Your Dream Business

By Teresa Heath-WareingBusiness Entrepreneurship Marketing

Your Dream Business episodes

August 28, 2023Replay: Learn how to start and grow your perfect email list!
Today’s episode of the podcast is a replay of a previous episode, talking all about the importance of building your own email list.
In this episode I answer the most frequently asked questions that I always get asked about how to build an email list and my top tips for getting it right!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
what to email your list

the best day and time to send an email

how to stop your emails going to spam

how to stay consistent

the platform I’d suggest if you’re just starting out

the platform I’d actively avoid using

Please note that as this episode is a replay, the 5 day list building challenge that is mentioned has already taken place.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out my Summer Sale bundle
Sign up to my emails
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
Teresa: Kind of obsessed with this building because for me, no matter what your business is, no matter what size it is, no matter where you are in your business, building a list is one of the most important things that you can do because you're basically gathering your community together. You are having another way to market to them. You are connecting with your audience and you're basically almost collecting people who are your perfect customer, which is amazing.
You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast Episode 249. You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. If you are a business owner who is striving to build a business and a life that you dream of on your own terms and doing something that you love, then this is the podcast for you. Each week, I will share with you business marketing and mindset, tools, and strategies that I have used to start and grow my own dream business, as well as the dream businesses of hundreds of business owners from around the world. So if you're ready, let's get started.
Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast. How are you doing? How's things? So today I'm gonna jump straight in and tell you that we're doing a podcast episode around the questions that I get asked around list building. Now, you know, if you've been listening to me for a while and if you haven't, welcome, I'm so grateful you're here, but I'm obsessed with list building. Because for me, no matter what your business is, no matter what size it is, no matter where you are in your business.
Building a list is one of the most important things that you can do, because you're basically gathering your community together. You are having another way to market to them. You are connecting with your audience and you are basically almost collecting people who are your perfect customer, which is amazing.
So I talk about it all the time and I'm going to be running a five day challenge soon, which I'm really excited about. So I thought it would be a great idea in order to run up to that challenge, to let you know about the challenge, to also go over some of the questions that I get asked all the time about list building.
And I'm hoping that as you listen to this, maybe some of the questions that you've had in your head about when should you post, is there a better time of day? How do you stop it going into the spam folder, how to stay consistent, what you should actually email people. I'm really hoping that some of these questions will be ones that you've got and that I will get answering them for you.
But first, let me quickly tell you about the challenge. So it starts on July the 11th and runs through for that week. And then there's a bonus call on the following Monday, just to kind of wrap up and answer any further questions that you might have. And basically over the five days, I'm gonna be walking you through the main steps that you need in order to get your list set up.
So if you've wanted a newsletter out to your customers, if you want to send emails to them, If you want to start building that community, then you need this five day challenge and you need an email list. So over the five days, like I said, each day, you'll get a lesson sent out to you. That'll be short and sweet, and they'll tell you exactly what you need to do.
There's also going to be prizes. So someone is going to win a free course of build my list. That explains how to do everything. And it's just gonna be great fun. We're gonna be hanging out for a week, talking all things list building. So if you wanna join me for that challenge, I would love to see you there.
It's gonna be great fun. Go to teresaheathwareing.com/challenge and you can find all the details there and you can sign up and join me for that. It's going to be fab. But anyway, let's get going with some of these questions. So, what I did is I went back through previous, build my list courses that I've done. Facebook groups from a previous challenge.
And I've basically looked at all the questions I get asked, which is lots and lots, which is great about list building. And I've picked some of the ones I thought are probably the most common they come up the most and that I think you might have. Okay. So let's start by talking about. Actually emailing them.
What do you send someone when you email them? This is a question I get a lot. So often they will come and think about doing, build my list or they'll come and they'll be list building or they'll create something in order to get people onto their emails, but then they don't email them. And I did exactly the same.
And I've talked about this, a millions times before. I'm sure you have heard me talk about it, but I did. I built an email list and I didn't email them, which was a really stupid thing to do. So hands up, I did the stupid thing first. So you lot don't have to, you can now just take my advice. So the first thing is that you do have to email them from, from day one.
I get people saying to me, you know, "Well, there's only 10 people on my list." Well, they don't know they're only 1 of 10. So all they know is they signed up and they want to receive something. So make sure you send them something. In terms of what to send them. I often teach between love letters and newsletters.
Now neither is right or wrong. They are personal preferences to which you think would be most appropriate for you and your business. But basically a newsletter is what you would traditionally see where there are. Where it's quite a designed looking thing. There tends to be lots of links and the, and they tend to be less frequent because instead of like talking about one thing, they talk about lots of things.
So they only send out maybe every other week or once a month or whatever it is. And whereas when I talk about love letters, I talk about the kind of emails I send. And obviously if you're not on my list, then please do. Go ahead to my website and you'll be able to find a sign up there. But love letters for me are I write them as if I'm writing them for one person.
I literally think of people in my audience as I'm writing it. And I imagine I'm talking directly to them. And then I tend to talk around one subject, one thing. And then I tend to only give one call to action or one link in each email. So like I said, it doesn't matter whether it's one or the other, it doesn't matter.
There's not a right or wrong. It's just what fits with you. And what fits better with me is that kind of style. If you are a product, if you're selling products, then probably a newsletter style might be better. If you don't want to email very often, but I'm coming to that. Then again, a newsletter style might be better.
If you think about like what you might put in a newsletter, so you might talk about an achievement of someone who bought your thing, a testimonial or a case study. You might talk about a new service you're offering. You might talk about a tip or a frequently asked question. They can all be broken up into individual emails.
So I can literally take that one tip and write an entire email around it and just talk about why that tip is important, how I've come to that tip, what I've done. So you can see how like those bigger things can be pulled down into one email. Also, when you're thinking about what you put in these emails, think it's just another content.
Okay. Previously many, many, many, many years ago when I first started marketing and we would use, I think we used constant contact back in the day and I would send emails for Landover or whatever it was. Like, they were so different then. It wasn't seen as content as such. Because emails were really specific often it was your work email address.
You'd only see it on a computer. You'd only see it during work days and therefore things like, you know, what time you sent it would matter more than it does now. But, it's not. Now your emails tend to be on your phone. You tend to almost go in them as often as you would go into your social media. So just see it as another arm.
If you've put a post on social media about a case study, then why wouldn't you send an email about that? So often I think when people think about what to send, they get really heads up in terms of, you know, they've gotta write war and peace. You absolutely don't. They can be long, they can be short, they can be whatever you want.
So it purely depends on you and what you prefer. So, how do you stay consistent when you're emailing? Well, the thing that I had to do is I had to commit myself to the world and basically say, I say the world, like my very small audience, but I had to say to them, I'm going to email you this amount of times or on this day or this time or whatever it was.
I had to make that decision kind of public. I had to come out and go, this is what I'm going to do, because that would hold me accountable. If I didn't, I wouldn't have done it. So sometimes just having that accountability of promising that you're gonna show up in a certain way or a certain time or a certain whatever.
Even if you think someone's paying attention or not, it just really helps. So that's what I did. I committed to saying. And when I first started probably emailing, I emailed once a week on a Wednesday. So I committed to saying this is what's, you know, happened that this is what I'm gonna do. And, and I'm gonna email every single week. And I did.
Apart from actually, when my mom passed away, I was, I missed two weeks, but then I emailed to go. This is why I've missed two weeks. I'm sorry. And I'm back. For me saying it out loud, telling people really helps about consistency. The other thing that helps me now, because I do three emails a week, I do a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday, and we'll get to frequency and how often you should email and that sort of thing in a bit.
But when I do those days, now, the only way I can stay consistent is by batching those emails. So literally right before, it's like my batching day today, as I'm recording this. I did a month's worth of emails and I'm doing a month's worth of podcast. So for me, I tend to put it all together because when you are doing one style of things, so when I'm writing, it's much easier to just write one email then another, then another, then another.
And you get in the zone, the same with podcasting. Once I've kind of got into the flow of doing it, it's so much easier to just knock out the four podcasts at once. So for me, that's how I stay consistent. I batch those things together and to the point where you could even write them and schedule them ready.
So you don't even have to think about it. My only slight thing with this is. That sometimes when I want to be spontaneous or something's come up, then obviously my whole thing is planned and all of it's written. Now it's not to say that I don't change it sometimes or tweak it, but it's just, it's just another thing.
But if I didn't batch, I know I wouldn't do it. So that kind of downside of occasionally have to tweak and move things is well worth that effort because it's getting done.
Okay. Next question I hear a lot is how often should you send emails? This is a big one. So it used to be, like I said, back in the day, I've been around a long time that like once a month was when you sent an email. And that was fine back in the day.
The problem with it now is if I said to you, you can only post on social media once a month. And do you think it'll do anything for your business? Like I'd be laughed out the room. Of course. There's no way we would think that. There's no way we would consider just posting once a month and think that that's going to be okay.
And I'm really sorry to tell you that that's kind of the same for emails. Once a month is not really gonna cut it because it's almost too far away. And also it's 12, that's it? 12 emails in one year. You know, whereas I'm doing 12, am I doing 12 in a month? That's quick maths. I should be able to do that maths, three times four.
Yeah. That's 12. No, it's not. 2, 4, 8, 2, 8 to 16. I can't believe you were actually listening to me. Do my maths on the podcast. I am so sorry. I'm actually doing a minimum of 16 a month. You probably sat there shouting at me before this going. That's not 12 Teresa. So, so yeah, so 12 emails, that's it. 12 posts in a year.
That's it? That is not enough. So once a month, for me really now I would say is not enough. Every other week could be okay. Every week could be okay. Obviously I email three times a week and I know some people who email every single day. And when I first heard that, I literally like couldn't believe that they did that and thought it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.
But the truth is, as long as you tell people what to, you know, what to expect, then it's going to be okay. Cuz if you sign up to my emails and you get three emails a week and you don't like it, you'll unsubscribe. I did have someone message me saying they find three too much and was there an option to drop to less?
But the problem is the way I write my emails. I tend to write them in a theme for the week. So normally I'll talk about something on Monday and then Wednesday's emails relating to it and so's Fridays. So it's really tricky to just pick, which would be the most important for you to get. So, unfortunately that's not the case and as is they didn't unsubscribe and they're still, they're still getting my emails.
But I do get for some people that will be too much, but as long as I'm consistent and I tell them. Also the other thing that you don't wanna do, regardless of what you choose of your frequency, you don't want to suddenly go from once a week or every other week to five times in a week, because you've got something to say.
So it's about that consistency of you showing up in their inbox. So if I rarely email on a day that isn't a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I will, I will say, you know, I don't normally email you today, but I wanted to share this or I wanted to do this. And it's normally, if something extra's come up, like I said, you know, because a do batch ahead, sometimes if something extra has come up, I really wanna get it out there.
Then I will add an extra email in. So like I said, it's not about how often really it's about being consistent and not when you go into a sales mode or a launch mode that suddenly you absolutely bombard people, cuz you're going to suddenly see a really big unsubscribe. In those times when you are doing that, cuz they're not used to it.
Okay. So then the next question I get asked a lot is, is there a better time or day to send? Now, it's a bit like social media really? Yes and no. And, and it's so personal to you if you know, so for instance, if you are running a restaurant and you wanna be getting bookings for the weekend, then maybe Wednesday would be a good day to send it.
If you are talking to businesses and you want to let them settle into the week, then maybe a Tuesday could be good. Friday afternoon probably not. If you're talking to business people. Monday morning, probably not. If you're talking to business people just because obviously Fridays and Mondays tend to be the days that they're either gearing up for the day or finishing for the week.
So, so yeah, I think it really doesn't matter so much now, like I said, unless you could see a reason such as. The restaurant example I gave then really it doesn't matter. It more matters what day you are likely to be able to get it out. So if you know that on a Tuesday, you're always quiet because you don't book in clients or whatever, then do it on a Tuesday, cuz I'd much rather you do it on a day that suits you, but you get it out than not.
So yeah, in terms of day or time, it doesn't really matter a whole lot. It used to back in the day, not so much now. Okay. Another one I'm I get all the time is how do you stop the emails going into junk or spam? Now, this is a tricky one because at the end of the day, no one can really control what happens once they send the email. Because you are going into different email systems and different email systems, look at different things and require different things.
So it's kind of impossible to say, this is what you should do to get it, to stop going to junk. Cuz there's really nothing you can do. Other than using a reputable email provider, which you know, all the ones I would talk about are reputable and, and great. Also the fact of, you know, make sure your content is good.
So no one's marking it as spam. Make sure you're not emailing people whose addresses you don't, you haven't collected properly. And again, those people might mark you with spam and that's gonna affect your whole email list. I'm not saying it's gonna put it all in spam, but it might affect the deliverability of it.
The thing that I do do is I always ask for responses. Now I ask for responses cause I genuinely love getting responses and I genuinely love hearing from people. And I like replying to people. But one of the benefits of people doing that is that you almost get put on their safe senders. You can also ask them to put you on their safe sender.
But to be honest, I think, I don't know how many people do that. I don't think I've ever done it, but if you reply, then your email is kind of acknowledging that this is a proper email and it's more likely to go into the inbox. So do ask for replies that will help. But unfortunately there's not a whole lot.
I can say about getting at the junk and spam other than the other thing. So if you are getting people to sign up to a lead magnet or a freebie or whatever it is. In the thank you page, make sure...
21 min
August 21, 2023Replay: Back to basics with your social media
Today’s episode of the podcast is a replay of a previous episode, talking all about the basics that we should all be getting right with our social media.
There is no judgement or shame in this episode, I know that we all get wrapped up in the day to day of our business, and we get pulled into different directions that need our attention.
But sometimes you need a reminder to get something done, and this is yours for social media.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
What consistency should look like in an ideal world

