AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey there, welcome back to another episode of The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m Amy Porterfield and today we are changing things up just a bit. Today we’re taking a break from learning a new strategy or a new marketing technique and we’re switching gears to talk about some of the lies we tell ourselves as entrepreneurs.
Yep, you heard me right. Today we are talking about lies because we all tell them. I’m not talking about lies to other people, I’m talking about lies we tell ourselves. As you likely already know, to win the game of becoming a successful entrepreneur, you’ve got to focus on the mind game, what’s going on between your two ears.
I could teach you a million battle-tested, ultra-successful online marketing strategies. To be honest, that’s what I love to do most. I love to get in the trenches with you and teach you how to get results. But if your mind is not right, if your confidence and course is struggling even just a bit my strategies won’t work inside your business at all.
That’s why I wanted to shift gears a bit today and talk to you about what might be going on in your head and talk about those lies that you just might be telling yourself. We’re going to talk about the truth so that you can actually take that lie and flip flop it and do something with it to start getting some more momentum.
Next week we’re going to dive right back into strategy. Specifically, next week in Episode #99 I’m going to be talking about expanding one piece of content and turning it into what I like to call a list-building blitz campaign. More on that next week; but, again, we’re getting right back into strategy and there will be a really cool checklist for this list-building blitz campaign so you don’t want to miss Episode #99 coming out next week if you’re catching this right when I went live with this episode.
Also, before we dive in, this episode is sponsored by List Builder’s Lab. List Builder’s Lab is my brand new program that now is officially live. I’m extremely excited about it because you likely already know my philosophy: The energy of your business is directly tied to the strength of your email list. So if you want to check out a free master class I created all about list building and the strategies I used in my own business to build my list you can go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/masterclass. Jump on that free master class, learn some new strategies and then you can learn about List Builder’s Lab while you’re there.
Let’s go ahead and dive in to Lie #1.
Lie #1: You have to be the best in your market. You have to be #1, the top, the best of the best in order to make really good money online and in order to make a really big impact. You’ve got to be the best of the best. That is a lie!
Let me tell you from my own experience why I know this to be true and then we’re going to talk about the truth. The truth is not sugar coated. There is something you’ve got to do in order to make it online but you don’t have to be the best of the best in your market.
When I first came on the scene, you’ve probably heard me talk about this a million times, I had left a big corporate cushy job. I had started doing social media marketing for small businesses and big businesses and consulting. At that time (around 2010) there were a lot of people coming on the scene teaching social media marketing. IT was the hottest thing to do.
I had a lot of competition out there. Then I started doing more Facebook marketing. I became the Facebook community manager for Social Media Examiner with Mike Stelzner. Then I got the book deal to co-author Facebook Marketing All In One for Dummies. I really carved a little spot out for myself being known for Facebook marketing.
Let me ask you a question. If you follow social media and you know kind of what’s what out there, if I asked you who you think of when I ask who is the best of the best when they teach Facebook marketing? Who teaches it and really gets down deep and teaches the strategies and tips and is always talking about Facebook marketing?
Some of you are totally loyal to me and would say, “Well you Amy, we think of you.” Thank you for that. That really is amazing that some of you would think about me in that respect because I always think about Mari Smith and I bet many of you that were listening just now thought of Mari Smith as well. She is the queen of Facebook. Let’s be honest, Facebook calls Mari Smith to teach Facebook. You can’t get bigger than that. She’s amazing and she’s been consistent with teaching Facebook marketing. It really is her space. The woman owns it.
She was one of the first people I went to to learn social media marketing. I even learned from Mari Smith. So what made me think I could teach Facebook and find my own space out there when there was someone already totally dominating? She was even a mentor of mine.
The reason why that still worked for me and I was able to build an amazing business even through there was somebody that was a lot bigger than me in my niche was that I really, truly believed in my skills. That’s the truth here. Don’t just gloss over this like, “Yeah, yeah, of course I believe in my skills.”
