The FITSPRO Podcast

If you missed part 1 you really do need to listen to it. Context is vital for this mini series. So please pause this, go listen to part 1, and then meet us back here for part 2.

Let’s jump right in to the continuation of my many, many lessons gleaned from my willing, but disappointing $80k loss.

As stated in part 1, we started ads to the free on demand workshop, which upsold with a 24 hour buying cycle to my FitsPRO foundations course priced at $1,894.00

* It became clear after four months that people needed a longer buying cycle before they were going to go from cold audience to paying me nearly $2,000.00.

It sounded very obvious to me when a mentor said this to me after I shared my data and experience up to this point. Like duh, why would someone who’s never heard of me before, watch a free workshop, and trust me enough in that 45 minutes to fork over 2k? They wouldn’t.

This made me question the agency as well. Like shouldn’t they have known or seen that? No? I don’t know.

There is so much context here. I am one of MANY. I have friends who this works for but they are LITERALLY the only person who offers what they offer. They fill a serious gaping hole in an industry. FB is riddled with business coaches who coach coaches. To a cold audience, why am I any different? You know? So, perspective and context matters there. Saturation of an industry does really play a part.

If you’re like, well Annie maybe it was your funnel, trust me, we thought of that, but…

* Just because funnel performs well with a warm audience, does NOT mean it will perform well with a cold audience. Cold audiences are a completely different ball game than warm audiences.

Because they were making me no money - the two total sales that came in that first 4 months would remain the only 2 of 3 sales that every came from a FB person. I downgraded to driving ads to my ideal client avatar download.

Looking back, I should have just cut the cord then. Not because the ads weren’t working but because there was a clear disconnect with this agency and my approach to business. 

With that, I was committed for a year. If I quit then, I’d still be left with the “what if I would have tried driving traffic to a freebie instead of the workshop?” So, we pressed on with our new approach and updated funnel.

I went on to update and lengthen the funnel two more times as no one was converting. Including a complete overhaul, new bonuses, a brand new low level offer, and rebuild of the funnel itself. When I say I exhausted my options and committed to the process, I am for real.

The list WAS growing. That’s where my next mistake came into play.

* Testing or gathering more information from the leads being brought in should have happened WAY SOONER. 

I didn’t know this was needed but boy did I find out that the leads they were bringing in through their targeting just weren’t even qualified leads. Not from the research I gathered in my last week of working with the agency.

In the last week of working with them, I dropped a new super low end offer and compared purchases from my warm audience and the list I’d built from FB ads. Of course I’d expect my warm audience to buy at a higher rate, but not a SINGLE, I repeat not a single prospect from that FB list purchased.

On top of that, I dropped another exclusive opportunity to buy fitsPRO. If it performed well,

This will undoubtedly be a two part series. Because I am unpacking a year long experience that I think has unending golden nuggets for all of you even if you never take this particular approach to your business.

This is the story of me going all in with Facebook Ads for a year.

Between the ads and the agency fee for the agency I worked with, I paid over $80,000.00 and they made me a grand total of $6,000.00 - that’s me being generous. I can only confirm $4,000.00 but regardless. It was a clear loss.

Now, I will not be mentioning the agency. That’s here nor there. They certainly had their faults, but today is about MY LESSONS, TAKEAWAYS and most importantly WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM THEM.

Much context is needed, so let’s dive in and lay down a clear background.

In January 2021 I launched my free on demand workshop, Your Biz Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness business. It was a massive hit.

Massive hit being the profitability of the workshop’s 24 hour fast action bonuses driving workshop attendees to buy my FitsPRO Foundations Course.

I hit my revenue and enrollment goals easily for the first half of the year, then it was clear I needed to venture into paid traffic - or so I thought.

The woman who built my funnel was amazing. She saw my numbers after month one and said I was ready for ads right away. But the first month of anything is deceiving right? We see real, more indicative trends over time.

So in June 2021 I set up a call with a Facebook ads agency that a friend and colleague of mine had used and was recommended by more than one person. The context of why this agency had been successful for these people became much clearer after a year of lessons.

I seemed to be their ideal client and we began Facebook ads in September 2021.

Why did I do ads? And what approach did we take?

* The reason and driving factor for pursuing ads was to create SPACE. I needed time and space to create Pure PROgramming and set up some other back end things I had planned for 2022 and beyond. I needed to be done with live launching. That was my driver.

* I was willing to lose all the money in order to definitively say this did or didn’t work. I needed this particular “what if” off the table one way or the other.