How to proactively engage on your social media

What a call to action is and why it's important

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out my Summer Sale bundle
Check out the Growth Path and Content Hours in my Dream Business Club Membership
Connect with Becci on Instagram or LinkedIn
Connect with Sooz on Instagram or LinkedIn
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcription
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Your Dream Business podcast with me, Teresa Heath-Wareing. How are you doing this week? So just a quick reminder, I have changed how I'm doing the podcast. There's no intro and outro. There's no fancy editing clips at the beginning. There's basically just me hitting record on my computer, sat in front of my mic and talking, and I did this purely as a way to simplify the process and my business.
And sometimes I think we need to have lots of processes and systems and people, and sometimes I think it's just good to simplify stuff. So, This is episode 294. Like, wow. Actually, while I'm on that, like I always do something special for like, Episodes a hundred and episode 200, and obviously we are just seven episodes.
That is right. No, six episodes. Can't do maths, off episode 300. And I haven't yet decided what I'm doing. So what would you have for me do on episode 300? Let me know. Drop me a DM, come and find me on your favorite social media platform and let me know what you would like me to do on episode 300. As a heads up episode 100, I was interviewed with my husband with the, by the lovely BizPaul, so he interviewed both of us.
That was quite funny. I enjoyed that episode. Episode 200. Me and my husband just chatted. Um, and it's funny, right, because no offense to my husband, I love him dearly, but back in the day he was in my business a whole lot more. And when he was in the military and then he retired from the military, so he basically worked in my business, whereas now he has a real job.
Not that the military wasn't a real job, it was more than a real job. But he now has a job that he works 9 to 5, 5 days a week type thing, and then he goes away and like, so actually he does very little in the business anymore. So no offense to my husband, but I don't think he'll have much to add if I invite him on for episode 300.
Anyway, let me know. I'd love to hear, uh, your thoughts in terms of what could make an interesting and different episode. Okay. This week is gonna be a good one. It's a very simple one. It's one that I want you to share with every business that you know, because what I'm gonna talk about still blows my mind that people aren't doing. Okay.
So we're gonna be talking about social media and I know what's gonna happen the minute I say this. Becci, who does my show notes, who also does our social media and is my content expert in the club, she's multi-talented. She's just basically excellent around all things content, is gonna listen to this thinking, hang on a minute, like you have me come and help you with social media.
So I am not sat here pretending I am the social media queen. Maybe I used to be, and I did. I used to spend, in fact, when I first started out, it was all social media and all I spoke on was social media. And now I, uh, have moved into the business and mindset side, but there is still a fair bit I know, although I would say Becci knows way more than me, so I'm gonna make sure Becci tags herself and puts her own links into the show notes.
But I wanna talk about some basics because it still blows me away that sometimes people aren't doing the basics and it's not through any judgment, right? I'm not sat here going, oh God, I can't believe you lot haven't got this already. That is not the case. The case is, we are so busy doing our thing that sometimes we need reminding.
Sometimes we need someone to go back to the basics and go "Don't forget to do this." Like I said, there is never any judgment here. There is no shame. I know you. I know you listening to this beat yourself around the head enough, more than anybody else needs to. So you are not gonna have me come and beat you around the head for something that you haven't done.
I'm gonna come here as your friend and give you a gentle reminder that sometimes it's good to just remind ourselves of the basics and make sure we're doing them, because in the day-to-day things, we get wrapped up and we get like pulled into different directions that sometimes this, sometimes you need a reminder and this is yours.
And like I said, I want you to share this with your friends, with your business friends, cuz maybe they need this reminder too. I think everyone needs to listen to this, everyone who has a business. So the first thing I wanna say about social media, this is where my, uh, lovely Becci holds a breath. Like, what's she gonna say?
So, We have a pathway in the club and it's an excellent pathway, even if I do say so myself. And it's something that the club members can work on on their own time, in their own speed. But basically, I took the last eight years that I was in business, I've now been in about 9, almost 10 years.
And I worked out the steps that I took to go from just starting with no one and earning no money to where I am today in terms of, or maybe you know, specifically where I was when I had the agency. I don't know actually where I am today, but taking my business from zero to six figures and taking my team from zero to what would've been, I think six of us at the most, no, seven of us at at the most.
And then we've slimmed down again for various reasons, but. It's basically taking you through all those steps and it takes you through different subject areas. So social media is one of them, content is another, um, community, which we look at as kind of audience is another, um, team is another, I'm trying to think off the top of my head now.
Sales obviously very important and emails, so I kind of picked the six main areas of business and I very carefully and slowly take you through those steps. And when you get that step done, you move on to the next step. And when you get that step done, you move on to the next step. So basically, I'm teaching you to do the things that you need to do before you move on to the next thing.
So for instance, if someone comes to me and they say, Teresa, should I be doing reels for my business? And reels are obviously those short form videos in Instagram. Well, first off, I shouldn't just answer that yes or no. I would come back with many questions, but one of the main things I'd want to know is are you showing up consistently at all?
Are you doing anything on Instagram? Because if you are not yet able to post consistently on Instagram, then why am I going to try and give you something else to do that the likelihood is you're not going to do because you haven't been able to do those other things first. So that's where it's come into the business, and that's where I've learned that actually, again, there's no point in me saying have a sales funnel in your emails if you haven't got an email list.
So even though I am absolutely all about, there is not a one size fits all, there is a natural progression to certain things. So what I'm talking to you about today is, Basically step one of social media in the pathway. So one of the things I talk about is consistency over constantly. Okay. Social media is not about constantly posting.
It's not about showing up every single day and putting a post up every single day. I want you to be consistent. I don't want you to be constantly posting. So consistency for me looks like in an ideal world, and I say ideal world cuz I know this isn't the case for everybody and that's fine. In an ideal world, I'd like you to be posting three to four times a week.
And in order to do that, I give you three to four things up to post a week. I give you three to four suggestions, and I will go through those in a second. But the other thing I talk about here is one showing up consistently. And if consistently looks like twice a week for you, then that's fine. Just make sure you do it twice a week.
What I don't want and what the algorithm doesn't want, and what you don't want are your audience watching you don't want is suddenly one week, five posts, two weeks, nothing. I want that slow consistency. That's what I want. And then it's like a muscle. It's like we're building it up. When you get used to posting two to three times a week, three to four times a week, then you can start to build it up when you are confident creating content that is maybe just an image and some text.
Then you can start to build up to maybe chucking a video or maybe throwing a gif. So that's the other point. I don't want you trying to do all the things. Now I know. And. I feel like I should have Becci on talking about this, but I feel like the episode would be about two hours long, if not longer. Um, but if you are in my club, then come and join Becci on a a content hour cuz she's brilliant and she will give you all the information.
But we know that reels are good. We know that going live helps. We know that interesting video content is good. However, again, if you can't post consistently two or three times a week, then, there's no way with all the love in the world that you are going to check out a reel every week. I don't do a reel.
I hate doing reels. I am on, on camera pretty much most days. I am on stories most days, but for some reason I can't do my head, I can't get my head around the reel thing. I know what to do, I just don't wanna do it. Um, there's a real mindset thing somewhere, and we probably need to journal it out, as my husband would say.
Um, but there's no point asking you to do something huge if we can't get some of these basic things in in place. So, This is all I'm asking you to do. If you are not posting consistently, and this is what I say in step one of the pathway, if you are not posting consistently, I want you to attempt to post three to four times a week.
And the three to four things that you post a week are I want you to educate someone, okay? So I want you to show someone how you are the expert, because we need to know, you know, what you're talking about. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to think about how you can entertain someone. Now, the entertain point is really important because we're on social media.
Now I've seen social media posts, and actually, let me just go back a minute and tell you what spurred this. I was doing some proactive work in my Instagram, which I do, which we should all do unless you're massive like Jasmine Starr, and I think you're probably fine. But I do some proactive work where I go and look at other people's accounts.
I go and like their posts, I go and comment on them, and it's all very genuine. It's not spammy. I'm not doing the follow on follow thing. I am genuinely looking for people who fit with my world or businesses that I'm interested in. And then I go and comment on this stuff and I like their stuff. And basically I was looking at some small business accounts and it flipping blew me away, like.
That they hadn't posted for ages or the posts that they put were all sales posts and not even like disguised sales posts, i e a picture of something, a conversation. And then, oh, and by the way, they were like, boom, here's what I do. Buy it. Boom. Here's what I do. Buy it. Boom. Here's what I do. Buy it. And then you had the complete opposite where it was like, here's a picture of me walking a dog.
Here's a picture of a cup of coffee. Here's a picture of me like, I don't know what, and they didn't, I didn't know what they did. Like I literally then had to like do a bit of digging to try and get an idea of what their business was. So the idea of these things is, like I said, that we cover off the basics.
So like I said, let me go back to my points. I just wanna say this is what split this whole episode. So educate them, prove to me you know what you're talking about. Prove to me that you can do the job that you do. So this could be a tip, this could be sharing a blog post you've written. This could be sharing for me my podcast, cuz again, I can't do my job if, you know, like, doing this many episodes of the podcast would have to be a hell of a fluke if I didn't know what I was talking about.
So more than a fluke. Um, so I obviously you can be the decider of this, but I obviously know what I'm talking about cuz I can do this many episodes of the podcast. So the educate piece needs to show me that you know what you're talking about and that you're an expert in your field. The entertain piece is because it's social media, it's not me looking at your website.
You are being mixed with all my personal stuff. You are being mixed with the funny reels of dogs doing things. Fyi. That's all my husband ever sends me. Golden retrievers. We love golden retrievers. We don't have one. And I have said to him, you've gotta stop sending me videos of beautiful golden retrievers, or we're gonna have to get one.
Um, but like that's the whole point. It's meant to entertain us. It's social media, and then we have the call to action. Okay, so the call to action is like the who you are, what you do, and how someone can buy from you. So again, Becci was having a conversation the other day with one of my members and, and she said, with love, with all due respect, you've not told me on your social media what you do.
I don't know what services you offer or how I work with you, and in all, Respect to my amazing member. Uh, she went off and did it straight off the bat. In fact, I'm just gonna call her out because she's ace and she won't mind. Um, but her name is Sooz and she's a copywriter, and Becci will make sure she links up to her in the show notes.
So, The amazing Sooz has done some beautiful content, and to be fair, she, she's had a new business. So like I said, it is all with respect that I bring her her example up. But the minute Becci said, you need a post that says this. She put the most amazing post up and it literally said, this is how you can work with me.
So sometimes we just need that reminder of, oh, we haven't done that and I need that reminder. And Becci needs that reminder. It's not that we're sat here up on our throne going. Like you fools, you dunno what you're doing. That's not the case. It's just a reminder. So we need that call to action. We need to tell people what we actually do and how they can buy from us.
So you will see posts that have gone up in the last few weeks from me about come and join my event, which by the time you're listening to this has already happened. Uh, no it's not, it's happening this week. Uh, so if you listen to this on Monday, there might still be a chance to get a ticket, but like, You know, come and join my event.
Come and join the insider experience. I have a club. Come and join my club because I have to tell you, this is how you can work with me because you might be listening to this thinking, Teresa, I love you. You're amazing. How do I get more of you? Um, you might go, this is quite enough. Thanks. Um, but either way, I need to make sure I tell you, you will see us in the future talking more and more about the one-to-one work I do and more about the coaching stuff I do.
So we need to make sure we say that, but we can't just go, this is how you buy from me. This is what I do. We need that mix of entertainment, education and a call to action. And then the fourth thing is asking a question. And the reason we check in asking, or the reason I've checked in asking a question there is because you need that all important engagement.
You need people responding. You need conversations happening or otherwise people aren't going to see your stuff. The algorithm works in a way that basically the more someone interacts with your account and your posts, the more it'll show your stuff. So if no one is commenting and no one is liking and no one is doing anything on your posts, that's going to be difficult.
So asking questions, encouraging that interaction is super, super important. Now, if I was smart, I'd have come up with like a really nice kind of, what's the word? Um, not analogy, no, not euphemism. What is it called? You're shouting at me now telling me what it's called. Like when you have a word that covers these all off.
Anyway, I can't think of what it's called right now. Um, but yeah, but I haven't, so we're just gonna go with, educate them, entertain them, call them to action and ask them a question. So those are my points. Firstly, consistency over constantly. Secondly, I feel like I've stole that from somewhere, fyi. Um, probably Becci.
Um, second one is you don't need to do everything. So if you're not even putting an image up, then why try and do a reel or a live or something like that. That might be even more out of your comfort zone. If it's not, if you feel like actually lives would be so much easier for me, then great. Do lives, but start small.
Don't feel like you have to do the big stuff. And then, The third thing is when you're posting those three to four things a week, try and educate them in one, try and entertain them in another. And when I say entertain, I mean things like, you know, could be a funny quote, could be something personal, could be a story.
And then that call to action. So educate, entertain, call to action where you tell people who you are and what you do. And then that final one of a question. Trying to get that one important engagement. Now obviously if you are in my club and you look at the pathway, I go into much more detail and I give you many, many more things that you can do in each of those areas.
And if you are listening to this and or you are in the club and on the pathway and you think, I do all this consistency, And I'm good at all these things. What do I do next? Then?...
19 min
August 14, 2023Replay: How to find your perfect customer
Following on from last week's episode, the next few week's episodes are going to be replays of past episodes.
Each of these will dive deeper into each of the 3 main areas that you need to focus on in business, right from day one.
Starting with today’s episode, which is all about how you can come up with your perfect customer!
In this episode I talk all about why we can't just look at the demographics and how we can now go much deeper than that.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The problem with only looking at demographics

How to understand your customers behaviours, motivations and aspirations

Why you need to focus more on the benefits of what you sell, rather than the service or product itself