Let’s talk about this. The truth is that you have to have a track record of getting results, either results for yourself or results for others. If you could have a mix of both, results for yourself and others, that’s even better and it might be something to work up to. You might not be there yet but I want you to aspire to that.
You need to have that track record. You also need to educate yourself. Continue to learn and perfect your skills. Make sure you’re updated and working with the changing times and staying on top of it and staying relevant with what’s working right now.
For me, continuing my education in everything I teach is a really big deal. I was at dinner the other night at a networking kind of thing with my business partner, Devin Duncan, and we went round the table answering the question, what’s your morning ritual?
I didn’t know this but Devin said every morning he does this and that. It includes working out and meditating. I knew that kind of stuff about him but then he said, “I spend 30 minutes every morning educating myself.” Learning something new, reading a blog post, going through an online training program, reading a business book, whatever it might be, he spends 30 minutes every morning educating himself.
This guy is really, really smart so I was not surprised, I guess, but kind of surprised because I didn’t know that was part of his daily ritual. Educating yourself is so important in order to make sure your skills are always even getting better, even if you’re really good at what you do right now.
In addition to that, you need to know how to apply your skills to others. You have to go beyond yourself with that. This is more about your teaching style than anything. But just because you made it work for you does not mean that you will hit it out of the park for others. Taking your skill…let’s say you got really big results for yourself, you might need to take a little time to figure out how it’s going to be adaptable to other people, different situations, different skill sets.
That’s another thing I see with my brand new students where they say they got great results for themselves and now they are going to teach it to everybody. You have to step back a little and find your own examples or strategies that could actually apply to other people.
I’m really big on seven steps to do “this” or a formula or road map to do “that”. I work all of that stuff out in advance because I know it’s not just about applying it to my own business but to others. You do really need to know how to take those skills you have and make them adaptable to other people. You can make them unique to you by building these special roadmaps or steps or whatever.
But here’s something else I want you to think about. Remember, the lie was that you have to be the best of the best in your market, the top of your niche. That’s the lie, you don’t need to. The truth is you must believe that you’ve got skills.
I took that one step further and said that you need to be able to apply those skills to other people’s lives and experiences. But don’t take that too far. Let me give you an example: When I first came out on the scene I was not being specific about who I help. I would do tons of Facebook marketing training and then I got into The Profit Lab, which is how to build your email list, how to sell online, and I was attracting so many people that wanted to build a business online.
Many of those people had a physical product or a physical location; they owned a restaurant or they were selling a $10 product on Amazon. Although I really, truly believe my strategies could help those people, none of my examples were for them. I realized I want to help those that want to create online training courses, training programs online.
Because of that all of my examples were around that area. I would really shine in that area but I would struggle to help the restaurant owner with their social media because I had never had any experience with that. For me, I had to get clear about what my skills were and where I really excelled. Then I had to communicate that to my audience and say, “I support those who create online training programs or who eventually want to have some kind of online training course in their business. I can help you grow a list, put out amazing content, create campaigns and strategies around an online training course.”
I had to get really clear and I was so scared to do that. I remember talking to Devin, my business partner, “I want to tell people The Profit Lab is primarily for those creating online training courses.” I thought I would lose half the people that buy. It was our best launch ever when I finally put it out there so that’s just something to think about as you get really clear about what your skills are, what you’re teaching, and who you’re helping.
Lie #1, you have to be the best of the best in your market; that’s not true, but you do need to really hone in on your skills and get really good at what you teach and then make sure people know who you teach and what you teach and how that is unique. You do the unique part through different blueprints or formulas or different steps that you’ve created to help those that you know you can serve.
I know this is big picture, we’re not going into specific strategy today. I think it’s important for you to understand that big picture.
Lie #2: You have to find the balance between your work and your family and all that comes in between that. You have to find balance. Yep, I’m saying that is the lie! This is very personal to me and not all of you will agree with this but I want you to at least try it on for a few days and see if maybe I have a point here. Just try it on and see if it might work for you.