Let me tell you it is now off the table for a very good while.

* The agency handled EVERYTHING - I chose the completely done for you package - because again, I needed that. But this was ultimately a mistake.

* We targeting cold traffic most of the time. That was the plan. And this is VERY IMPORTANT to note and remember as I unpack all of my lessons.

* I generally prefer working with ONE HUMAN than a team or agency

This is a very general lesson that I have learned from two clear cut experiences now in growing my business. I worked with a tax agency that I highly disliked, and now this. Perhaps it’s a me thing. I don’t deny that. But also I do think I just prefer a 1:1 interpersonal relationship, even if it IS with someone on a team or within an agency. I want a go to person and open communication. That’s something that is unequivocally needed for me and the way my brain functions. I need education, to be a part of the process, and to understand things via information to feel safe and informed. This has become undeniable to me through these...

If you followed me for any amount of time, it’s probably not news to you that I love planning and reflection. They both tend to keep me moving towards an actual goal versus letting life happen to you. They give us intention. Planning without reflection can be pretty useless for most people. So know that everything we talk about today assumes that you will revisit your goal and process on a weekly basis throughout the year. I use Hilary Rushford elegance excellence goals journal in order to do this as well as my day designer daily planner. I’ve used both of these for almost 5 years now and swear by both of them. They may work for you, or they may not, but I encourage you to find some thing that does. 

When I talk about having success in 2023, I am referring to both personal and career-based success. Whatever that looks like for you. From an entrepreneurial standpoint I have a bias towards your business serving your life. And setting it up in a way that makes the life you want cohesive with the business that you want.

That’s what I deem as successful. That might involve a revenue number at your job, or a certain amount of clients, or the creation of a new product that you’ve been dreaming of. Ideally those goals are so that you can travel more, spend more time with your family, do more spontaneous things, or have more time to do more hobbies that you enjoy.

So let’s go ahead and talk about step one, which is of course reflecting on last year. I think in order to determine what you want out of 2023, it’s worth looking at what went well and what didn’t go well in 2022. And then of course providing context to that. The start of my 2022 and all the goals that I had nearly all went to the wayside when I found out I was pregnant before we were even done with quarter one of the year. So no I did miss the opportunity for some of those goals,I don’t consider it a failure that I didn’t do much of what I set out to do in 2022 because life quite literally took on a whole new direction. My focus changed, and there were simply different demands on the table.

Assessing last year and gaps

If you had goals in 2022, be it personal or business based, how did those go? What months were your high months, and what months were your low months? And why was that? What did you find went really really well, and what continued to get pushed to the back burner? Even though maybe you wanted it to be a priority.

Did you rest more? Read more? Go on small adventures more? Did you start investing? Move? Did you start a new career? Provide some context and seasons to your last year.

This is what I believe will really set you up for success in your goal planning for 2023. We can make better decisions moving forward when we know what happened in the past, how we behaved, and why that was the case. That gives us context as to what is realistic moving forward.

Planning your goals

A common mistake that I have fallen into myself, and watch other people fall into every year is choosing way too many goals to accomplish. I see no issue with making a huge list of things that you would like to accomplish, but then categorizing them or looking at if-than type of goals. If you achieve this goal than likely these other three goals get achieved along the way. If that makes sense. 

For example, some thing that is still on the table for Nathanael and I is the goal of being location independent. For us that means living in our home for the majority of the year but may be traveling for three months of the year. This has become much more of a perhaps then a definitive goal with the pregnancy and just experiencing life with the new baby.

Truthfully I think pregnancy and witnessing my body as it goes through a pretty intense transformation as brought up more reflection on seasons I’ve experienced and pursued in the past. And that has me thinking more about things like physique and the scale than maybe I normally would.

So, while I don’t sell physique changes or weight loss, I do think topics like progress photos, the scale and metabolism are very relevant even outside of weight loss or aesthetic goals. Let’s discuss.

Pro progress photos and seasons

Taking progress photos can help you learn how to pose, better seeing and documenting the work you've put In. Even in seasons were I had no aesthetic goals, only performance goals (which is most seasons for me), I have taken progress photos. I enjoy seeing the physical changes that happen - the adaptations that take place from training. I am in the business of muscle, and muscle changes over time based on the stimulus we provide.

Learning how to pose, how to make the most of your gains is fun in my opinion. It’s not that these even get posted or shared with anyone. I literally just take them for my own reflection because I enjoy looking back on seasons, whatever they may have been.