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out my Summer Sale bundle
Join my Visibility Challenge
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
Teresa: The whole point in getting to know who your customer is, is that your marketing, your messaging, your social media. Your, your, your content should always be leading them to you and your stuff. I, as your perfect customer, should read your content, should see a social media post and think you're talking directly to me. And that's really hard to do when you don't know who these people are.
You are listening to Your Dream Business podcast, episode 289. You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast and I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. If you are a business owner who is striving to build a business and a life that you dream of on your own terms and doing something that you love then this is the podcast for you. Each week I will share with you business, marketing and mindset, tools and strategies that I have used to start and grow my own dream business, as well as the dream businesses of hundreds of business owners from around the world. So if you're ready, let's get started.
Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So this week I am going to talk all about your perfect customer. Because I was putting together a freebie that I have about visibility. If you want it, you can go to teresaheathwareing.com/visible, and basically it's like a five day email challenge where I email you every day and I give you something specific to do.
And it's all about getting more visible, getting in front of other people's audiences through things like podcasts and speaking on other people's in other people's groups, or doing a guest blog or whatever it might be. But it's a really brilliant way to increase your audience and a really successful one.
So I've put together this visibility challenge, and when I was putting it together, I was going to record a video about how you come up with your perfect customer, how you know they are. And I just didn't get time cuz I really gave myself some tight deadlines, which. I'm actually finding that I really need to do at the moment to get stuff done.
Sometimes you're over productive and sometimes you need a kick, and I'm, I'm in the season of needing a kick right now. So I was gonna do a video, didn't do a video, and then I thought, oh, I know well, it was actually not my idea. It was one of my lovely members' ideas. Why didn't you link to an old podcast?
Well, I couldn't find one for ages and ages, and I thought, surely I've done an episode recently on how you come up with your perfect customer. But evidently I haven't. So I am going to do that today, but it's quite good actually because I've recently talked about this in lots of talks I've given. And I've got some new examples and some new things to maybe put your way, which might help you come up with your customer a bit easier, or at least give you a different way of thinking about it.
So if you've seen me speak about this before, you will have seen me talk about that we can't just look at the demographics. So when I started back in marketing all those many, many, many, many years ago, when I did my degree in it, We literally used to just look at like what age is our perfect customer? What sex are they?
Where are they based, or what's their location? What's their marriage status? Do they have children? And what kind of job might they? It was really basic information, and that doesn't work any longer, and it doesn't have to because we have so much more information available to us now and in this amazing world that we're in.
And the example I gave when I did this, I talked about an estate agent, so I was saying, let's say you had an estate agent and I went to them who's your perfect customer? What age are they? Well, there could be any age, you know, basically from the over 18, right the way up to whenever it is, someone might buy a house.
Well, what sex are they? Well, they could be any gender. What location? Okay. You could argue that they're going to be in the location of the estate agents, but. You've also got people moving into the area, so what location are they coming from? Well, anywhere. Are they married? What's their marriage status?
Could be, might not be, could be divorced, could be separated, could be single. Do they have children? Well, some do, some don't. Some won't ever, some will. What jobs they do? Well, there could be any jobs. So this just doesn't work because the whole point in getting to know who your customer is, is that you are marketing, you are messaging your social media, your, your content should always be leading them to, to you and your stuff.
I, as your perfect customer, should read your content, should see a social media post and think you're talking directly to me, and that's really hard to do when you don't know who these people are, or you are only looking at them from those points of view. So for a long while I've been talking about can you answer the following and it's do you know what their behaviors, motivations, and aspirations are, what their pain points are and how do you meet their needs?
Now I put together in one of the many presentations I've got, I've gave a few different examples. One example is my business. And another example I've done recently because I did a talk for a big, big company over in Greece and they had like FedEx there and they had like the Greece's largest telecom company and it was huge.
So I didn't wanna use me as an example cause I felt a little bit small. So I ended up using Dove as an example. And actually it's a great example and, and I'm sensed kind of falling in love with them and their marketing. So let's talk about behaviors, motivations, and aspirations. So when I look at my customers, so if you are a customer of mine, I'm assuming you might resonate with some of these.
So you have a business that you love and you know you want to make a difference to the people you serve. All of my customers are that you work really hard, but just not just in the business. So you. It isn't just about the business. You have other things, and it might be that you have a family. It might be that you have a partner, you might have hobbies.
This is okay, but could be better. I think that's standard for everybody who's in business. You might get nervous meeting new people, and you might lack confidence in your business skills and your own self-belief. So you know that you are good. Well, you might not always know, but I'm telling you, you are good at the thing you do.
Sometimes you just might lack a bit of that confidence in terms of running a business. And you want your business to grow and be successful, but you don't necessarily want it to grow at the risk of something else. So if I said to you, well, actually, some of you might say yes to, and I was about to say to you, if I say to you, right, you can't see your kids in the week, but you can have a successful business, some of you might say yes, some of you might go, no, I love my children. I want to see them.
But you know what I mean? Like if I said to you, okay, you gotta work every hour that God sends and then you might be successful. A lot of you are gonna go, yeah, no, I don't want that. And you wanna grow at a pace that's realistic, right? So you want to know that you do wanna succeed. You do know you are, you are meant for more.
You have got huge aspirations, but actually your behaviors and motivations are around doing a good job and showing up authentically. So that is my customer. So then if I whip over to the one that I did for Dove, When it came, so in case you're not sure, I'm sure you know who Dove is, but they are a brand in the uk, not just a UK brand.
They're an international brand and they do skincare and haircare, and they do do it for males. They do male products, female products. But when you look at their stuff, their marketing is predominantly aimed at females. So behaviors, motivations, aspirations for Dove customer is that they want to take care of their body, but they don't wanna spend a fortune on skincare.
So dove's customers do want nice products, but they're not willing to spend a huge amount of money. They care about their planet and themselves, so they are not necessarily into. Like, you know, really fake toxic type stuff. If it makes 'em look good because they do wanna look good, but they don't wanna spend a, a fortune and they don't wanna put it at the risk of the planet or themselves.
They love and value natural products. They want to see real women and they want to see themselves represented. So when they look at their people's marketing when they buy from companies. Dove's customers want to see themselves represented in the marketing and they love seeing empower messages about women.
So these are kind of the behaviors and motivations and aspirations of a Dove customer. So as you can see, they're much, much deeper. They're going in on a really personal level. So now let's go to the next point, which was pain points. Now, what often here happens here is people get really focused on the thing they sell and the thing they fix.
That's not always the case. So in my instance, in my business, some of the pain points that I help with, or some of the pain points that my customers have is they're worried their business will fail and they'll have to get a job. Now that's like the ultimate fear and the ultimate pain point. It's like, I really, God, I couldn't imagine anything worse than myself.
Honestly. My husband tries to convince me that I should get a corporate job because he sees how hard I work, and he's like, but you could earn really good money really easily. You wouldn't have to do half as much as you do already. You're like, yeah, but I love what I do, so no, thank you. So, you know, the idea of getting a job is just the worst in my head, and some of that pain points might be then not making enough money, and they want their income to be important, so, They are bringing in money.
That's without doubt. People in my world, they do tend to be bringing in money, but it's not enough, and they want it to be important. They wanna feel valued about the money that they bring in. They're not sure if they're doing all the things right. So they've been delivered a million different ways to do things.
They've heard that many different experts. They're a bit lost in the weeds as to what is the thing they actually need to do and what is, what is the next step for them? Like they just wanna know the next thing. They get overwhelmed with everything they should be doing in their business, and they wanna be taken seriously.
Like they don't want people to think they're just playing at this and they are serious business people. They really wanna be taken seriously and they want to become more confident. Not only about their business, but also with them. The people who come into my world, they do the work on themselves. You know, they've maybe had a therapist, they've maybe had a coach in the past.
These people cared. They've probably done the Enneagrams and the Myers-Briggs and all that. And now they just want it to make sense. And they want, they want their, their life and their business to become more of one. And they wanna work out how they use all these amazing tools and bring it together to be the best possible version that they can.
So those are the pain points that my customers have. So let's whip over. I'm literally going between two presentations. If you hear my mic's moving. To the Dove presentation. So what are the pain points of people who buy Dove products? So they're a busy person who doesn't have time or money to spend hours on themselves.
So people who buy Dove products, they're not the kind of people who necessarily go into a department store a weekend and spend ages at makeup counter, like having everything tried on and you know they haven't got time for that. They're tired of seeing what women should look like. They're tired of seeing the filtered, perfect versions of women that once felt like we had to be there, but now feel like that's just such a rubbish, so let's just be truthful about it.
They want a good product without spending lots of money and they wanna be seen, they want to feel beautiful. They want to feel empowered, and they want to educate themselves on self-care. So they know that self-care isn't just about taking a bath. It's a lot more than that, but they want to be educated around that. And they want, they know they're beautiful and they want people to see them as beautiful and therefore the world to kind of be a bit more realistic about what beauty is.
Okay, so then the last thing, how do I meet their needs? So let's go back, flip back to my business. So in terms of how I meet their needs, what often happens here is we often go, well, I do one-to-one, I do one to many. I do, you know, small coaching groups. I speak on stages. I have the podcast. That's not what we mean.
So when we say how do we meet their needs, how do I meet those problems? So for me, it's things like I have a community of like-minded business owners for support. So the people in my community are the nicest humans. I say this all the time, and people don't get it until they come in. They really don't, they don't understand.
We're doing a, an open house soon, so do come in for that cuz people don't quite get what I mean until they come into my world and then they're like, these people are phenomenal. They are phenomenal. So I provide that. We obviously have online training that they can do in their own time and doing in their own time is really important because of the fact they're busy and they're juggling a million things.
We give really straightforward and no BS and no fluff advice. So they can get those direct answers. We offer accountability. Now, in my mind, what has been the biggest change in the online world, and certainly for me and what I offer, is that people are getting a bit tired of the courses, and I've actually stopped offering any new courses in my group because they've got a shed load of them.
And if there was something in particular that they were all like, we really need help with this, then of course I would bring someone in to do it. And actually instead, I'm offering up the space to my members and I'm saying, come and teach us what you know. So one week we'll learn about Feng shui, then we're gonna learn about art, then we're going to learn about Google ads.
Like it's really cool. Anyway, so we offer that kind of space where they can learn things, but it's the accountability that people need. So for me, I have been bringing in more and more and more accountability to get them to get the work done. We give them live coaching calls where they can ask me anything.
So when they're overwhelmed and they're not sure what to do next, that's why they have those coaching calls. We do the mindset stuff so they can develop themselves further in terms of becoming a more kind of, you know, I was gonna say rounded human, that's not the word I wanted to use at all. But you know that they have these tools in their toolbox in order to whip them out when life gets hard.
Cuz it does and it, well, we run businesses this stuff is not easy. And they want the safe space to grow where there's no growth shaming. So I've been in groups before where it really has been, unless you're bringing in this amount of money, you're really, you're not important. And that is just shocking because.
First off, if we all go back to the last time we were employed and how much we got paid, you know, it's probably kind of unbelievable that we could ever earn the money we earn now through a job. So somehow when you get into your own business, people just kind of lose their minds and think if they're not earning seven figures, they're not successful.
Well, that's absolutely madness. And the other thing that I, how I meet their needs is I get to know them and their business. So if I genuinely know the people in my world, I had an amazing testimonial written for me the other day. Which fyi, I just paused this recording so I could run off and get it not physically run off.
It was on my computer, so it was on LinkedIn, which was really lovely. It was as a recommendation and it was lovely Sarah Jane, and she put, I've been a member of the Business Dream Club and I don't know. Dream Business Club. I don't know the name of my own club. I've been a member of the Dream Business Club for about a year, and I followed her free offerings for a couple years before that, when I wasn't her client, she always had time to personally reply, to answer my replies to her emails, which gobsmacked me, but is part of the course for her.
She genuinely cares about helping people, and that's part of it to her. Now I'm in a membership. I can tell you there's nothing she wouldn't do for our members to help us help ourselves. The monthly group coaching calls is always helpful even if you listen, because she digs down right down into what's going on and make sure she understands not only the exact situation you're asking about, but also the most important.
What's most important to you? I hate reading, you know that. She deeply understands that different people have different priorities. There's no one size fits all answers in business, she's cultivated a fabulous membership filled with similarly kindhearted, positive minded entrepreneurs already to help and encourage each other.
In many Facebook groups, I see people routinely bash for not, for not somehow already knowing things, but never in the dream business club. And she goes on and says lots of other things, which is just amazing. But that was so, so lovely to hear. So when we talk about meeting their needs, it's not necessarily about here's what the product is, is about how you meet the needs.
Like so I could have a...
20 min
August 07, 2023The foundations of business: what you need to get right, from the start
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the 3 main areas that you need to focus on in business, right from day one.
In this episode I delve into the what, why and how of each area and share my own personal experiences too.
If you know someone who's getting started in business, why not share the love and send them this episode, I'd really love that!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How to understand who your perfect customer is