People always ask what I learned the most when I worked for Tony Robbins. One lesson I learned from him that I always take with me is that the truth is when you are excelling in one area of your life, you are hitting it out of the park, whether it be parenting or weight loss in your own personal life and getting healthy, or your business, or whatever it might be, there is one area of your life that you are crushing it there is likely another area of your life that is lacking.
I believe that is human nature. I think that is something that happens with most of us. I don’t believe in anything being perfectly balanced. I think there are seasons in our lives, ebbs and flows, when business is really good. It might mean my husband might be feeling a little bit neglected. When I realize that I have to correct it and change my focus a bit.
It is something I really try to not get way out of whack, of course, I don’t ever want Hobie to feel neglected. But if it happens I know can see an ebb and a flow and I can see where I am right now, we are in a season of my business that’s getting more attention than maybe it should be getting so I have to kind of put my attention somewhere else. I think that is human nature.
Because of that I wanted to bring this up as the lie, the lie that everything should be perfectly balanced or that you should be striving for that. I actually don’t think you should. The truth here is that you do need to know your priorities. We’ll talk about that and how to get really clear about your priorities if you’re feeling you are struggling in that area a little bit. But I wanted to share something with you.
I recently read this book called Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. If you don’t know who that is, she’s the television producer and writer who pretty much owns Thursday nights (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder are all her shows). She went to Dartmouth and they asked her to come back a few years ago to do the commencement speech.
I want to read you just a little section of that commencement speech. Remember, she’s talking to college students that are graduating that day so she will reference them. But I thought what she said was so valuable to all of us. Let me read that to you really briefly. She often gets asked, “Shonda, how do you do it all?” This is how she responds:
“Shonda, how do you do it all? Like I’m full of magical magic wisdom and specialness. How do you do it all? I usually just smile and say, ‘I’m really organized.’ Or, if I’m feeling slightly kind I say, ‘I have a lot of help.’ Those things are true but they also aren’t true. This is the thing I really want to say to all of you; not just to the women out there although this will matter to you women a great deal as you enter the work force and try to figure out how to juggle work and family. But it will also matter to the men who I think are increasingly also trying to figure out how to juggle work and family. Frankly, if you’re not trying to figure it out, men of Dartmouth, you should be. Fatherhood is being redefined at a lightning fast rate. You don’t want to be a dinosaur. So women and men of Dartmouth, as you try to figure out the impossible task of juggling work and family and you hear over and over again that you just need a lot of help or you just need to be organized or you just need to try a little bit harder, as a very successful woman, a single mother of three who constantly gets asked the question, ‘How do you do it all?’ for once I am going to answer that question with 100% honesty here for you now because it’s just us, because it’s our fireside chat, because somebody has to tell you the truth. Shonda, how do you do it all? The answer is this, I don’t. Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means that I am failing in another area of my life. If I am killing it on a Scandal script for work I’m probably missing bath and story time at home. If I am at home sewing my kids’ Halloween costumes, I am probably blowing off a script I was supposed to rewrite. If I’m accepting a prestigious award I’m missing my baby’s first swim lesson. If I am at my daughter’s debut in her school musical I’m missing Sandra Oh’s last scene ever filmed at Grey’s Anatomy. If I am succeeding at one I am inevitably failing at the other. That is the tradeoff. That’s the bargain one makes with the devil that comes with being a powerful working woman who is also a powerful mother. You never feel 100% okay. You never get your sea legs, you are always a little nauseous. Something is always lost. Something is always missing. And yet I want my daughters to see me and know me as the woman who works. I want the example set for them.”
She goes on in the commencement speech to talk about a whole bunch of other things. It’s totally worth checking out online but I just thought that part was so good. It almost gave me permission to breathe a little bit. So I’m not alone in this. There’s a much more powerful woman there struggling with the exact same thing and I think you guys can totally relate as well.
