don't you dare. Like, get it together.” And please know that it's not like I'm crying every day over my computer and my team's like, “Oh, my gosh, what are we going to do with her?” It's just these, like, intense moments where I'm like, “Oh, I feel it in my throat.” Maybe some of you can relate. Like, I feel it coming.  

And it's when, like, the third time it went down and I had to stop. And I was teaching. I was trying to get the audience virtually going in the morning. So it was very early on. We had just started. So we did everything we could to get that back up, and I just gave myself a pep talk. And then Cho, on my team, came behind. She knew I was hiding. She's like, “We're going to be fine. It’s going to be great. We got this. Let’s go.” So I got a little extra support, and I got back out there.  

And it took all my energy to not go to a really dark place in my head, such as “I'm going to look like an idiot,” or “They're going to think that I can't even put on my own event, and they paid to be here, and they're looking for a great experience, and they're going to think this is a mess.” I always go there for a split second now. Thirteen years in, I don't live there. So the thoughts came up, and I'm like, “Nope. Okay. So what are we going to say? Tech challenges happen. We always come back from this. We've always got it taken care of. I've got a great team. We're going to be fine.” And we were.  

But I guess I'm telling you this story because negative thoughts are going to happen. At thirteen years in, it's not like I don't have those thoughts. I just don't live there. I don't stay there. I let the thought happen, and then I choose a different thought that's going to serve me.  

I actually recently learned from one of my students. Her name is Joy Foster. She was on the podcast. I learned from her that there's actually a name for these thoughts. They're called automatic negative thoughts. And they are so ingrained that unless we've done a ton of work on them, they will always show up for us. And I feel like I've done a lot of work, but they still show up for me. So just knowing that there's actually a name for them, automatic negative thought. She calls them ANTs. A-n-t. The fact that they're a real thing, we shouldn't be surprised that they show up. We can use this, though, to our advantage, because if we know that they're going to show up, we can be ready for them. Like, I see these ANTs and I'm like, “Oh, hi. Hi, old friend, that likes to come in at the times that I really don't want you here.” So it's very normal, and I just acknowledge it.  

Now, here's the thing. And if you're multitasking, come back to me right now. Yeah, you. Are you looking at your phone? Are you driving and now your head's in a different space? Where are you? What are you doing? Whatever it might be, come back to me for a minute here. Those thoughts, those automatic negative thoughts, will always be there, no matter how far into your entrepreneurial journey you are. No matter how many live events you've done, Facebook Lives, Instagram Lives, webinars, they will show up.  

But here's how you can avoid being paralyzed by them. You can catch them as fast as you can. One negative thought will lead to another, which will lead to another. So like I said, don't be surprised when they come up. Be aware of them and shift them, boom, as fast as you can. Even if shifting into a positive thought seems impossible, shift to a neutral one. That's what I do.  

So sometimes when I'm working with my coach, I'll have a negative thought, and I'm just like, “It feels fake to go to ‘everything's going to be amazing.’” And she always says, “Don't go there, then. Just choose a neutral thought. These things happen. This feels bad. I'll get over it.” But it doesn't necessarily have to be a shining, positive, sparkly thought. I don't think that's really realistic for all of us. But you can go to a neutral one.  

So the moral of the story for this huge live-event tech challenge, well, stay with me. We're getting there. I'm almost there. I have something to share with you about that story and the moral of it, but we'll get to it in a minute.  

But first, tech-tip number five. And after hearing the story above, you may not be surprised by this one: shift your mindset. To be honest, I actually think this is the most important tech tip that we're talking about today. Listen, it's okay if you say that you're not super techy. I think that's fine. But what I used to say is, “I'm really bad with tech.” I used to say that all the time, or I'd say, “Tech really freaks me out, and I'm always messing up with tech.” I used to say things like that all the time, and then I realized that doesn't serve me, and I know it doesn't serve you, either. So I might not be super techy, but I will always figure it out. That is what I say now. So watch what you're saying to yourself. It’s a mistake I've made for a very long time, and I want you to totally avoid it. 

So tech is one of those things that you have to build self-confidence around. It's not going away, my friend. You've got to have it in your business. Whether you hire someone to do it or not, it will always be around you if you are an entrepreneur doing business online. So I'm going to challenge you to just dive in and use the tech tips that we've talked about today and just go for it. The worst thing that can happen is that you have a flop, as you've heard me have many in this episode. And here I am, you and I, still chatting, right? Here I am. I'm still standing.  