The importance of consistency on social media

How to start building an email list

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
How to find your perfect customer podcast episode
Back to basics with your social media podcast episode
Learn how to start and grow your perfect email list podcast episode
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
Hello and welcome to episode 306 of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? So last week we had a, an interview, which I have not done an interview in such a long time, but it was really good fun to chat to Kendall. I really enjoyed our conversation and actually, it's just really nice. Like, generally having a rule of thumb that we say no to everybody.
And then when someone comes along, I think, oh yeah, I really fancy speaking to them, that I get to speak to them. So that was really cool. I really enjoyed that. But back to solos, as you know, if you've been listening for a while. I just do solo episodes now, apart from, like I said, the very odd one or two interview maybe.
And they're hopefully pretty practical, pretty short and things that you can kind of take and learn or, you know, might impact you in some way in a fairly short space of time. Because if you're like me. You are busy doing other things when you're listening to this podcast. So you are either doing the school run or taking the dog for a walk, or I often get ready in the morning and have a podcast playing.
So why not share with me where you're listening to this podcast? I would love to know. In fact, someone told me where they listened to me the other day. And it was really weird. And I was like, why didn't you share that when I asked? So yeah, so if you have somewhere funny that you listen to podcasts, then let me know.
Tag me in on social media, go and find me over on Instagram. That is my favorite. So today I want to talk about The foundations of business. And you might sit there thinking, yeah, well, no, I've got my business. I'm fine. I don't need to talk about foundations or you might be fairly new into your business and just discover the podcast.
And if so, then lucky you. I wish I knew this stuff from the very beginning. I think it's always good, regardless of what level you're in on your business or how long you've had it to go back and look at the foundations and make sure you've got them in place and then every so often review them. But there's certain things in business that are like the most important.
It's a case of if you did nothing else, marketing wise in your business, then if you did these three things, you wouldn't be going far wrong. And when I say three things, like obviously they're not just three simple steps, if only, but there are three main areas that I want you to focus on. So this episode, like I said, is perfect.
If you are getting started, if you know someone else who's getting started, then why not send them this episode? But also, even if you had your business for a while, then I think it's definitely worth listening to this and just thinking, okay, when was the last time I checked these things? Or am I still doing them?
Or did I do them first, right in the first place, which I absolutely did not. When I started my business, obviously I did marketing for a living. I knew marketing. However, marketing yourself and doing your own business is completely different from doing it to someone else. So I wish to goodness that I had given this enough thought in the early days.
So. The first thing of the foundation is, has to be understanding who your customer is. And I know so many of you will say, yes, I do know, but really do you know, have you gone through a really good exercise that helps you understand who your customer is? So one of the things that we do, and that I teach is looking at who is your customer, not only from a demographic point of view, or a kind of, you know, Are they like a certain age?
Are they in a certain location? What gender are they? Those are the simple things. What we want to know and the things that can really make a difference in our business is understanding what they're passionate about, what they love, what they hate, understanding what pains they have, and then which of those pains can you help solve?
So for instance, I deal with business owners and I can help them with many, many pains in their business, but they're not the only pains that they have. And I can help them, or I can relate to them by going, yeah, this is a struggle in your business, even if it's not something I can fix. Because what it's doing is it's demonstrating I know who they are and I understand them.
Because at the end of the day, all your customers and people in general, just humans want to be is seen and heard and that they matter. And the more you can get to know who your perfect customer is, the more you can demonstrate to them that you know them and you see them and you hear them, the more chance you've got to have a conversation with them and to convert them into a customer.
And as long as your product or service genuinely fixes their problem, then they should want to hear from you because you're going to help them. So like I said, step number one has to be understanding who your customers are. And like I've already said it needs to go deeper than just your basic stuff. It really does need to be the, what are the pains that they have in their business?
Who are they? Sorry, not just business in their lives or whatever it is that you deal with. Who are they? What do they struggle with? And how can you match and meet them? Also understanding how they align with your values. So some people, and sometimes we look at niche within this section as to whether you're going for a niche, sometimes the niche is you and you are your niche and you are the reason they're going to come to you.
So how do you make sure that your values align with theirs? Because you only want to work with people that have values aligned with your own. So again, how do you use that information to basically. Get that out of there or to understand that about your customer, because the next two things of your foundation and pretty much anything else you're going to do in your business is completely dependent on knowing who that customer is.
If you don't know who your customer is, you could have the best marketing in the world, and it would be the equivalent of having a billboard in the desert. No one would see it. And if people did see it, it wouldn't necessarily be the right people. Or the right people wouldn't know it's for them. I have this thing when I teach, would I know I'm your ideal customer by looking at your stuff?
And that's what I need to know. I need to read it and look at it and go, Oh yeah, that's me. And the places I need to read it and see it are somewhere on the internet. Now, step two of the foundations is some kind of Consistent social media presence. Now it only, it doesn't have to be on every platform. It can be on one platform, but you need somewhere that you show up.
You've got no choice. I'm afraid like, okay, you could just not be on social media, but you've got to show up somewhere. Someone's got to be able to find you. And the easiest and most accessible is through social media. You could obviously have a website and things, but easiest and most accessible is social media.
So do you have a social media account and are you consistently posting content? When I say consistently, I don't mean continuing continuously. I mean, are you consistently, i. e. every couple of days, every day, a couple of times a week posting content. And what do you post where you post the stuff you found out in the step one of the foundations.
So you post stuff that your ideal customer is going to be interested in, stuff that they'll resonate with, stuff that they will want to save or stuff that they will want to see. And if you know who they are you're going to start to understand what sort of stuff you can post. And obviously we can go into more detail on this.
And I've, I've talked about this in various different places on the podcast, but it really is, I don't want to get into the kind of what to post now, but it really is about that showing up consistently somewhere on social media. That has got to be one of your next things. Because someone needs to come and find you and see who you are.
And then the final thing of these three foundations has to be building an email list, because although I love social media, although social media is a fantastic way for people to come and find you and see that you exist, you don't own that platform, you don't own the data, you don't own your profile. It all belongs to whatever platform you're on.
So if tomorrow someone broke a term and condition on Facebook and it just wiped out your account, then basically you've lost all that data. So the, one of the key things are most important, which is why it's literally in the top three things of doing for a business is getting an email list. Again, going back to that, who your customer is, that's how we're going to bring the right people onto your email list.
Cause this is about the quality, not the quantity. Honestly, I could have a list of just 500 people. And if they were 500 people that love me and wanted to hear from me and wanted to buy stuff that I was selling, I'd be happy rather than having a list of 5,000 who aren't interested. So. Absolutely focus on quality, not quantity.
And really from day one, building that email list is key. And if you haven't built it and if you are much further on than day one, then start it today. Like seriously, seriously, seriously. There's not a business that I've come across in the almost 20 years that I've been in marketing and 10 of them in my own business that I have seen someone who and thought they don't need an email list.
Everyone needs an email list. And what often happens is people, create an email list, but they just do an opt in on their website. So they'll just have a box somewhere at the top or the bottom that says, do you want to join my email list? And then people can opt in that way. And that is kind of half the problem or where the problem is because it is very unlikely, especially in the early days, that people are just going to stumble across a website and search around and look for that box and then sign up.
So it's really, really important to work much harder at trying to get people on your email list. And it does take work, but I promise you with these three things in general, any amount of time, effort, or investment you make in these three will pay you dividends down the line. And that's the key thing.
It's down the line. You're not going to suddenly build an email list tomorrow, have 5, 000 people on your email list. I mean, if you do, then let me know how, cause that'd be amazing. Without spending a huge amount on Facebook ads, but like, and then suddenly sell loads of stuff the day after this is an investment for your longterm business, but it's crucial to get it started as soon as.
So what you need to do with your email list is you need to go back to understanding that perfect customer. Like I said, this is really, really step one in the whole foundation. And you need to understand what they need from you and how you can help them. And then you need to create something, which we call a lead magnet, in order for them to go, yes, I want this thing.
And because I want this thing, I'm going to give you my email address. And that's how you get them onto your email list. Now. If you're just getting started, you just need one and keep it simple. Often I've taught building lead magnets and building email addresses, email lists over and over and over.
And the one thing that everybody does without fail is they give them too much. So they try and give them war and peace. They put together a massive long PDF book or a massive long video series or a huge amount of content, and they don't need all that. What they need is a quick win. Now you and I know there is no quick wins in our business.
As in, you know, if you are selling, Copywriting. You can't just tell them two things and suddenly they'll be an amazing copywriter. If you were selling social media content, you can't just give them one secret and that'll get them viral. We know there's no quick wins. However, what we need to do is give them something small that they can try.
And they can have some experience of and then they'll go, Oh, this person knows what they're talking about. And then maybe you can give them some more. So when you're starting off on that email list, keep it simple and small. Now, again, I'm not going to go into huge amounts of detail. There are so many podcast episodes and so much of my content out there around this building, because I've done it very successfully for a long time and helped lots of other people do it for a long time.
I wanted to add it into the top three because it's so very important that we do these things. So once you have an understanding of who your customer is, social media content, where they can discover you and an email list where you can deepen and develop that relationship.
Those are the three most important things as far as I'm concerned in a marketing, from a marketing aspect in your business. But they can change. So over time, your perfect customer might change. Mine has. They've only tweaked slightly. It tends to have been a similar person, but as I niche down into certain things or as I show up in different ways, I do attract a different audience.
So they will tweak and change over time. Your customer's problems will change over time. Technology changes over time. Process and how people do things change over time. So you are going to have to tweak and change your customer profile every so often, which means in turn, it will have a knock on effect in terms of what content you're putting out there on social media, which in turn will have a knock on effect in terms of how you're getting people on your email list.
Because the way I got people on my email list eight years ago is not how I'm doing it today in terms of not just, you know, the format and what I'm doing, but what I'm giving them. So today my lead magnets are much different to when I first started out. And that's the case of every business. It will no doubt tweak and change at some point.
So. Those are your three things to ask yourself and to look at. Do you know who your customer is, who your perfect customer is, and know all those details about them? Are you showing up consistently on social media, and giving them some content that they want to see? And have you created an email list with your perfect customers on it?
And if you're sat here listening and thinking, yeah, I've done all those things, then is it worth going back and checking when you last reviewed them? And when did you last get new people on your email list? Because it is a constant thing of bringing new people on, making sure they're the right customers, making sure your content is right.
So just take this podcast as a Quick reference in terms of, okay, yeah, let me have a look at this. Let me remind myself whether all of this is still right. Okay. I am going to leave you for this week. Have a wonderful week and I will see you when I return next week.
15 min
July 31, 2023Unleash your financial power with Kendall SummerHawk’s Sacred Money Archetypes®
For one week only, interviews are back on the podcast, and in today's episode, you will hear me talking to the amazing Kendall SummerHawk.
Kendall created the Sacred Money Archetypes® Certified Coach training to support her mission to put the power of making money into every woman entrepreneur’s hands.
In this episode we delve deep into what the Sacred Money Archetypes® are, and how they work... trust me when I say it's a must listen!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How to apply your values to your money