Just try it on for size and the next time you’re beating yourself up about not spending enough time doing this or spending too much time doing this and missing out on that, remember this is all an experiment and we’re trying to figure it out. You’ll get better at it for sure. I know I have over the years. But I’ve given up on the balance thing. As I have become more successful I’ve gotten to call the shots even more. When I want to take more time off I get to. When I want to work really late and do something, I’ve planned for it in advance so I don’t feel totally out of whack with my family or other priorities.
I think really, truly no one really says this, but when you make more money that becomes a whole lot easier but also, when you get better at your business that becomes easier as well. I just wanted to put that out there that I don’t believe in balance and I really loved that whole commencement speech around it so it’s definitely worth checking out online if you want a little breathing space.
Now let’s talk about the truth though. The truth is you do need to know your priorities. I believe it’s okay to be consumed with your work. I bring that up now because many of you are just starting out in your business. Many of you are in your first or second year of business and it feels all consuming. There is a lot of guilt around that.
I believe anything I do well I have to be all in. I can’t have one foot in and one foot out. I have to be totally in it or not in it at all. That’s not necessarily the right way to do it, I’m just kind of sharing a little bit about my own experience and it might resonate with you and it might not.
When I was just getting started I had to have a lot of conversations with my husband and explain to him what I was doing and some of the opportunities that were coming my way and some of the things I was struggling with. I would get his opinion about the areas he felt he could contribute. So he was part of this experiment that I felt I was trying to figure out every single day.
If I had cut him out or didn’t have those conversations he would have been frustrated with the amount of consumption this new business was having on my life and our life. I think open communication helps with the lack of balance. It’s just something to think about.
When I give you that advice, that you need to know your priorities and it’s okay to be consumed with your work when you need to be, I give you that advice knowing it’s hard to swallow when your business is not yet making good money. It’s hard to justify to your husband or your wife that you’re business is your obsession when you’re not making any money. That is frustrating to them.
That’s why I think getting their advice and allowing them to be a part of this with you, you know you need to set boundaries sometimes but you need to know what works best for you, but I do think that conversation is easier when they get to be a part of it. I do believe that when you’re just starting out it does need to be your obsession…for some people, I guess.
I just wanted to give you a little bit of permission if you were looking for it or needed it. Sometimes we do. I know I do. That’s okay but you’ve got to keep the lines of communication open with those that are closest to you.
One more thing and we will jump to the next lie, you’ve got to have ear muffs on when people want to give you their opinion of you working too much or you being too obsessed when they are not the most important person in the equation. If they are not in your inner circle but they love to give you advice remember that’s likely their fear talking because they have never done it and they’ve maybe thought about doing it and haven’t taken the leap. They are going to put all of their fear right on you.
That’s something we face as entrepreneurs, a lot of negative talk around us from people who aren’t doing it. We’re not making money yet so they would love to swoop in and tell us what we’re doing wrong. Ear muffs with those people.
One more thing about priority. The truth is that we always find the time to do what matters most to us. That is sometimes hard to swallow as well. But if you really think about it, it is the truth. The question is, what truly matters most to you? You’ve just got to declare it and own it and put a stake in the ground. Make it known what’s most important to you.
The important thing here is to know that you’re going to be ruthless in protecting your priorities. If reading a story to your toddler every single night is a priority you will find time to do it. That might mean earlier in the day you are not having as much interaction with your family as you want. But you know come story time that is your time and no one gets in the way.
Also, if getting out and moving your body each day is a must, you will always find the time to do it…if it’s a must for you. But that might mean it’s in your schedule and you tell everybody you know that is happening. That’s what I do. I tell my husband in the morning, “At 3 o’clock today I’m on that treadmill.” I just need to say it out loud so I hear myself and you know it too.
If it’s my priority, sometimes I need to declare it to someone that will keep me accountable. Anyway, back to the point that if it’s important you will find the time and the way to make it happen.
Lie #3: Your failures that are adding up are proof that you’re never going to make this work. This is kind of a bold one but sometimes when things aren’t working as we’re trying to build our businesses online we go to a really dark place, “Holy cow, this isn’t working. This is a disaster.” Most of us start saying we are going to have to go back to the 9-to-5 job.