Now if you tend to pick yourself apart or have a negative past with taking progress photos or tracking your physique, perhaps you don’t document via progress photos. That’s certainly not what I would want for anyone.

As I said, for me, this comes from a place of curiosity and gratitude. No value or often even a goal is tied to these.

There are seasons I wish I would’ve documented my physique more and now I have no photos to look back on for those periods. It doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. It would simply be nice to have them in my timeline.

So if you do or don’t take progress photos, take what will from this section of the episode. Play around with them, have fun, learn how to pose and then glean a whole new appreciation for people who can because it’s not easy. 

The scale, metabolism, and weight lifting

I personally use the scale as an objective tool. When tracking macros or through parts of pregnancy, I weigh daily so that I can see weekly averages and the over trend vs one weight per week - which could be a deceivingly high or low day.

If you’re wanting to weigh yourself whether you’re gaining, maintaining or losing weight, remember that scale is a measure of WEIGHT, not fat to muscle ratio. Getting your body fat tested may be mores what you’re looking for.

I really enjoy factors like how clothing fits, or progress photos (how your musculature and shape is changing) vs weight.

As far as metabolism goes, I don’t claim to be an expert, but I do know that more and more research is coming out myth busting the inherent decrease in metabolism with age theory.

I think it’s worth looking at what other factors might be happening with higher age - not blaming metabolism or age but acknowledging changes WITH AGE - less movement, shittier diet?, higher stress?

We know that increasing muscle mass is a way to increase our caloric need and our overall thermic effect. Meaning muscle is more metabolically active and demanding that fat tissue is. Muscle is beneficial for metabolic functions as well as immune function. So, looking at ways we can increase muscle is great but also, not counting on muscle to increase metabolism by 100%.

We want to look at increasing TDEE - more walks, better circulation, more movement through your day in general.

This is going to be long I am sure because real life episodes always are. They’re a reflection of sorts for me, and I am long winded. So, bare with me on this pregnancy episode.

In full transparency, this comes out a month after my due date but was batched recorded at least one month before my due date, so we’re really getting through week 35 in this episode. I am spilling the whole pot of unfiltered tea on my experience through each phase.

If you missed episodes 162 and 163 those were part 1 and 2 of pregnancy real talk from the physical, spiritual and business/logistic standpoint - we covered things like expectations, my personal beliefs and experiences, as well as insurance and us not having it, so on and so forth. Check those out if you need to.

This is like a cliff notes episode of my pregnancy for those who want to know. I have been fascinated by the process so far and how it has advanced and evolved. The feelings in each trimester and how each kind of had it’s own theme.

That’s the take for today’s little recap.

Weeks 1-14 are technically the first trimester. And I felt like trash, I was in survival mode, never puked besides having the stomach bug one day, but was nauseous, fatigued but actually tired (I didn’t take a single nap because I couldn’t), lifted maybe 1 time a week from weeks 7-14 or 16, ate exclusively mochas, bean and cheese burritos, grapes, sour patch kids, and bagels and cream cheese, was never satisfied by any of it and felt like food was constantly stuck in my esophagus. I did this thing where I took or felt the need to take really deep breaths or long, drawn out exhales. It annoyed Nate and I both. It was like a reflex. I don’t know. My GI tract was just all off, constipation, diarrhea, anything but normal was pretty much game. The brain fog was so real, I felt like forming sentences was hard at times, and I poured creamer in my water more than once - I never thought pregnancy brain was real until on more than one occasion something like that happened. I had days were my watch let me know I had 3% of my daily movement, I watched 7 seasons of MTV the challenge, was a complete and utter waste, and planned NOTHING for my maternity leave, the baby registry, my birthing plan etc. It was 14 weeks I really felt you just never get back haha. Your body is building a new organ (the placenta) and it just generally sucks. Oh and on a physical note, I was not a fan of the physical changes happening in pregnancy. I was amazed by my body, yes, but def did not like the changes. I am fully open about that. It can be both.

With that, I consider my first trimester pretty mild. Not puking was really lovely. If everything I listed was the worst that was going to happen, I could take it.

Then, we entered the second trimester. Which in my opinion should really start at week 16. Because that’s when I and many women I spoke to actually started to feel different than the first trimester.

Slowly my brain started working, eggs sounded good, I didn’t feel like everything was going to come back up, I pooped normally, and I had a desire to workout and move my body. I could see the light.