Why your money mindset is something you are born with

Why it's important that women pay attention to money

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Kendall on Instagram
Take the quiz to discover what your Sacred Money Archetypes® are
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Hello, and welcome to Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Teresa Heath-Wareing. So, as you know, if you're a long term listener, I stopped doing interviews back in January, and I've been doing solo episodes, which I've really enjoyed. But one of the nice things about not having to fill episodes with interviews is that when I get someone who Asks or approaches me and says, can I be on the podcast?
And I really want to speak to them. It's really lovely that I then get to just interview who I want. And it just happens to be a random interview, which I'm really excited about. So today you're not just going to hear my voice for a change. You are also going to hear the voice of the amazing Kendall SummerHawk, who is here to talk to us about the sacred money archetypes, which if you know them, you'll know, I really love them and I find them fascinating. So Kendall, welcome to the podcast.
Kendall: Thank you so much for having me here. I feel so honored and privileged and very special because you don't do that many interviews and I love it. As I said before, I just love your brand and what you're about and the richness and the depth and the quality of the training and information and transformation you bring. So I'm especially honored to be here today.
Teresa: Oh, thank you so, so much. So I used to, so we will do as I used to do. If you could start by explaining to my amazing audience who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today.
Kendall: Yeah, that's like one of the toughest questions. So I've actually been in business almost 23 years. It's incredible. How long it's been. And, what I am is, you know, we, we, we focused on certified coach trainings. We have several certified coach trainings. We have the sacred money archetypes that you mentioned. And then we also have the money breakthrough business coach training. And really what I focus on though is my mission, which is to put the power of making money into every woman's hands.
That is my whole mission and vision for, and my why of what I do. And I focus on that. I focused on fulfilling that mission through the certification trainings, because I, as one person can only work with so many people. And we used to do a lot of large group programs. You know, I've been in business so long, I've like done all the things, all the different ways of modeling or coaching business and through what I love about certification is that by me certifying other people on how to coach.
And specifically have to focus their niche on women entrepreneurs. It creates a trace of this wonderful ripple effect for me to the women that I train as coaches. And then from there to the women and some men that they are working with through their coaching businesses. And we have, as we were saying, chatting just before we started here.
I'm based in North America. I'm actually Tucson, Arizona, and we have approximately 50%. So half of our clientele over the last several years are all non North American. They're in various parts, a lot in the UK, a lot in Australia, Holland, Germany, and then other outlier countries. I just saw a post in our Sacred Money Archetypes group this morning from somebody who's in Romania and changing the lives of Romanian women and how they relate and handle money.
And it just, it gives me chills to think of how far reaching this work can be and not just far reaching from a global, you know, physical standpoint, but far reaching. I mean, when you think of Romanian women and what they endure and what their culture has been, and the idea that we're changing, you know, generational, we're making a generational change here for women with money and their daughters and their sons and so on and so on. It's really pretty incredible. And it makes me feel very fortunate and very humble to be doing what I do.
Teresa: I bet, but I just can't imagine how that feeling of, okay, so take me back of the time where you came up with this. Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine you would be saying what you've just said?
Kendall: I didn't, I did not imagine I would be saying it as comfortably as I am able to say it as naturally. And I got chill bumps as you know, we were talking here, but, so I don't take it lightly, believe me. So did I imagine yes and no, no, I never thought I'd be as comfortable in this, but I did have a vision.
Like I remember a long time ago, having a vision of having a room full of sacred money archetypes coaches. And I achieved that vision a number of years ago when we, we, I did the large workshop model for a long time, made millions and millions and millions of dollars selling coaching from the stage and certification training from the stage.
And so, and I remember at one point being on stage, we had two or 300 people in the room at another three or 400 on live stream. And I remember thinking, wow, this is it. Like this is the vision come to life. So, that's why I say both yes and no to your question, but I think that, you know, a lot of people talk about gratitude and I know you do as well.
And, and, you know, for me, it's about certainly gratitude, but it's also about appreciation. I'm a person of that was taught my whole family is like this to be deeply, profoundly appreciative. So I really appreciate that I've been able to have this impact and it keeps me humble.
Plus I have horses. I ride dressage. I have these wonderful Spanish horses. Most of them have been imported from Spain, that I've imported them. And they also keep me very, very humble.
Teresa: I love it. That is the thing, isn't it? It's like, so one minute, you know, speaking in front of thousands of people, having all these people go through your certification, and then mucking out the horses.
Kendall: I actually have to confess, I actually don't muck out the horses. Okay. I haven't cleaned a stall in, I don't know, 15, 20 years, but, but I have because I have full time help seven days a week. However, I'm tacking off, cleaning feet, grooming. I love it. People say, how much time do you spend riding? And it's like, Oh, let me, let me educate you here.
Only when you walk, when you ride, especially I ride dressage, so I'm, which says a lot about me as a human being, you know, very particular and detail oriented and perfectionist and so on. But anyway, I'd say the amount of time you spend with your horse, the least amount of time is in the saddle. Most of the time is in the care and I adore it. My horses are literally 15, 20 feet out my window here. I just adore taking care of the horses.
Teresa: But isn't that, you living the life that you're teaching other people and helping other people do like, you found something that you adore that you want to want to do and your business and what you've done has helped you achieve that life and spend that time doing that.
Kendall: And it's, it's that and that lifestyle has helped me achieve the business because they're horses. They're not motorcycles. You can't just park them in the garage and let them collect dust for a while. They need to be worked. And, and, and I do training with my horses every single day. I do all kinds of different training with them, not just riding.
But, the horses for me always come first and my husband knows this. He's, he's unhappy about it, but he's like, well, he knows where he is on that, on that ranking. Right. He's great. And he helps with the horses a lot, but the horses really help shape the business and the lifestyle, which is why, for example, and I want to tie this into women and money and the archetypes.
It's why, for example, I don't do the big workshops anymore. There came up, you know, we did them for years. And like I said, I mean, I've made, I don't know, I'd have to stop and count it up. I've made. Tens and tens of millions of dollars and, over the years. And I, I remember there was a point where, because we were doing six to eight workshops a year.
We would do two very large workshops that I would sell from the stage. And then we would do the fulfillment workshops. And I also taught certification live once a year. So we did all these events at high end hotels in different cities, quite a few in Tucson because Tucson is a destination with, you know, we had a sponsorship with the Ritz Carlton here, for example, Sedona, we were talking about earlier, different places.
But anyway, I remember distinctly. I, right before a big event, I was laying in bed and I was thinking about how many days per year I spend preparing for workshops, traveling, being away or being in an airport. And unlike a lot of people, I really don't like to travel, travel. I get airsick. I'm not an easy, it's not easy on me physically to travel.
And so. So I, I don't enjoy it. My husband would leave at the drop of a hat, you know, he'll leave. If you have a cousin's nephew's brother who's getting married in the UK and you invited him, he would be on a plane tomorrow to attend. My husband loves, loves family events and loves travel. But anyway, so I remember adding it up and thinking, you know what, this is.
And it added up to like, six or eight weeks a year. And while some people would have said, Oh, well, you know, you make millions of dollars a year for, you know, and I was working more than eight weeks, but those weeks were intensive. And I said, but this is not how I want to spend my life. I don't, this is not how I want to spend my time.
And I decided to stop doing the big events and to really pivot and change the model of the business.
Teresa: Amazing. And that is absolutely the essence of what I teach. It's not about having a business that some guru, someone has told you you've got to have. It's not about hitting certain levels or having a certain team or whatever.
It's if you want that brilliant, but it's about what you want and when you deciding, and like you said, for some people. My husband and I love travel, but funnily enough, I also love gardening and we've got, we now grow a lot of veg and I just love it. And we just did two and a half weeks in the States, not that long ago.
And my main concern was I need to get back for the garden. And we've got someone in looking after it was fine, but I really missed it. And then, and then suddenly the thought was like. Oh, well, if I'm going to do this, actually, am I going to want to travel as much? But, but it's having that kind of option to choose that. So let's see if I can.
Kendall: If I can jump in really quickly, because I think that there's a fine distinction here and this is so true for women. I mean, we're going to focus our conversation on women, obviously here. And that's what I love about your brand. You don't just say have your dream business, your dream lifestyle.
You really, like I said earlier, I think that you have a depth to your messaging. On that point. That is rare that I've rarely seen. So I really want to commend you for that. But I was what I was going to say is that I think that there's each of us has to be very aware, have a great degree of self awareness, to pinpoint the distinction between this is not for me versus this is the challenge I need to step into.
And those are two very different things. And so very, very quick example. So I can talk about speaking from the stage. I like you put me in front of a room with hundreds of people. I own that stage. I own that room. I am fully in my confidence, but it wasn't always like that. I In fact, I started my business teaching speaking skills because I had such intense fear of public speaking that my throat would literally close up and I literally could not speak.
So I, and I decided, so that was a challenge that I could have said, well, I'm just not going to do that, but I, there was something inside me that said, no, I need to work through this. And it took me a lot of, a lot of work, a lot of work to get through this and not to get through that. Now it's totally fine.
So I think it's important that we. in order to grow into our fullest and highest expression of ourselves, that we step into the challenge and we understand when it's a challenge versus that's just not for me at all. Or that's not for me any longer.
Teresa: Yes. Yeah. And that is, that's a challenge in itself, but that is a, such a good point to make because I think sometimes, and I've seen it before with, you know, people that have coached in the same with you, I'm sure where you know, someone's saying to you, I don't think this is for me. And you're thinking, no, I think it might be. I think you just may be a little bit scared and you don't want to do it.
Kendall: You got to put your big girl pants on.
Teresa: If someone's listening to this and hasn't heard about the sacred money archetypes, can you explain what they are and how they work?
Kendall: Sure. So the sacred money archetypes, there are eight money archetypes in my system. Basically what I, here's my belief system. My belief is that, first of all, you're going to have a relationship with money for the rest of your life.
And, for some people they go, bring it on. That's great. Or yes, I recognize that. Or are you kidding me? I'm not in it for the money. I'm not interested in money. It's not, you know, it's not about the money, which is a form of spiritual snobbery. I call it. So, but the truth is you will have a relationship with money for the rest of your life.
I, I challenged somebody to go a day. Even one day without thinking about money in some way, shape or form, you know, we think about, it just comes into our life at all times. And so I believe that number 1, I believe that making fabulous money is part of our spiritual path. And if you want, we can circle back and I can explain why that is.
But I also believe that, that we can use money as a catalyst, as a mirror, as a mirror for ourselves. And the, the hurts, the traumas, the wounds that we carry, but also as a catalyst for us stepping into our highest potential and really aiming to fulfill that potential. So I believe there's this divine connection between each of us and money.
And yet, we need a way to define that and to shape that and to give. Yeah, to give it shape and the sacred money archetypes do that. So there are eight archetypes. There's an assessment. We can give the link out to the quiz. So there's a quiz so you don't have to really guess. Because sometimes it's surprising.
Yeah, there's a three archetypes typically that People can be surprised that they are. So out of the eight, we pay attention to your top three. And we do that in order because we're human beings, we're complex creatures. And just one, you know, your, your top highest scoring archetype is usually the dominant one, but the next two highest scoring ones, they, it creates a multidimensional, explanation for who you are as a person.
Not just with money, certainly with money and in your relationships with others in the boundaries you set in the way that you think of yourself. And I really believe that, you know, you asked earlier, am I surprised that I'm sitting here and able to say these things and the yes part of that is.
Well, actually, the no part of that is because I, I really when I really came into this system that was truly divinely downloaded. It every year that goes by that. I give myself more and more permission to step fully into my top three archetypes, which are ruler, maverick and accumulator, the better my life is, the stronger and more confident I am as a human being, the more resilient I am, the more I'm able to handle things that come up that are opportunities and things that are disappointments to be able to handle them with With grace and with, and really creating a feeling of peace with money as a ruler, maverick and accumulator, finding peace with money is not an easy, you know, that's my journey.
And it's not an easy journey. So that's a long explanation of the archetypes.
Teresa: No. And I think it's so helpful. I did the archetypes, obviously, and my number one was celebrity.
Kendall: So that's one of the ones I'm writing it down. That's one of the ones that can often surprise people. And I don't know if that was true for you, not or if it wasn't a surprise for you.
Teresa: Well, do you know what? In some ways, and it's funny, anybody that knows me, I have one of my mastermind group that... I teach, you know, I brought them together. I said to them, because I got them to do it as well, because I wanted to know what they were. And they said, I said, I'm a celebrity. And they were like, yeah, no joke.
Like, because it just. Everything about it was exactly who I am as a person. And, but what's interesting, and I can't remember the name of it, but the second one I am is the one that doesn't like to charge money for things. The one that basically, I can't think what nurture.
Kendall: Connector, it's either connector or nurturer.
Teresa: I think it's the nurturer. And it's like, well, those two together do not seem like a good match.
Kendall: Oh, but they are.
Teresa: I'd love to hear about it because the celebrity for me, the bits that I pulled out were And honestly, being very honest and authentic that I am. It's so true. Like, champagne, you know, life on a water budget, like that's what it can be.
And I'm very generous. Like I will, you know, if I go out for dinner, then it's rare that people pay, which sometimes really does me. Not great because people just assume and then that's not great, but like, I'll be super generous with people. I like the nicer things in life. You know, I like traveling first class or business class, or, you know, I really...
45 min
July 24, 2023Breaking free from the Sunk Cost Fallacy and what to do instead
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the Sunk Cost Fallacy and the impact it has on our decision-making as business owners.
In this episode I share what the Sunk Cost Fallacy is and why we need to break free from it, to prioritise our time and future success.
If you know someone who needs to hear this episode, I would love for you to share it with them!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Why you should never ignore your gut

What to do when we fall foul of the Sunk Cost Fallacy

Different ways the Sunk Cost Fallacy can show up in product and service based businesses

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Find out more about my 1:1 Coaching
Find out more about the Dream Business Club
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Hello and welcome to episode 304 of Your Dream Business Podcast. And as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. How are you doing? So this week I've got a really interesting podcast episode. I think it's going to really resonate with lots of you and hopefully will give you something to think about.
I'm going to be talking about the sunk cost fallacy. So have you heard of that before? Do you know what it is? I'd be interested to know whether many of you had heard of this before I did this podcast episode. But let me tell you before I explain what the sunk cost fallacy is by their definition that you find on the internet.
Let me explain why this has come up and why I wanted to talk about it. So I was speaking to a lovely lady a few weeks back and she was telling me that she had recently signed up for a coaching program. She'd already done the coaching program once and she didn't want to do it again. And her gut was saying, you don't need to do this.
I don't want to do it. And she got on a sales call with the person and they basically convinced her otherwise. Which, firstly, before she said anything else, I already in my head was going, no, no, no, no, no. If your gut is saying something isn't right, then never ignore it. Never ever think, I'm wrong, my gut's wrong, someone else is right.
So, that was the first thing, but that wasn't the reason I started this pod this episode. So she then continued to tell me that she had paid a considerable sum of money to be part of this coaching program and she had done two calls and hated both of them and they were awful and it just wasn't resonating with her and I'm not saying that whoever's coaching program it was was awful I'm just saying it didn't fit her at that point and in fact on one call she had ended the call early and had become really upset by what was said.
And she was like, I just don't want to be in it, but I've paid this money and now I'm in it and it's just awful and I don't know what to do. And the sunk cost fallacy, easy for me to say, came to mind. Because what was happening was she was, she'd already paid the money, the money had gone.
Okay, now the best you could try and do was get your money back. Like. Whether that was an option or not, let's ignore the fact and pretend that it wasn't an option. So she had handed over a considerable amount of money for this coaching and two calls in, and I think there was possibly like eight in total, she'd already decided.
I don't want to do this and, and should have listened to her gut in the first place, but she was where she was. So she said to me, I don't know what to do. And I talked to her about the fact of, well, why would you continue with the sessions? And she said, understandably, well, I've paid the money. And I said, okay, so tell me what's worse.
One, that you lose that amount of money or that you lose that amount of money and then every other week or every week, whatever it was, the calls were you go through a very upsetting, painful experience and made to feel like you're just useless. Cause that was how she told me she felt. So basically every week or two weeks you get a bit of a whipping and you come away feeling awful and that you're not good enough and you're not doing a good enough job.
Like. What's worse. And she kind of sort of said, I know, I know, I know, but obviously this is where the sunk cost fallacy comes in. And when I Googled it, they say it way more eloquently than I do. Let me find the description that they give you on the internet. So it says it's a phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it.
Even when it's clear the abandonment would be more beneficial. So it often does include. a financial aspect. But it can include a time aspect. So some of the examples it gives on the internet are things like relationships that you know you shouldn't be in anymore, but you've been with someone for so long, you've given them so much of your time, you've invested so much of yourself, that it seems pointless to leave or finish because you've done that much investment.
Another example of a more simpler and easier one is if you're sat down to watch a film. So I know that like, I've watched series of things and really probably should have given up on episode two when I thought this isn't great and have carried on and then thought, well, that was the biggest waste of my time ever.
So, you know, if you're into watching a film and you're 20 minutes in and you think this one's rubbish, do you just end the film or do you carry on watching it because you've already invested 20 minutes of your time? And I think alongside the sunk cost fallacy is the hope that it will get better or improve or become more of what you want.
And it's already given you some indication that it's not going to do that. So for me, it's really, really important. And when I had this conversation with this lady a while back, it made me so sad that she was going to continue to put herself through a situation where. She, it was not an enjoyable situation and make the fact that she had lost that money so much worse.
And for me, she wasn't valuing her or her time because that's the truth of the, of the fallacy. The truth is, yes, you've put financial investment in. So let's say, you know, this example of you've started working with a coach and you've realized that the coach isn't quite working and it isn't quite doing what you need, but yet you think I'm just going to continue going on.
I'm just going to keep working with them because hopefully I might get what I want or hopefully I won't feel like I've wasted my money. But the truth is, if you're feeling that, it is unlikely to change. It's unlikely to be any different from what You're feeling right now. And what's happening as well is because often one of the questions I get and you, you know, depending on the type of business you're in, but if you're a coach or someone that works one to one with people is, oh, I've just invested in such and such.
And although I don't like it and you'll be better, I don't want to, you know, obviously I've just invested with them, so I can't at this point. Now, fair enough, if that's an excuse, but they really don't need to say that they could just say, I don't want to work with you. That's fine. But if that is the real reason, then the sunk cost fallacy doesn't just include the, you know, the risk of spending more time with something that isn't working, the risk that you're adding on top of that.
So if you're sat there thinking, yeah, I really want to work with someone or maybe even work with me, but I've just invested in X, Y, Z. The other risk is that you're delaying your time. You're pushing back your success. You're pushing back the chance to really make a difference in your business or really make that change in your life because you're waiting for this other thing to be done.
And so not only are you wasting your time because you're still showing up on the calls and things, and you're still going and taking part in that thing that isn't working for you. But you're also pushing back and delaying your time to actually get started working with someone who really is going to make the difference, who really is going to, get the stuff done that you want done.
And you might sort of be sat there saying, yeah, but how do I know that? You know, not the next person is not going to be like that. And the next person is not going to be like that. And we learn every time we do these things, we learn the one thing for that woman I was talking to, to learn is never ignore your gut ever, ever, ever.
Like if your gut is going, I don't want to do this. Something doesn't feel right. You can't even vocalize it. Just don't do it. You know, don't hand over the money. Unfortunately, the person that sold to the thing was a very persuasive salesperson and people are like some salespeople out there are very persuasive but if in your gut it says no or if you if they won't give you time to think about it because this is the other thing and I know like it feels like the whole okay We're not selling to remember like on some kind of watchdog program in the UK.
There was like People would go in and sell kitchens. Was it like Magnet or something? I don't know. But they would go in and they'd go, let me speak to my manager. If you buy it right now, you can have this discount. If they're not willing to let you think about something and step away to have a think, then they're not the people to work with.
Like I get that carts close. I get that things change. I get that programs start and that's fair enough. However, if you're working one to one with someone then really there's no reason why you can't start at any point. And it's not that if you're on the other side of it and think, well, I use that strategy that I want them to make a decision there and then.
You're not saying, yeah, just come back to me whenever you're ready. You could be saying, okay. I'm going to give you 24 hours, have a think about it, and I'll come back to you tomorrow and you can arrange a call exactly for the 24 hours of the next day. Do you know what I mean? So it's not like you're just leaving them be, you are making sure you get a decision from them.
But if you're trying, if someone's trying to get a decision from you there and then, and basically saying you've got to make that decision, then I think I would run for the hills. That would definitely be warning signs. So like I said, The fact of you're working with someone and it's not working and you're like, I've got to keep going because I've spent this money.
You absolutely do not. Yes, that's a very painful and expensive mistake to make, but you won't make it again. So, Just ignore the fact that that money is already gone. The other one is, I had this section. I wasn't thinking about giving you this example, but it's a good one. Stock like sunk cost fallacy in stock.
So I have a number of people in the club who have physical products or make physical products and those people can have a huge amount of stock and they get to a point where it's like, okay, you need to sell some of this stock and they don't want to sell it for anything less than what they wanted to sell it for.
And it's like, well, yeah, but it's doing nothing for you. In fact, what it is doing is taking up space in your store or your home or wherever, and it's taking up space in your head. So actually you'd be better getting anything back from that. And just letting it go type thing. So how do we get over the sunk cost fallacy?
How do we make sure that we don't just continue with something because we're concerned about the time and effort and money we've already put in. So one of the first things to do is to look at it from a very factual and data driven point of view. Often when we're falling foul of the sunk cost fallacy, it's because we've got an emotional investment in it.
And we are taking into account emotions. And I'm not saying ignore your emotions. I'm just saying that's often one of the reasons why we struggle then to make that decision to go, actually, no, this isn't serving us. So try and think of facts and data. So, okay, I've spent the money, but how much time am I going to waste doing this?
How am I going to, move forward if I'm still doing the thing that I'm doing? How much time am I going to waste by not starting this new thing sooner? Like I said, the money's already gone. So at this point, as frustrating and as annoying as it is, it's already gone. So actually I would much rather just lose that money than lose it and then invest time that isn't doing anything.
The second thing I want you to do is focus on your time as a value. So in the example I gave earlier of the lady that had invested in the coaching program, if she had put a time value on her own time, so let's say she said she was worth a hundred pounds an hour, then she would be able to easily see that she was wasting more money by continuing.
So she could have then said, okay, well, how many more hours would I have to invest in this? And therefore I am going to lose X amount more money by investing those hours. But because we don't often value our time like that, then we don't often think to do that. So for me, that's definitely a way to look at this.
If it is your time that you're taking up, then what value would you put on that time? And actually that's just as important as the money. And then focus on your future costs and focus on the future cost of continuing. So like I said, if you're working with a coach and you want to work with another coach and you think, well, I really can't until I've, you know, finished working with them, then you can think about, well, what's that costing you going forward?
Or what's it, what it's costing you is that you're pushing back the potential to earn more money, that you're pushing back the potential for your success. And therefore you're losing money by not doing that sooner. So. I really wanted this to be a sort of quick and simple podcast episode because we don't often think about the sunk cost fallacy and when we buy things, and if you're anything like me, I've done lots of coaching programs, I've done lots of courses, and Sometimes we just continue with the thing because we think, well, we have to, because we've already paid the money.
Well, the truth is we don't have to, we can stop and do something else. And yes, we don't want to be doing that every other week, but we don't want to be spending any more time on something that isn't serving us. And the same can be said for, you know, Investing in something that isn't working in your business, full stop.
Now, I'm very hesitant to talk about that as part of this, just because there's a difference between being consistent at something and finding out whether it works or doing something just because you're going through the motions and therefore it's probably worth stopping. So, yeah. From, from a content consistency point of view, I would go consistency over the sunk cost fallacy, but anyway, I really hope that this has helped.
I hope that, it's given you something to think about. And maybe if you are sat there thinking, I'd really like to work with you, Teresa, but I just need to wait for X, Y, Z that maybe you don't need to wait. Maybe you should just get in touch and we can get started. Okay. Have a lovely rest of your week and I will see you next week.
15 min
July 17, 2023Threads! Should you be using it for your business or is it just shiny object syndrome?
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the new social media platform that everyone is talking about - Threads!
In this episode I share how to know whether to do something new, how to know when something has worked or not worked, and how to stay in your lane and keep your head down and get on with the things that you need to be getting on with.
Are you on Threads yet? How are you finding it if you are? Drop me a DM on my socials and let me know, I'd love to hear from you!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Why the issues you face with social media isn't necessarily about the platform you're on