I know that’s what I said. Or some of us are saying, “I’m stuck at this 9-to-5 job the rest of my life. I’m just not made to be an entrepreneur. What if I can’t pay the bills? This isn’t working.” All of these things you try to do are huge failures, you are never going to make it online. We probably don’t live there. I know many of you have really strong mindsets around being an entrepreneur but sometimes, some days, that’s where we go.
That, of course, we all know is a lie! The truth is you might be seeing small or big failures piling up. You are trying things and your list isn’t growing. You do a webinar and you don’t make good money with it. Hardly anyone shows up and you followed the entire strategy I even taught you but it still wasn’t a success.
Maybe you tried B-School with Marie Forleo (something I’ve been promoting over the last few weeks) and you get in there and you tried something and it was a huge flop and you start to think maybe you aren’t meant for “this.” The truth is that you may need to change your business model.
This one was kind of a big ah-ha moment for me that I really didn’t realize I had changed my business model until after it happened a few years later. I will also just tell you that in Episode #97 with Jill and Josh Stanton we talk a lot about what their business model looked like and how they had to change it and why. We talked about the power of the Facebook group but then we totally changed the conversation and talked about why they had to change their business model because they were hating doing live launches. To peak your curiosity if you haven’t already checked that one out, it’s worth checking out.
But here’s the deal, when I left corporate I started doing a bunch of consulting and I had all of these clients. I hated it. Freedom was the biggest joke for me because I didn’t know how to set expectations and boundaries with these clients I was taking on for their social media management. It just wasn’t for me.
I had to really come to terms with the fact that this business I had built was kind of working but not really. I was making money but spending tons of money and it wasn’t feeling good at all. I probably could have tweaked a few things to make it more profitable but I personally hated how it made me feel. I felt like I was back working in corporate and I had a boss and didn’t have any flexibility.
I had to change my business model. I started to create online training courses and this is a topic I’m going to be talking about a lot in the coming months because I’m coming out with a course about how to create online training courses. I feel I know a thing or two about this topic because, literally, my business was built on online training courses. It’s how I make money.
Today I don’t offer any one-on-one coaching. At this point I don’t have any masterminds that I have created for people to sign up for. I don’t really do speaking for pay anymore, usually. It’s not one of my business models. The business model I use is selling online training programs online. I absolutely love it.
You know when something feels right and when something feels wrong. Here’s something really important to pay attention to. When you’re just starting out and you’re building your business and it feels uncomfortable that doesn’t mean your business model is wrong it just means you’re trying some new stuff and you may be crashing and burning and then seeing some success and crashing and burning again.
That uncomfortable part of things is totally normal. I always tease that for the first two years of my business I felt uncomfortable every single day. I think that is part of building a business. But there comes a time when it needs to switch. When you’re finally making some consistent revenue if you still feel comfortable every single day you might be moving into business model that’s not serving you.
I had to get rid of all of those consulting clients and I had to really focus on using webinars and list building to sell my online training programs. That’s not for everybody but it’s something to think about. With Jill and Josh Stanton, they were doing live launches much like I do. I do live launches and then do automated launches. They were doing live launches and hated it.
They didn’t like the fact that March might have had zero revenue and then April was a bunch of money but they didn’t know when their next launch was. It was a feast and famine feeling that wasn’t working for them. They hated that.
They changed their model and now they have a private Facebook group where everything originates through a tribe and community building first. That is Jill’s thing. She loves to connect with people on a daily basis and create content for them and it feels really good for her.
What happens when your business changes and it starts to feel really good for you? You usually start to make a whole lot more money as well. You are making a great impact and your revenue shows it. Look at your business model. Your failures don’t mean you need to go back to a 9-to-5. Your failures don’t mean were not meant to be an entrepreneur or that you don’t have what it takes and everybody else is doing it and you can’t.