I wouldn’t call it bliss - bliss for me is not being pregnant. But yes, in comparison to the first trimester, the second was starting off significantly better. Those three things were the biggest joys for me - wanting to lift again, enjoying and desiring food, and feeling like I wanted to work/gain some clarity and direction in that area. These were huge.

That’s when I started lifting pretty regularly again and quickly realized I needed to buy a pregnancy specific program. So I did.

When can you expect to start making sales online?

In 2022 I really began asking and inquiring with people who had purchased my programs. I asked three different things. And I suggest that you ask these three things as well. Where are they found you, how long they’ve been in your audience for, and where they ended up purchasing from.

Yes, some people find me on Instagram or through my podcast and purchase within a month, particularly if I am launching some thing. But most people need to be in my audience for a minimum of three months depending on the price point of the offer. That is what I found through my audience research. Especially for higher ticket items, it appears that someone needs to be in my audience for 6 to 12 months before purchasing. And that’s if they were an active part of my audience, and likely also on my mailing list. I say likely on my mailing list because I find that about 80% of people find me through Instagram who have purchased, and 80% of people purchase through my email marketing. Other people buy directly through links on Instagram or the podcast show notes.

I can’t say that this is exactly what would happen for you and your audience, but that is why I encourage you to start asking these questions of people who have purchased from you, as well as getting this on your intake form for people who purchase from you in the future.

Any time we can gain information like this from our audience, it just gives us more insight into actions that we need to take or how we need to position ourselves in our business. For me it’s clear that I need to grow my Instagram and podcast audiences, or begin to branch out into other platforms like YouTube to expand my audience, knowing that people typically need to Build trust with me over 6 to 12 months before investing. Essentially I need to focus my efforts on building the largest part of my funnel or lead pool, being where I put out free content. It’s clear to me that people then get on my mailing list, and the selling is effective from my mailing list. But also not immediately.

When I sent out a survey to my email list, or a particular segment of my email list, it was also clear that a quick sales funnel was not going to be effective with my audience. Unless they had already been in my audience on Instagram or another platform for 3 to 9 months. So having someone join my mailing list and then immediately try to sell them was not going to be effective. I needed to be more patient and draw out my email sales funnels.

Again that was based on my audience needing to take in content from me for that period of time before making a purchase. And yes we would love to make that buying cycle shorter and shorter from a business standpoint, but it is just true that typically people need to see or hear about some thing 7 to 13 times before they invest.

I will also repeat that the price point matters. I’m sure that I could have a quicker sales funnel for a low end offer that’s under $50 than some thing that is $2,000. So there’s always context. But generally speaking people need more time before purchasing, and that is some thing that I can adjust within my marketing. Marketing specifically via email, to be clear.

And I say email because that is the path that people tend to take. From socials to my email list to purchasing. That’s the route that 80% of people who purchase from me take. So that’s the route we look to refine.

With all of that being said, I encourage you to look at whatever platform you put out free content on and look to either prioritize building your mailing list and selling via email, selling more from that social media platform in general, and really creating content that is going to...

Today’s episode is all about building a shape with your body and training factors that can help with that. I know that I don’t often talk about physique, but, fuzzy changes do happen with the clients that I work with as a byproduct of our training methods. So that is the angle that I am taking today’s episode from.

We can’t spot train fat away, but we can absolutely spot train our muscles, and choose to develop certain ones over other ones with training methodologies. Which is actually one of my favorite things about muscle - Our ability to manipulate it through training and stimulus.

If you are a trainer, feel free to apply this to your client programming, and if you are a trainee, currently following a program, feel free to focus in on some of these elements of training.

First off, we will cover three different training factors today. But all of them assume that you are consistent with your training. And that the training, or programming itself is purpose driven.

1.) Time under tension + proficiency

* slower tempo* I feel like I am beating a dead horse when I say that hypertrophy requires mechanical tension or load, but it’s true. And it is the main driving factor of muscle growth. If you want to change the shape of your body or musculature, it will require Challenging mechanical loads. Which we will talk about in part two. But it will also require time under tension. This is more specific than just saying volume. Your volume of work could be reduced to your sets and reps. But your tempo is what will actually determine how long those sets and reps take. And that’s what’s most important. three sets of eight just going through the motions will give you a completely different stimulus and result than three sets of eight with a three second down E centric, a pause at the bottom and a one second concentric. I hope that you can see that. If the current program you are following does not include a tempo, then just stick with a general slower down then up tempo.