The hockey stick effect of consistency

The most valuable resource you have as a business owner

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Happy Mind, Happy Life by Dr Rangan Chatterjeee
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
You are listening to your dream business podcast. And as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing. Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Now, I actually started to get a bit ahead of myself again, as you will know, if you're a regular listener, I have literally been recording these like days before they're due to come out, which is very unlike me.
So I sat down the other day with all my team and we planned out the next, I don't know, six, seven episodes. And then the world, did something. And I thought, Oh no, I really need to talk about that. So we've moved episodes again, but that's fine because that's kind of one of the advantages of doing it as quick as I am doing it as it were.
I mean, there's good and bad to batching and doing things on the fly. So at the moment doing it on the flight is helping because I wanted to address something that has happened, in the marketing space. So Threads have just come out. Instagram, Facebook Meta have released a new social media platform which is in, meant to be a competitive thing towards Twitter.
And it's not that I want to sit and talk about Threads, because I really don't, and I'm not on it, so I don't know anything about it, so that's not going to be of any help, if that's what you're thinking this episode is. It's that I want to talk about around this subject of... How do you know whether to do something new?
When do you know something has worked or not worked? And how to stay in your lane and keep your head down and get on with the things that you need to be getting on with and not get necessarily distracted and swayed by other stuff? So, It came out and suddenly my Instagram feed is full of here's my first Thread, here's what's on Threads, and then of course all the social media people are putting on there, well not even just social media people, marketing people, and someone made a joke about, you know, give two days and there'll be a course on how to use Threads.
You know, everyone's commenting on it and I get it. If people are in that space, absolutely. They should be commenting on it. If they've got a social media business, if they've got a marketing business, I get why this would be something they're talking about and jumping on. However, I have to say, obviously my feed is full of business owners that not only I know, but ones that are in my world.
And I see them all or see a lot of them jumping on Threads and saying, you know, I'm on Threads and here it is, and this is what I'm doing. And I have to start questioning to myself, like why, and how's that helping their business and how, how have they decided that they need another social media platform?
So now this, I have to say this podcast is not in any way aimed to judge or shame or anything. It's just my thoughts and views on it. In fact, I had a very lovely message, which I shared on my Instagram the other week. About someone had listened to my podcast episode about when things are hard in your business and what to do and said it was like a big warm hug and it was lovely, which is my aim.
So I certainly don't want you to think I'm sat here judging you or judging anybody going, what are you doing on that new platform? That's not the case. What I'm doing is, I guess, explaining my thoughts, my approach to these things, and it may or not, or may help you in yours. So the first thing is when something new comes out, it's really hard not to jump on it, right?
Cause everyone's jumping on it and you don't want to be the one person that's not on the platform that everyone's talking about. Because in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, being part of a community and being in people's world and having people around us is one of his needs. I'm sure he says it much more eloquently and he doesn't mean social media, but that is part of our needs.
So if we think everyone is doing something and we're not there and we're not invited to the party or we're not getting involved, then we will automatically want to make sure that we are part of that party. So it is absolutely human nature to want to get involved in something that everyone else is involved in.
But one of the things that really kind of not surprised me, one of the things that really made me think was some of the people moving on to Threads and creating accounts and posting on Threads haven't been consistent on their own social media. They haven't posted consistently on the ones that they're currently on.
They are not killing it on those platforms as in, they've got it all sussed and therefore they've got enough time and space to take on another platform. These things, like, let's move business to one side, but from a mental health point of view, like, I really don't like social media. I really don't. I have a very curated feed.
I literally block and mute people on a regular basis if they give me anything but positive vibes. The only people I really follow and look at their stuff are my members and my community and people in my world. I don't look at competitors. I don't look at some friends because they do similar stuff to me and I don't want to see what they're doing.
So the last thing I want to do is go on another platform where my time is being taken. I can't remember what it was, whether it was a book or a podcast or something. I think it might have been a podcast. No, it wasn't. It was a book. It was, Rangan Chatterjee. Have I said that right? Probably not. Anyway, I'll make sure we link up to it.
I think it's called happy something, happy something. I'm obviously prepared for this podcast. Can't you tell? And basically he talks about phones in that, and I will make sure we link up to it in the show notes. In case you don't know where the show notes are, it's teresaheathwareing.com/ whatever number episode this is.
Which FYI, I better tell you what episode it is or otherwise that's not gonna be very helpful. It's episode 303. So it literally will be the numbers 303. Yeah, so I, He talks in this book about Phones and imagine if your phone was another person, right? So imagine you're sat on your sofa and your partner's sat next to you And imagine your phone is another person and how much attention you're giving that other person.
Imagine going out for dinner with your partner. And instead of talking to your partner, you're talking to this other person. And it really kind of made me think, and I was like, do you know what? It's not good being on our phones this much is not good. As you will know, if you are a regular listener, I'm a teen, I'm a teenager.
No, I'm not. I'm a mom to a teenager. And I hate the fact that she wants to spend so much time on her phone. So from a mental health point of view, I don't think it's great to have yet another platform to take our time, to take up our mental space, and to affect our mental health. I don't think it's, personally, I don't want that in my world.
Someone did say that, you know, All the people, you know, there's only nice people on Thread so far. And it's like, yeah, there will be so far maybe, but it won't be long. There's the issues aren't necessarily with the platforms. It's with the people on the platforms and what they're putting on them. And just because it's a new platform does not mean those people who are horrible and hateful and have the worst things to say are not going to come over to that platform.
Anyway, I've gone down a rabbit hole that I didn't expect to go down. So let's come back to the business thing. So how do we stay in our own lane? How do we know what's working and how do we make a confident decision to change when we know something isn't working? This is a really hard question. Because people come to me all the time and they go, I've done this thing and it's not working.
And then I speak to them and go, how much have you done it? And how often have you posted it? And what have you done from it? And inevitably 9 out of 10 times, it's not the thing that isn't working. If the fact that they either haven't done it enough, they haven't been consistent enough, or they haven't shown up in the way that they should be on that particular thing.
So when people say social media doesn't work, you know, have you tried all the various different things? Have you been consistent? When I was watching something the other week with Jasmine Starr, I'm in social curator and, and I don't catch any of her stuff really, and wildly, I'm not entirely sure I caught this one, but she talks about how do I know when it's, you know, when something is working, as in if I try a new social media strategy on my Instagram.
And she said 90 posts. Like, it should be 90 days if you're posting every day, but if you're not, it's 90 posts. She said to me, not to me, she said on this thing that, you know, if you do that for 90 posts or 90 days consistently, And then come and speak to me, there's a fair chance I'm going to say, yeah, it's not working.
And I just want you to like, think about that for a second. It's like me and my podcast, and I've told this story a million times over, but it's always a good one to tell. I said I was going to do my podcast for 12 months consistently before I made a decision. And it wasn't until month nine that suddenly it had like the hockey stick effect where it was tagging along pretty nice and then suddenly it was like, whoosh, went up there, got loads of downloads. My husband was like, what did you do? My team members were like, what did you do? And I did nothing different. The only thing I could put it down to was consistency.
And this is another thing I see all the time. People start something like a podcast, they do a few episodes, stop. Then have a break, then do a random one episode. Then don't do any for three weeks. Then do another episode. Then I haven't done any for two months. And it's like, that isn't how it works. It works through consistency.
So if you are thinking, well, Threads might work because the others didn't. Have you honestly, and this isn't, like I said, this isn't shame. This isn't judgment. This is for you to honestly ask yourself these questions. Have I honestly done what I needed to do on those other platforms? And if you can answer, yes, I have.
Then yeah, great. Try something new, do something new. I want to remind you that it is that consistency that makes business owners successful when you find someone that you like, you know, let's say you're new to this podcast. I'm on episode 303. I have done. I have never, ever missed a week ever. Right. And I don't say that to be a big head.
I don't say that to be like, check me out. I say that to go when I say I'm going to do something, I do it and you can trust me that I am going to do this. You can trust that I will show up and give you a new episode every single week. And that's why I've been able to grow an audience from it.
That's why I have customers from my podcast because I've consistently shown up and done it. So when people come to me and go, it doesn't work. If they haven't consistently shown up and done it, then it might not work. And You won't really ever know cause you haven't done it consistently. So that's the one thing I want to say that, you know, if you're sat there thinking, I haven't really put my all into the other platforms, is it such a good idea to get a new platform or to follow the trend?
The other thing I want to say is just because people are successful on different things. And again, I'm not necessarily even talking about everyone moving to Threads or when clubhouse opened, everyone going over to clubhouse. And when TikTok, I've never, like, I've been on TikTok, I think, just to look at it, and I deleted it after 24 hours because I knew for my mental health and my time, it would not be useful to me.
I know there are some businesses that are over successful using those platforms, crazy successful, made loads of money, but that doesn't mean I need to. It doesn't mean that I have to go to that platform to be successful. There are people, there are businesses out there who don't even have social media and make a lot of money.
You know, there are people where it's all done a referral or it's all done through PR or it's all done just through social media. Like you don't have a website. So it's not to say that don't do these things, but just know that you don't have to do these things. You don't have to be on those things to be successful and to show up and to and to bring money into your business.
So, like I said, the first thing or the kind of one thing I want to think about is Have you been consistent and can you honestly go, I have shown up consistently and done this thing for a good amount of time, i. e. three months, and it's not worked, and I'm not getting the results I want, and it doesn't even mean that it won't ever work, it might mean you need to tweak it.
So that's the first thing. The second thing is, I want you to think about, You can make more money. You can't make more time. And if our time is a premium as a business owner, it's an absolute premium. And one of my main jobs to myself is, am I staying focused? Am I doing the right things? And again, you've been in my world for a while.
You'll know, I talk about, you know, does it make the boat go faster? Which came from an amazing talk we had from Laura Try, who rode the ocean, um, rode the ocean, like. I just say that really flippantly, and what ocean truly is it like? So she rode from like, somewhere like Spain, I've got this really wrong, over to Antigua.
It was definitely from that side of the world to Antigua. And this woman is an absolute rock star, she's phenomenal. And she came and did a talk in the... online event I have for my members. And basically her, her whole thing was, we would only do something if it was going to help us make our boat go faster.
And this is the question I ask myself all the time as I get distracted down a rabbit hole, which I do because I am not superhuman. I will stop myself at some point. Sometimes it's minutes in, sometimes it's half an hour later and go, Teresa, is this making the boat go faster? And if it's not, you need to stop.
So. I want you to be fierce with your own time. I want you to be the, you know, gatekeeper of your own time and decide that your time is the most valuable thing in the world and therefore you don't need it being sucked up and taken away by things that are not important. Now, Will I never be on Threads? I don't know.
I will see what happens. But the other thing, like, because it's basically Twitter, but new, you know, so it's like, well, was everyone consistent on Twitter before? Because if you weren't, then why are you going to Threads? Like, it just, the whole thing blows my mind, quite honestly. But like I said, I didn't come on here to shame people who have joined and be like, what the hell have you done?
Not at all. Just to say to yourself, I give you permission if you think you need it, that you don't have to follow the crowd and follow everybody else, that you can be selfish and go, my time is worth more than this. And I know doing XYZ would get me more customers or grow my business more or have me shown up more or do better things for my business than necessarily joining a new platform.
So like I said, it was a bit of an odd one. I wanted to address the fact that this has happened. And just to remind you that, like I said, your time is so very valuable and it's so easily distracted by so many things already as a business owner that we really don't need to add something else.
But those are my thoughts. So anyway, I hope you've had a good week or have a good week. If you're listening to this on Monday, I will be back next week. Talking about the sunk cost fallacy. If you don't know what that is, then make sure you tune in next week to find out. Have an awesome week and I will see you then.
15 min
July 10, 2023Permission to create your dream business, on your terms
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the importance of aligning your business decisions with what feels right for you, rather than conforming to industry norms or seeking validation from others.
In this episode I share my recent experience of how and why I have made decisions in my business, that goes against the advice of the online business industry.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Why you need to trust your gut instincts and not be swayed by the opinions of others