Some of the failures you are facing right now might mean your business model is out of whack. There are so many business models that I can’t give you tons of examples that might resonate with you but look at how you’re doing business today, how you’re making money, how you attract your audience, what you’re selling, all of that and start exploring some other business models.
There are other business models like webinars to online training courses. That would probably be my business model. But there are membership sites. That’s whole different business model. I think Marie Forleo, who is my mentor and I talk about her a lot (she was in Episode #96 and it is a hugely valuable interview), one thing about her business model is she launches once a year and from there the rest of the year is building her tribe and community. She has Marie TV as the main way she does that. That is a totally different business model than mine. But it works really well for her.
Pay attention to the business model. You might need to tweak yours or drastically change yours in order to make things work. So that’s something to think about.
Lie #4: Every opportunity that comes your way is big and you can’t miss out on it or you’ll be left behind. At our gut we know that’s a lie! So many of us are living as though that is the truth. Let me say that one more time. Every opportunity that comes your way is a big one and you can’t miss out on it or you’ll be left behind.
The reason I bring this one up, I have a lot of experience with it. I like to teach what I know and one thing I really messed up on in those early years is that I would say, “yes” to everything because I didn’t want to miss out on anything. What if it was my big break? What if it was the one thing that was going to change everything for me?
If you know my story, you know for those first two years I really struggled. So saying, “yes” to everything made me feel like one of these is going to work. The funny thing about this lie is that you probably won’t believe me until you say, “yes” to everything for a period of time and then get so burned out that you get it.
That’s how I learned. My mentor, Marie Forleo, has a funny saying, “Get on the No Train.” She encourages you to say, “no” to some opportunities if they’re not going to serve you and your priorities and your goals. I didn’t listen to a word of that No Train in 2010 and 2011.
I got on the Yes Train and tooted that horn and went as far as I could go with it. Then I created a business model I hated and didn’t even love my business. I know getting on the No Train is the way to go but let’s talk about this lie of thinking about every opportunity coming your way. I want to make it really real for you so I want to tell you a story.
I have a really good friend (I’m not going to name any names). She is very successful in the corporate world. She always has been. But she desperately wants to have her own thing. For the last few years she has been dabbling with having her own online business. She has actually quit a really big corporate job that paid a whole lot of money and now she freelances for some other corporate businesses on the side and tries to do her online marketing thing on the side as well.
That could work for some people until your online marketing business takes off. Her online marketing business hasn’t taken off and it’s been many, many years. By now it probably should have taken off. She has had a lot of opportunities to make that happen. But the problem is she has constantly had one foot in and one foot out. Remember I mentioned earlier that’s kind of a thing you have to pay attention to. Are you all in or are you all out?
I know some of us need to keep our corporate job until we’re making some money in order to quit and do our online thing. I get that. I did that in 2009. I didn’t quit my corporate job when I was ready to quit because I needed to keep making money to figure this out. But there has to be a timeline. There has to be a day that you say, “Okay, on this date this is happening.”
It might be one or two years down the road. You can give yourself a lot of time. But if you’ve got one foot in and one foot out I really do believe you need to open up the calendar and say, “On this date I am quitting this corporate job and I’m making this online business work.”
It’s a funny thing when you’ve got it on the calendar. Tony Robbins always says, “You’ve got to schedule it to make it real.”
Back to my friend. She always has one foot in and one foot out. She is in the corporate world and then is in her own online marketing world…but for many, many years now. The problem is she chases every so-called big opportunity that comes her way. She’s kind of a big shot so big, big opportunities come her way.
Big media stations reach out to her and want to talk to her about her specific field and really big shot celebrities have even contacted her. She’s been in their world doing different things related to her niche. I’m being cryptic because I don’t want to get into specifics. But you get the gist. She has these big opportunities coming her way but every single one of them seems like a big break.
She’s not really sure what will work and what won’t work so she says “yes” to it all. The reason she says, “yes” to it all is that she doesn’t have a clear goal for her own online business. Everything she is doing right now is getting a sliver of her attention and nothing is getting her full focus. We know what happens when that happens, right?