Slowing down also builds proficiency with a movement. So if you’ve ever heard someone talk about mind muscle connection and your ability to recruit muscle fibers, slowing down the tempo can be one factor that will help with that. When building muscle, we want to recruit as many muscle fibers as we can. Bringing mental awareness to the area that we are working, and the pattern that we are building can be helpful with that. We want to build proficiency always. So if you have just been going through the motions, consider focusing in on your tempo, and proficiency. Think about the muscle that you are working, visualize it, look at it if you can.

2.) Effort

* high RPE

As I mentioned mechanical tension or load is needed in order to stimulate the muscle for growth. We want muscle protein synthesis more than we want muscle protein breakdown. That’s literally how we get hypertrophy. And that requires a challenging load. Generally speaking I would want a client to be working at a RIR of two or less when attempting to build muscle. That means leaving two reps in reserve at the end of a set. That just means that it’s challenging. And that’s what we want if we are to build muscle.

I would argue that most people are not working as hard as they should in the gym. As hard or as proficient. Really push yourself. You can always lower the weight if needed. I use the rule of two with my clients. If you can’t complete the last two reps you need to do another site with lighter weight. And you should be in struggling on the last two reps that be able to perform 1 to 2 more without completely breaking form.

I will note, this will also require you to take legitimate...

These lessons are very specific to our building experience. So you could ask this question to someone else and they would have completely different answers based on their own experience. For some context, Nate and I were not in a rush until I got pregnant. So we really took our time and wanted to do things right without cutting corners. We are also self-employed or retired, so I get that if two people are working 9 to 5 job and raising children a lot more can slip through the cracks, understandably so.

So just be sure to listen to this podcast through that lens.

1.) Choose the right builder

The realtor who helped us find our piece of land as a family friend and she made very clear to us that we needed to choose a builder who we were comfortable dating for the next two years. Because that’s what it would realistically be, a two year relationship. And I could not back her up more on that statement.

We interviewed five different builders, and I’ve mentioned this and other podcast episodes, but we went with the one who filled the gaps that we felt we needed. We’ve never designed a home before, so we don’t even know what questions to ask or what to think about. It’s one of those we don’t even know what we don’t know situations. So we went with the only builder who pushed back on some of our ideas and provided us with other ideas. It felt like a back-and-forth relationship versus them just telling us what to do, or them just doing everything we want without constructive criticism.

Most of my friends who have also built houses and had negative experiences, the negative experiences revolved around the builder that they chose or were handed. So I really do believe that choosing the right builder and interviewing several is paramount and having a good building experience. Someone who you feel like is going to educate you and be on your team. Not just leave you in the dark for two years.

2.) Know that you have options but to be very aware of those options

I have friends who purchased their land and builder and housing plan as kind of a bundle deal. We acquired our land and used the equity in it as a down payment on the construction loan.

There are some ways where you lock in the interest rate for your entire 30 year mortgage, or where the interest-rate is variable until you move in to the home and it becomes a mortgage rather than a construction or build loan. That’s my base understanding.

We personally spoke to several different people. I don’t even know what their specific job titles are. But people in mortgage and loan officer type positions. And that was in order to explore what options we had, as well as what realistic timelines were with me being self-employed and needing two years of tax returns, how much money we needed down to get the land, versus qualify for a land and build loan together.

Basically we knew absolutely nothing going into this and the whole process started by just asking questions and exploring options. So don’t take the first option you hear as the only option. Ask what other ways there are to accomplish what it is that you want.

3.) Know what matters to you and what doesn’t

Where are you will budge, and where you won’t.

Some pretty hefty costs would have brought the total cost of our house down. And those also happened to be things that we weren’t really willing to budge on. Black on black windows, and a whole metal roof would be two of those. We didn’t want metal accents, we wanted the whole roof to be metal. It really defines the entire exterior aesthetic of the house for us. And it does add value.

As we all know, the Instagram algorithm is forever changing, and they are forever making updates to the app. Which all makes it more difficult to predict how content will perform, and how we can grow on the app. What will get interaction and what won’t, and how to increase it.

Today I am bringing you six different ways to bring your Instagram back to life if you feel like it’s in a bit of a rut. But also please know that you are not alone. Everyone else feels it too. And make note, that often, those who are being the most successful on Instagram are the people telling you how to use Instagram, sharing what audio is trending, or how to use a certain trend. It’s just some thing that I have personally observed and think it’s interesting. So let’s go ahead and dive into the six things that you can do to bring some spark back to your gram.

Before we get into this, I have personally done all of these things several times and seen a change in the app. Whether it be engagement from my personal audience, or what the app is showing me as a consumer.