How the Dream Business Club has changed over time and who it now attracts

Why I have changed my pricing structure to move away from Grandfather pricing, which is not the done thing in an online business

I'd love to know if you have an experience of going against the norm in your business, or if this episode has inspired you to do it in the future - please drop me a DM on social media and let me know!
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Find out more about The Dream Business Club
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Your Dream Business Podcast with me, your host, Teresa Heath Wareing. How are you doing this week? I got lots of messages from lots of you about last week's episode and how useful it was and how you thought that, you know, the timing was perfect. I just feel like a lot of people are going through a lot of stuff at the moment, and that's why I want to do an episode on when things go hard in your life, how do you then keep going in your business?
So, I really hope if you got a chance to listen to it, it did help. If you haven't listened to it, then please go back and listen to last week's episode. I think it was quite a good one. This week I wanna talk to you about some changes I've made in the club.
And the reason I wanna tell you these changes and talk about it is because I am hopefully gonna give you permission to do what you want to do in your business regardless of what is the norm or what people expect or think, or have done it in different ways all that time. So as you know, I have an online membership or you might not know, in case you don't know. I have an online membership and it's pretty awesome.
And the membership started off, it was actually called Marketing That Converts Academy, so that when I first started back in the day, like four years ago, I've had my membership now. I, my background's marketing, my degrees in marketing and I know a lot of stuff to do with marketing. And I set up this academy, this membership in order to help small businesses with their own marketing and help them develop their businesses through marketing their businesses better.
And over the years I have changed and it has changed dramatically. I and now the club, it's called Your Dream Business Club is much more focused around business in general as well as obviously, you know, the marketing stuff is still there, but definitely focused around, you know, running a business in general, but also now includes a lot of mindset, a lot of coaching because I've developed and I've been, become a qualified coach.
And I it just now is a much more rounded product. And like I said, and I have changed, hugely in those four years. Now, I've invested and spent a lot of money on me and making sure that, you know, I'm at the top of my game and I can offer the best service I can. And when I first opened the what was called the academy, I opened the doors at $29. Right.
Which now kind of makes me smile because that feels like a million years ago. And what normally happens in the online space and what is the done thing is that you grandfather people in at the price they came in at. So if you joined on day one, which some of them did, they were given the price that it was then, and then if the price went up, they stayed on that price.
And this is a done thing for memberships. Okay, this is what is kind of the norm. This is what people do. And say, except it didn't quite sit right with me. And, and I was realizing that there was a big difference, not only in cost, because the club is now 222 a month. You know, which, when you think about 2000 a year to be coached by me is bugger all.
But that's what the, the club is. So you pay 2000 pounds, I guess if you're in pounds, it's like 2000. If your dollars, it's 2,222, for the year. And you get to be in my world and I get to coach you in a group setting as well as get access to all of the, the club stuff and the mindset calls and the content hours and the coworking and all that jazz.
But like I said, I've changed and the people that I'm attracting now have changed because when people are paying that kind of money, they take it really seriously. And so they should. I don't ever want someone to join my world and it be one of those things that they just sit and they have and they don't take action because that's no good to them, and it's no good to me.
I love seeing people take action. I love seeing that people. It can make a difference in their business if they take some steps. And I'm not saying that people came in at the lower amount, weren't doing that, but the people I'm attracting now are a different type of person. So anyway, I went away to that Mastermind when I was speaking in Nashville.
And I was talking to someone who doesn't have an online business, and they were talking about increasing pricing and all this sort of thing, and they were asking me about like what my pricing is. And, and I told 'em what the cost was and they said something about, you know, oh the number of people you got at that amount. That's really good.
And I was like, yeah, but you have to remember, not everyone is at that amount. And fyi, this is always something worth remembering when you see someone else's membership and you think, oh my God, they've got loads of members, they must be earning loads of money, not always the truth. So anyway, they were like, what do you mean the price didn't go up?
And I'm like, well, for those people they get grandfathered in and they're like, but that's mad. Like, and it started me going down this kind of route of just because I've been a loyal shopper at Tesco's doesn't mean I get 2019 prices, let's say. You know, just because you shopped somewhere doesn't mean that they grandfather in the price.
And I realized that the online space was one of the only places that did that. But yet what I offered, how I showed up, the difference I could make in people's business had changed dramatically. The cost of the club has changed dramatically, and please bear in mind it took four years to get to that point, but, It's a huge difference from day one.
So I started to think about this and think about who I was now attracting and think about the work that I was expecting people to do on their business and how I was expecting them to show up. And I just thought it wasn't sitting right, that I had people in the club who were still paying $29 a month when if anybody wanted to join, they had to come in at the higher level.
So, I gave it some thought and I literally got a list of all my members and I looked at everyone who was paying under a certain amount and it was literally the most loyal, loving people ever. Cuz obviously they've been in for a long time and I know them all personally. I know what their partners do. I know how many children they've got.
Like I literally know these people. And the decision to increased their pricing knowing there was a fair chance I was going to lose them was the worst decision ever. As in for me to have to make. It wasn't the worst decision. It was the hardest decision for me to have to make. Cuz I literally looked at these people and I was like, oh my God.
But I love them and I love them and I know them and I'm friends with them now. And they're amazing. And they're amazing. But I had to really think about I what was I trying to show with my business? How was I trying to stand out? What were the things that I was trying to do in terms of the business? And I made the decision to contact them and basically say, I have decided to increase your prices.
So basically anybody under a certain figure, were having their prices increased, not up to the 2 22 because they have been loyal and have been in for a long time, but to move them up to a higher amount. And this isn't done in the online space. People don't do this like this is unheard of. And I spoke to the lovely Cali from the membership geeks and I was like, what do you think?
And she said, your business, do what you like. And I was like, yeah, it is. And you're right. So I decided to personally emailed them and I invited them onto a call with me to say, I want to explain what's happening with the club. And I got on a call with them and I had a chat and basically said, this has been the hardest thing ever for me to do.
And I genuinely don't want to, to do this because I love you all dearly, but I know I've gotta do this for my business. And for kind of putting a line in the sand in terms of like, you know, this is where I'm at now. Like people have to pay this level to be with me. So, they all took it brilliantly and they were all very kind.
And I said to them, if you think this is a money making exercise, believe me, it's not because I knew a chunk of them would leave. I knew I would. And I had to look at that as well in the list of like who might go also in the list of, how much am I going to lose? Cuz I knew I would lose money doing this, but it just felt so much.
It felt so much more in alignment with me because it's like, no, actually to get access to me, I do cost this much now, and it is important that I align with that. So I made the very hard decision. I spoke to them all. I've emailed them, they've been coming back to me. There is a huge chunk of them who won't be staying and that's fine.
And it's not always down to a cost thing either. It's down to a, you know, I want you to show up differently. I want you to do the work. I want you to, to, you know, I want businesses that are doing X, Y, Z. So yeah, so I did that. I increased my pricing from grandfathered pricing, which is not a done thing in the online space, but I wanted to prove to them that one, it's your business.
You get to decide even when it's not the done thing. And I was doing that. And two, you've gotta do what's right for you and your dream business. And for me, that felt very much in alignment of what I was doing. So I just wanna say to you today that it is your decision. This is your business. And sometimes when we ask other people's opinions and we do things by committee, we are taking on their fears, their doubts, their mindset issues, and that potentially is impacting us.
So if something feels so right in your gut and you are like, do you know what? I've just gotta do it. I'm just gonna go and do it. Then do it. Even if it's hard, which it was. It was very hard. And over the next few weeks, I am going to be losing people outta my membership, who I love dearly and who have been with me since the very beginning, but, I know in terms of going forward, it was the right thing for me to do.
So it's your business. You get to decide. You can ask other people's opinions, but you do not have to pay any attention to them, and you can buck the trend. You don't have to do what your industry says has to be done. You don't have to do business the way that everyone else thinks you should do it. It's your business. You get to decide.
So, I just wanted to give you that really quick update and basically to say I'm doing these hard things too. I'm making these decisions that are tough and, and it's not easy, but we have to do what aligns with us and then what feels good in our world. So that is what I have done, over this last week or so, which has been incredibly tough.
But it's been, it's been a good exercise in me going, no, this is what I want for my business. These are the people I want in the club. So if you are one of those people that is ready to do some work, ready to invest in yourself, do wanna move forward, but need that accountability. No one needs another course.
And I dunno how many times I need to say this, but no one needs another course. And what we need is accountability and understanding of who we are in our business. You need to work with someone who, like me, will take into account who you are, your business, what season of life you're in, what you actually want from your world, and who will help empower you to go out there and get it, not make you feel like the only way you can succeed is being in my world.
That is not my job. My job is to empower you to know that you are doing the right thing because you've chose to do it. And to give you the tools and strategies and and mindset tactics where needed. But the idea is that my members eventually get to the point where they don't need me anymore, and that's okay.
And I did wanna come on and talk about the pricing, just because I had someone say the other week that they didn't think they could afford me and they hadn't seen that they can join the club for two grand a year, like an entire 12 months for 2000 pounds of my time. A coaching call every single month, a mindset call every single month, a content hour.
Not to mention every flipping course you can imagine, which like I said already, you don't need to, you don't need to do all these courses, but sometimes you do need to know how to do something and there's very strategic courses in there. So anyway, the club is open, it always is. I'm very, passionate about. I'm ready when you are.
So, we will make sure we link up to the show notes, but otherwise, go and check out teresaheathwareing.com/theclub. And yeah, maybe you'll come and join us. Maybe you'll start smashing your goals with us and we will be there to cheer you on. Okay? Have a great rest of your week and I'll see you next week.
13 min
July 03, 2023How to show up in your business when life is hard
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the challenges of balancing personal life and business when things are not going as planned.
In this episode I discuss how as business owners our personal and business lives can be very much intertwined, and I share my top tips around what to do when managing both feels incredibly difficult.
I'd love to know if this episode helped, and whether you had any lightbulb moments whilst listening to it? Please feel free to drop me a DM on my social media and let me know!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Practical action you can take to keep moving forward