But every year, I do feel more and more confident with the tech because I give myself permission to just try new things. And here's the thing. Thirteen years in and the fact that I have a budget that I can put toward it, I want to try new things. I want to go big. I want to get fancy with some of the technology now that I've been doing it for a long time. If I'm always saying, “I am terrible at tech,” I'll never experiment. So I have been experimenting with a lot of different tech lately, and I'm so proud of myself that I have, and I found some that I really love that have served me well. So, when it comes to mastering tech, mindset is the most important part of the equation.  

Okay. So, you've been so darn patient, and now I have one piece of advice that I promised you at the very beginning that will give you a boost of self-confidence and make sure you never have a moment like I did last December at Entrepreneur Experience, where I was fighting back the tears. Remember how I was standing backstage and didn't want to mess up my makeup? Yeah, well, there was something I didn't have set in place that could have easily helped myself and my entire team from feeling the anxiety around our buffering issue, the fact that we were live streaming, and it kept buffering. There's something we didn't do that I promise you will never happen again in my business. I can't believe I'm almost thirteen years in, and this is new for us. If you're even one year, two year, three year in, it can be new for you right now. Start it now.  

Are you ready for it? Have a plan B, and be sure as heck that you know what to do if all goes wrong. Have a Plan B. We didn't. We didn't have a plan B for a live event with tons of people signed up for it. What? I'm embarrassed to tell you that, but it's true. It seems so obvious now, but having a backup plan, it takes a little bit of time and work. But imagine if I had a backup plan for that Entrepreneur Experience, I would have been able to shift to it right away. My team would have known what to do, right? Having a backup plan would have saved me years of stress. Whenever you're setting up and preparing for something big in your business, like a webinar or a live event or even just your Facebook Lives, if they make you nervous—we even have a backup plan for our Facebook Lives now.  

If I go on Facebook and the feed goes down, we have a Zoom link ready to go that we just jump on Zoom and then push it into Facebook. Every time. We actually have the Zoom event set up so that we actually go into Zoom, there it is, boom, go live. That's a thing that we do every week now, and it just eliminates the stress.  

So set up a plan B and be hyper clear on what that looks like. Prep it, practice it, make sure everyone who might need to know about it is totally on the up and up. Like, they're very clear. And just trust that it will work. If you have two plans in place, one of them is bound to work. And just, I just got to say, and if both of them don't work, well, it was meant to be. You were supposed to—that was happening for you, not against you. But typically, one of those is going to work.  

And I want you to enjoy this, I want you to relax, and I want you just to know that everything that's happening to you in your business is happening for you, even the tech challenges. So if you embrace them, if you learn from them, if you laugh them off—I know, easier said than done—if you've got your plan B, you're a stronger entrepreneur, both in your systems and in your mindset. And that is saying a lot.  

All right. So, are you ready for a short recap and your action steps? Here we go. Tech-tip number one. Spend a little time researching the platforms you want to use. Remember, choose three to research, set your deadline for seventy-two hours, and make the decision. Don't waffle back and forth. Just go with what feels right for you. Tech-tip number two. Once you make the decision, stick with it and commit to learning the tech. Spend time getting comfortable with it. It will get easier, I promise. Tech-tip number three. Don't get fancy. If a platform has more bells and whistles than you actually need, don't use it just because another entrepreneur is using it. Sometimes the basic option is the better choice. Tech-tip number four. If you have a little money to spare, then consider hiring it out. But remember, if you're going to hire it out, have whoever you hire, learn it, implement it, and then give you a crash course on learning it. They can do the heavy lifting, but you still have to know how it all works, at least the basics. Tech-tip number five. Be aware of your mindset around tackling tech. Say that ten times fast. Be aware of your mindset around tackling tech. Remember that the thoughts that you don't want to have will always come up, but get really good at identifying them, being aware of them, and choosing new thoughts. This is the key to becoming a master at learning and utilizing tech in your business. And most importantly, the big moral of all my stories that I told you, have a plan B. If it's something important to you, like a masterclass, a webinar, a live event, a live workshop, don't go into it without knowing and being familiar with your backup plan. This is essential for you to be more confident and calm and to support your audience as they're showing up, ready to go. Have a plan B.  

All right, my friend. That wraps it up for today. Thanks for joining me. And I'll see you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now. 

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