We know what it looks like if every little opportunity is getting a sliver of her attention: Her online business, creating her online training programs, which is what she really wants to do (I think she’s been creating an online training program for three years now). She actually has my support. I have sat down with her. I’ve taught her about a lead magnet. I’ve shown her all of this.
This is not to actually put her down. I’ve got to have compassion for where she’s at right now. She needs to make a living and I totally get that. Until her online business is making enough money she’s not going to lose her house and not pay the mortgage or put food on the table. I get that. But I do believe that if you stay too long with one foot in and one foot out you will live there and you will always have a business on the side. I know in her heart of hearts she doesn’t want a business on the side.
As I was preparing for this episode, I wondered why my experience has been different than my friend’s experience. We have been at this around the same time, give or take a few. So I wondered what looked different in my world than her world. I want to tell you two things that I came up with that really resonate with me and might with you as well but just know that I am the first to say I make a million mistakes.
When you come inside my business I am sure some of the areas look messy and I’ve shared those with you. I tell you about my mistakes and where I really struggle and all of that. I’m not saying I’m right and my friend is wrong, I’m just showing you what looked different in case you might see this in your own world. Just know I say this with compassion. I think that’s important to put it out there.
There are two areas where we have gone in different directions. I want to offer some advice to anybody who feels they are having a really hard time jumping from corporate into the online world fulltime. One of the things you might want to look at is how comfortable you are in that corporate world or whatever it is that’s keeping you from doing the full-time online business.
My friend has stayed in the corporate world in a very specific niche doing a very specific thing. Even though she left one corporate job for another, she’s still doing the exact same thing. You might say, “Well of course it is, Amy. That’s her skill set. That’s how she’s going to make money.”
But sometimes you can look at your skill set and ask how you can apply this in a different way. How can you actually use your skills in a totally different environment that might make you a little uncomfortable but put you in a new world that might have new opportunities and also might kind of give you a push to get out of that world a little bit faster?
You know when we are comfortable it’s not so easy to step outside of whatever we’re doing. One suggestion, this does not work for everybody, but one suggestion I would give is to step out of the corporate world and apply your skills in a different way that’s still making you money, that might still be considered corporate but it’s a whole different environment.
That’s one thing I did. When I decided to go out on my own in 2010 I totally left the Robbins world behind. I did not burn bridges in any way whatsoever. But I didn’t want to be tied to that because it would have been so easy to come back. Then what I did was start to work with some internet marketers on their launches.
I had some skills in social media and marketing. I hadn’t really done a lot of launches, just a few inside the Robbins corporation, but I went to work for totally new people. I was still at their beck and call. It was still consulting. I still felt like I had a boss but it was part time. I was working in a whole new world.
Funny enough, it was a whole new world I wanted to be in. I had to humble myself a little bit. I guess you could say in some situations I looked like an intern or was a little bit of a bigger shot in the Robbins world than I was in this new person’s world. But I knew the things I was going to learn and where I had to push myself would totally translate into my online business.
It is just something to look at. Could you be doing a different kind of work with a steady paycheck still but you are learning something new you could maybe translate into your online business. I don’t know, just try it on for size. I know it doesn’t work for everybody and this episode feels a little bit uncomfortable to me because I’m really being opinionated about having to do all of this. But I think these are just some ideas I want you to at least try on for size if you can relate to any of the topics I’m talking about. Just know they are coming from a good place.
The other area where my friend and I took different paths is that I started to create online training courses to scale my business and she has continued to do more one- on-one work. If she loved doing one-on-one work and I knew that fueled her up I wouldn’t even be bringing this up. But I know her heart and I know she wants to have an online training program so she can scale her business.
As you likely already know, when you do have an online training program that people really want, you have more freedom, you have more flexibility, and ultimately you have more revenue. I want to start teaching more and more about creating an online training course and I want to talk about how important it is to possibly put that in your business because it does add that flexibility.