6 Ways to Spring Your Instagram Back into Action

1.) Go live

This can be a super fun way to just reconnect with your audience. I do not suggest going live with absolutely no plan on a whim. You absolutely can if that is what your heart desires. But you may have more success from an engagement standpoint if you schedule the live and let your audience know when you are going to be live and what topic you are going to be talking about.

Why this can spike engagement or bring people back to your page is because going live bumps you to the very front of the Instagram stories feed. So people who have forgotten that they follow you, or haven’t seen your contact in a while may reengage with your content by viewing your live. It’s worth a try.

If you find that you enjoy going live, make it a weekly thing that your Instagram audience can depend on. I am all for always doing what works and not making things harder than they need to be. If something is working, keep doing it.

2.) Post twice per day

Lower the barrier to entry. I would say post a REELS or continent every single day of the week for a while, or choose maybe four days per week that you are going to post and post twice per day. It just switches up what the algorithm is used to you doing. And it also switches up which areas of your audience might see your content. So perhaps overall engagement looks the same on your morning and evening post, but it’s a different set of people who are seeing the content.

I say lower the barrier to entry because people think that post needs to take 30 minutes to create. And they don’t. Not every post needs to be viral worthy, or jampacked with information. Just commit to getting something out.

3.) Clean out who you follow

This is lovely from a consumption standpoint. But I find that it also changes who sees my content, and who I see on the app. So it’s just a way, again, to change up your experience on the app. It might not have any effect on your audience, but also it might. I have found that it changes up what I see on the app and that intern changes who I engage with, and who engages with me. So I definitely think it’s worth a try regardless.

4.) Clean who follows you

This can be overwhelming if you have 10,000 followers. But take 30 minutes to skim through your followers and clean out accounts that look like thoughts, or you know are not your ideal client. I trust you to be able to identify these things. This undoubtedly switches up the exposure of your content.

A one on one training client said to me in 2016 (when I was really just starting to build my business), that having employees and hiring people to help run your business what is the move to make. Because that way, you can be away, or working on the most important things, while your employees essentially run the business.

But having employees and managing people was never something that appealed to me. My personal goal was basically to make my business as big as possible, and as automated as possible without hiring a team. Seven years into it, I mostly still feel that way. But that may change with having a baby. Only time will really tell how much I can manage, and where I need help.

I have one on one business clients who have 5+ employees that work for them as contractors. I am not against building a team, but I think it’s very important to answer this question if you are currently a solo entrepreneur.

So I hope today helps you look at some of your options when it comes to building your “team.”

First we have to think about what constitutes a team when it comes to running a business. For me, it is literally anyone outside of yourself that helps with your business. Whether that be on a daily basis, or a quarterly basis. If you have a book keeper, or an accountant per se, that will be part of your team.

I simply don’t want you to think that having a team means hiring full-time employees. Because that is not required, and it’s also not likely. Think about a team in the way that you would hire an assistant coach, or a virtual assistant, or an operations manager. Even something like hiring a website person. These are all parts of, or can be, part of building a team. So keep that perspective as we go through this episode.

I do believe that to have a successful team, you need to know how to, and want to manage people.

Certainly more than you want to do the work yourself. This is imperative. And if you think you want to have a team but are apprehensive about your management skills, I suggest not only investing in a team, but a coach for yourself that can teach you how to best manage that team. Which really should be a win-win for everyone.

So if you don’t think you want to hire a team, I want you to think about the longevity of your business. I’m not saying you have to hire a team, but maybe you could start with one person. Essentially look at how many tasks you have to complete within your business at its current state. Can you scale that by yourself? That’s the most important thing to look at. Because it is scaling that typically leads to the demand for help. For some level of a team to begin forming. I speak from experience. I never wanted to have a team or manage a team, but I reached a point where I couldn’t continue growing if I went at it alone. And I'm sharing this because it’s probably going to be true for most of you as well. So what happens when you reach your ceiling? If you don’t want to grow, and you only want to maintain, then you may never need to hire a team. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why I say it’s most important to know what you want out of your business. I’ve had clients in the past who just want to make a certain amount of money per month, and not push for substantial growth. I’m all game for that, if you have that clarity. It’s the clarity that I’m encouraging.

If you don’t want to have a team, then the approach would be to automate as much as you possibly can in your business. Now, I encourage this whether you want to hire a team or not, simply because it’s best for efficiency. But it will likely be a necessity if you are not going to hire a team.

If hiring other coaches, or an assistant,