I want to remind you that when I created my first online training course it wasn’t a huge success. Quite honestly, I had one that I kind of don’t even talk about being my first online training program because it was such a mess. It was a disaster, quite honestly. And I didn’t sell lot.
You know you’ve got to just do it, put it out there, get your feedback, and make it better. You know I’m not a big fan of reinventing the wheel but I sure as heck like to tweak and tinker with things and make them better. I can’t do that if I don’t just do it and put something out there. I can’t conceptualize it in my head unless I’m taking action.
For any of you who are feeling you have wanted to create an online training course forever, I want you to start taking bigger strides in doing that and putting something out there. I talk about this in my live master class for webinars. I talk about how to do a live workshop, which would kind of be your first online course if you’re not ready to actually do a full pre-recorded class like I do inside of members areas. If you want to start out a little bit smaller, start out with a live workshop.
I talk about that in my free master class at http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/ webinar. You can get the free master class about webinars and then get some insight about what you might want to create to do a webinar and start selling. I can’t wait to give you my course about courses but that’s going to be in the spring. In the meantime you can check out my freebie all about webinars where I get into that topic. Anyway, if it’s something you want to do it’s something I want you to explore.
To wrap it all up, there is a sliver lining with all of this. Let me real quick go through the lies.
- You have to be the best of the best in your market. You have to be the top, the big shot. Total lie! You do though, need to believe you’ve got skills and you need to be able to apply those skills not only to yourself to get results, but make them adaptable to other people as well. I think that’s where you should put your focus.
- You have to find a balance between work and family and everything in between. That’s totally not the truth! Shonda Rhimes would agree with me on that one. But the truth is that you do need to know your priorities. Remember, if you really believe it’s your priority you will find the time and bandwidth to make it your focus or to get your attention.
- Your failures are proof you’re never going to make this work online. We know that is not the truth! The truth is you may need to change your business model. Those failures might be telling you something. Something needs to be tweaked inside your business.
- Every opportunity that comes your way is a big one and you can’t miss out on it because you’ll be left behind. The truth is that not all of the opportunities that come your way are going to be the big break. If you are very clear about where you want your business to go it’s so much easier to say, “yes” or to say, “no” but the truth also is that you may need to say, “yes” a whole bunch of times before you believe me on this one. I didn’t believe anyone until I got in the trenches and was on that Yes Train so much saying, “yes” to so many things that did not serve me that I actually had to jump on the No Train. You might need to figure this one out for yourself.
Here’s the beauty of all of this, it’s never too late to redirect. It’s never too late to try something new. It’s never too late to change your business model or to approach things in a whole different way.
I’m hoping over the course of this episode you have found little nuggets or little pieces of value that you can look at a little bit different. Maybe you will see you have had one foot in and one foot out for four years now and you might need to open up the calendar and choose a date when you are going to go all in or maybe you are never going to go all in but you will make that statement and putting a stake in the ground that “this” is what you want to do. I think getting clear about all of that makes such a difference.
If you take a new approach or you redirect or try something new it may mean you are going to feel uncomfortable for a while. It may mean you need to have some serious faith and lot of courage. Sometimes you’ve got to dig deep to find it, especially when things don’t seem to be going as you had hoped right now.
My hope is that you’ve seen yourself in some of these lies and truths that we tell, and we all tell them. It might redirect you a bit to start finding out how to create the business you absolutely love. That is my wish for you.
Thank you so very much for being with me during this episode. I know it was a little bit of a different one. Quite honestly, it felt a little bit uncomfortable for me at times because we had to talk about topics that might not feel super good and I don’t get to say, “click this, go here, do that,” because we’re not talking about those specific strategies. But I think it’s important to get really honest with ourselves and I hope that’s what this episode did for you.
One final reminder, the sponsor of this episode is List Builder’s Lab. You can learn all about all of the strategies I use inside my business to grow my email list on a daily basis. If you go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/masterclass I have created a brand new free training and you can learn all about it there.
Thanks so much for being with me and I cannot wait to see you again next week. Bye for now.