Being able to prioritise what needs to be done

The importance of giving yourself grace and practicing self-care

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast, and as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing, and welcome to today's episode. How are you doing? So? I am recording this episode on the Wednesday before it goes out on the Monday, which is very unlike me. But one thing I pride myself on is being honest and upfront and showing you that business is not always the Instagram dream that we want it to be.
And these last few weeks I have really, really struggled to get myself organized and get things ahead of time. In fact, I haven't sent an email to my list for two weeks, I think now. And before that I was sending it like, I think I was just about sending it consistently as I normally do on a Tuesday and a Thursday.
But I have had a ton of stuff in these last six weeks. Like, work stuff from traveling to meetings, to being away from home for like two and a half weeks in the States, and then being back, and then being away up in, Newcastle, doing my own in-person events, doing other people's events. And then I have had a lot go on in my personal life, and it's not to say that I wanna sit here and share with you all, not that I don't normally share, but some of these things that have happened are not my stories to tell.
But the reason I wanted to mention it again, is not for sympathy. It's not for people going, is everything okay? And you know, like anything that I really don't want you to do that, that's fine and I am fine. I think the reason I wanna talk about it is because, or the reason I've brought it up is because stuff happens in our life.
And what do we do when literally it feels like the world is falling apart around you and you are still trying to show up and run your business? Because that is one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do, ever. I was thinking about this, so I did a coaching call with my executive club members and we're really kind of changing up how things are happening.
And in fact, I came back from the States completely fired up of like, right, loads of changes are happening and then personal life kind of fell a bit on the floor and that all got shelved, obviously. But one of the things that is gonna change in the club is, is how I'm showing up and what I'm doing and, and I guess being more of the coach that I am, And doing more of that.
So I asked the members before my last coaching call if they could change one thing or like manage one thing better with them or their business that would make infinitely like an easier life for them or lead to them having a better business, what would it be? And you know what was fascinating is they all said different things, but it almost all boiled down to such similar stuff.
Now in my world, I, and actually in the executive club, we only have females. Not because I only have females, but that's only females in the club. And they, a lot of them have children and a lot of them said, if I could just be more organized, if I could not have procrastination, if I could just focus a bit better, if I could not feel guilty about, you know, spending time with my family when I spend it with them and then feel guilty about spending time at, won't wanna spend it with them.
And it kind of reconfirmed to me, not only with what's happened in my world, but them as well. That actually your personal life and your business life when you are a business owner are like literally so intertwined. It's unbelievable. And how do you manage that? You know it's great when things are fine, but how do you manage it when things aren't fine?
And quite honestly, you want to go and hide in bed and you don't wanna be a grownup anymore. And you don't wanna be an adult and you've done enough adulting and you want to now be a child that someone looks after.. Cuz sometimes that sounds really, really lovely. But not only do you have to adult, but you have to be your boss as well.
And you have to motivate yourself. You have to be your cheerleader and you have to be the person who cracks the whip, and you have to be the person who does the work. And it's hard, and I'm not even gonna pretend for a second, it isn't. It is one of the hardest things I have to do. So, When life doesn't quite go as planned, and I've talked about this on before on the podcast, as you will know if you are a long listener or have been in my world a long time.
My mom passed away a few years back and actually as I record this, tomorrow is her birthday, and, and I recorded an episode around then basically saying that, How do you manage when hard things happen? Because obviously that was a really hard thing that happened in my life and, and I thought, oh, should I do another one that's similar?
And I thought, yeah, because it constantly changes and how I deal with things constantly changes. So I think the first thing I kind of think about, and when I talk to my members, so when they say to me, I wish I could be more organized. I wish I didn't procrastinate, and then they talk to me about what is happening in their life.
I have a huge amount of empathy for them in the sense of you know, they could be fighting and dealing with some big stuff in their life, and therefore, the first thing I asked them to do, and the first thing I would ask you to do, and maybe this has hit you at a time you needed to hear this, is to give yourself grace.
If you were employed there is a fair chance you would just be off work. Okay. There is a fair chance you would say, I'm taking two weeks off. I need to sort myself out and I'll see you then. And you probably wouldn't think a whole lot about what was going on at work because you could potentially just hand that over and someone else would pick it up or it'd have to get done. And that's not your concern.
You can't always do that when it's your business. But I do want to encourage you where possible to start to really address and review, what do you have to do? Now, you know, I'm all about pushing people forward, getting your goals, achieving the next best things, doing the stuff.
But one thing, and I think I mentioned it last week when I gave the review of the Kajabi conference and Brendon Burchard one thing, and I think the word he used was motion and always making sure you're in motion. Now that motion doesn't mean constantly thriving or constantly growing or constantly building and selling more and doing more things.
Motion can mean doing the bare minimum you have to do to get by. That is okay. And if life is throwing you all the absolute rubbish and it will do. And I guess lots of my members and lots of people in my community are similar age to me. So I'm 44 and I think you get to this point in your life and your kids are growing up or you know, and they're bringing issues to your door and then your parents are getting old and that causes other issues and.
Like the, I just feel like this is a, a stage of life and a season of life where suddenly there is a lot going on and, and so I just want to ask you to give yourself a bit of grace and to understand and to know you are not a superman or superwoman and you can't do everything. So if for the next week or two weeks, or even for the first quarter of a year like I have done, or.
Even for a year, you don't start brand new stuff or you don't show up every whatever and do all the stuff that is okay. What you need to do is continue with your business and ensure it makes money so that you have a business, and if that means doing the bare minimum, then that's fine. And what I mean by bare minimum is, so in my world, in the online space, what do I have to show up for?
I have to show up for the stuff I've already committed to and for the stuff that my members do. So I have to show up for a coaching call. That is absolutely what I do. That's my job. If I put someone else in my place, they would really wonder what the hell was going on and they wouldn't like it. So I have to show up for my members, so that's fine.
I have to show up and do the podcast. I have to show up and be interviewed or talk on stage or do some events in other people's groups. That has to be me. I don't have to make some changes in my business. I don't have to start something new. I don't have to plan something huge for September or put on another date in the diary for an in-person event.
I don't have to do any of those things. I will not lose my income if I do tho, if I don't do those things, I can say no to speaking events. I could say no to being on other people's podcasts. So you have to decide how that looks for you. If you have clients, the very first thing you do and put the top of your list is work for your clients, cuz that is your money coming in.
So you've gotta think about where is the money coming in, what is the most important thing I do? The next thing. And I think these are kind of equal level. I don't think one actually is more important than the other is looking after yourself. How are you making sure that you are giving yourself some space or time or, kind of giving yourself the love that you need and the support you need and the care that you need?
And often, especially as women, especially as parents, we put ourselves last, like, you know, again, I, one of my true go-tos is if everything goes absolutely pear shaped in my life. I stop cooking, I stop planning food, I stop eating good stuff. And I like eating nice stuff. I like cooking food. But it's almost like, and I talk about this and I'm definitely gonna do a post about it, but it's almost like in your head you have a hundred percent.
Okay. And that a hundred percent is divided up into sections of your life. And for me, that looks like a chunk is my business, a chunk is my family, a chunk is my husband, a chunk is, you know, My self-care, a chunk is the stuff I do in the garden. A chunk might be the dogs, but what happens is when something massive happens.
So, for example, let's go back to the example of when my mom passed away, that suddenly took up 50% of my a hundred percent, okay, that took up 50%, which meant that everything else had to get squashed or taken out. I can't make more capacity in my head. I only had a hundred percent. So if I've only got a hundred percent and 50% has been taken up by the fact that something massive in your life has happened.
Suddenly other things are gonna be squeezed out and gone. So for instance, my health, my self care, my cooking for myself out the window, my tolerance with the dogs out the window. Other things like, so actually at one point, I was like, I can't even, and this is really sad and I got over this very quickly, but like I can walk around the garden and look at it, but I can't think of my to-do list of all the stuff I need to do.
So someone else just needs to manage that for the time being until I'm cool to come back and like take over my plants. Because the capacity in your head is being taken up. So it isn't a case of you have to find more capacity or if you need to double down further on things. It is a case of you only have a hundred percent and if something is suddenly taking up such a big percentage, you need to be realistic and go, where am I getting rid of those percents and then not beat yourself up about it.
So I don't beat myself up about the fact I haven't cooked a meal for a couple of weeks. I don't because right now, like and, and when you are in times of stress and life and all those good things, right now, if that's all you can manage and you have to live off takeaway, then that's fine. If right now you can't cope with doing all the additional things you do, then that's fine.
So I think that's the thing. I think it's about prioritizing what has to be done. Understanding that some stuff that don't have to be done are not going to get done, and you are not gonna make yourself feel guilty about that. And you are not gonna beat yourself up about that because your capacity in your head, your a hundred percent of attention, a huge chunk of it's now being taken up on something.
So it might be a sick parent, it might be a sick child, it might be. I don't know, problem with school or whatever it might be. There might be. So, it might be you that's not well or whatever. So those are the first two things. And then the third thing is to feel okay about that, but to make sure you don't stay there.
Because it would be really easy for lots of people to go, do you know what? This has happened, and then this has happened, and then this has happened. And believe me, I've got some people in my world that I am gobsmacked they're still standing like, and not only are they still standing, they're still showing up, they're still doing work, they're still working hard on their business.
And sometimes I have to say to those people, I think you need to just like just take a breath and stop for just a day. And some people will find every excuse under the sun not to get stuff done. And I think only you and only them can understand which of those people they are and it's only you or them that has to deal with that.
It's not my business that would be affected if I don't show up like. If I, sorry, it's not my business it's being affected if they don't show up, it's their business. So I can only do what I can do for me and my business. The same for you. And. If you are one of those people that maybe go, okay, yeah, I've used every excuse under the sun to not show up and do the work, then ask yourself, why am I doing that?
Why have I used every excuse under the sun to not shove and work. Sometimes when life goes awry, work is my happy place. Work is the place I come to and I do even more work because actually it's the one thing in my world that feels very under control. If you are the person that is trying to keep moving and keep that motion going when all about you is going to shit, then you need to ask yourself, do I need to take some time?
And if I do need to take some time, what am I gonna, how long am I gonna take and what am I gonna do? So for instance, one of my Exec Club members, is dealing with some stuff at the moment and we kind of said to her, she definitely needs to take the next day off to just be.
But also in her head, be prepared to take the next, further two days off and make sure that everything in your world is gonna be fine if you are not around for the next three days. But I think for me anyway, I have to have a deadline to it. Now, one of the things that's really helpful in my world is I do have to show up.
A podcast has to go out every week, and normally I'm very, ahead of time, which would give me a bit of breathing space. But at the moment I'm not. So I do have to show up. I do have to do the work. I do have to, do a coaching call with the exec Club members. I do have to do stuff in the club.
And luckily I have done a lot of the work and I've used a lot of tools and I come out of stuff fairly quickly, which is good. But if I didn't have that thought in my head of, right, okay, Teresa, you can stay and watch Grey's Anatomy all day if you want on that particular day and not feel guilty about it. But that's one day only, and tomorrow you have to do something.
And it's funny, I'm sat here thinking, you know, feeling a little bit vulnerable, having this conversation with you, sort of saying, to myself, should I be sat here going? I've got it all sussed. I'm all great. I'm all brilliant. But no, I shouldn't be saying that because that would be admitting that life doesn't happen and life does happen and big and horrible and throw you off your path and knock you off your feet stuff happen.
Whether we like it or not, and when you are your business, they have a direct impact on you. Now, I do have this saying, which I fairly confident I stole from someone about sharing the scar and not the wound. And I do feel like I do that. So obviously if I wasn't in a good place, I wouldn't be recording this podcast because I wouldn't be in the mood or have the energy or the capacity to do it.
But I am recording the podcast, so I am absolutely fine. But that's not to say that if you had come and spoke to me a week ago that that would've been the case, you know? And hence why I'm probably recording this a bit later than I'd like. So I guess in this very short and odd episode, I wanted to say that first off, you will have to deal with stuff in your life that absolutely knocks you off your feet.
It's gonna happen. As much as I would love to wish that it never happened to any of us, I know it does. It's happening and happened to me. It's happening to my members, and things will come along and knock you off your feet. At those times there is nothing wrong with pulling in a bit and looking at what do I have to do to get me through and not feeling like you have to thrive at every point and moment in your life because you don't.
It's also useful to take your time to look after you, not only what's the minimum I have to do in the business, but what's the minimum I have to do for me, like I've just got back into my morning routine again because again, I threw it out the window when everything goes awry. I can't think of doing those things.
And maybe I would move out of it much, much quicker if I did continue with my routine, but I can't, and I don't, and I'm not gonna beat myself up about it. But for the last few days, I've got up, I've done my meditation, I've done my, me journaling and, and I'm feeling good. So, doing what you need to do is the next thing.
And then thinking about setting a limit on it, saying to yourself, obviously you'll have to see what happens in your world, but I'm gonna give myself this time and I'm not gonna feel guilty about it, and then I'm gonna try again. And you know what? And if you try again and you can't, then you stop again.
Because if you are broke, you don't have a business. So even if it's not you, the person that needs the additional help or is sick, or whatever the thing might be, if you are a broken person because of it all and because you're trying to do everything. Your business is not gonna succeed. But by slowing down and stopping just even for a short period of time can then reset you enough to bring you back and bring your energy back.
So I really hope that helps. I hope maybe some of you needed to hear this now and some of you needed to go, okay, yeah, I need to...
21 min
June 26, 2023Insights From America: My Top 5 Takeaways for Online Businesses
Today’s episode marks 300 episodes of the podcast, which feels amazing... it's not quite the special one I had planned (that's coming soon!), but it is still a must listen, especially if you're an online business.
In it I am giving you the inside info and sharing my key takeaways and themes from my trip to America, where I spoke at a seven figure mastermind for women owned businesses in Nashville, and attended the Kajabi Conference in Austin, which was filled with amazing speakers.
If any of these takeaways give you a particular lightbulb moment, please share on your social media, and let me know!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The key marketing tool that all online businesses need to be taking seriously

Why you need to take a critical look at how you spend your time

Why you shouldn't constantly be creating new things or trying to reinvent the wheel

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Believe It by Jamie Kern Lima
Find out more about Kajabi
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast, and as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing and welcome to episode 300. I have done 300 episodes of this podcast and sometimes it feels like I've done 30 and other times it feels like I've done 30,000. Hopefully it doesn't feel that bad to you.
Now I'm recording this episode and my dog is at my feet. This is, we've been together a long time. I'm very relaxed about this stuff, as you well know. So I apologize now if you can hear my dog moving or making a noise or whatever. But this is kind of, this is the real life. I am dashing in and out doing things and therefore I wanted to make sure my dog had some chance to see me and he sat by my feet. So I apologize if you hear these things.
Now. I wanted to plan something super special and amazing for episode 300. If you have listened for a while, you'll know episode 100 I had my husband down and we were interviewed by my very dear friend, BizPaul. And episode 200, I have my husband back on again. Cuz it's kind of nice just to do some kind of personal conversations.
And, you know, I, I guess it's kind of a little bit behind the scenes, but back then my husband used to work more in the business and since then he has retired from the Air Force and got himself a proper job. So, unfortunately, He is not in the business as much cuz he is actually, I was gonna say actually doing work.
I mean, when he was in the Air Force, he used to do some big scary stuff, but when he was around, he'd be around for days and days and days, but then he'd be gone for days and days and days. So it was like, I while, he was here he could do stuff in the business. Anyway, he doesn't anymore. So I decided a while ago I wasn't gonna have him in for episode 300, and I had some other thoughts and the timings just weren't right.
So I do have a special episode coming up. It's not recorded. I haven't decided what, what episode it's going to be. It won't be a million miles away, but it's not episode 300. So I'm really sorry, but this is just a normal episode of me talking to myself. So I apologize if you were hoping that we'd have some really cool different stuff.
Now, what I am gonna give you in this episode is if you have been following me along, if you follow me on Instagram, you will know for the past like almost six weeks. I have been in and out of home and I've been at various different speaking places. I've been at various different conferences. I've run two of my own events, and I thought I would just give you a little bit of a roundup of some of the things and themes that I've heard over the last six weeks. Because obviously, not only have I been speaking and attending things, but I have seen some amazing speakers too.
And I've met some amazing people. So I just thought I would take a really quick episode to tell you kind of some of the themes that were coming up. And lots of the things I guess that I've got for today's episode or some of the stuff I wanna say to you are based on online businesses, because one of the big things I did in these travels was I went to the Kajabi conference in Austin.
And obviously the Kajabi product is the product I use for my online business, and therefore everyone at that event had an online business and therefore all the speakers were focused towards online businesses. So some of those things are gonna be online, but I still think they're good messages even if you don't have an online business.
So let's start with the first thing I did. I spoke in Nashville at a Seven Figure Mastermind for females, and it was awesome. I have to say I was very nervous. I was thinking these are seven figure businesses. I am not a seven figure business. And I was a little bit intimidated by who they might be and what they might know and whether my content and I would be good enough for them.
And I am super glad to say that actually it was lovely and they were lovely and very down to earth and it was really inspiring to be sat in a room with them. But I also didn't feel at all threatened by them, which was lovely or felt like I wasn't good enough, which just proves surrounding yourselves with the right people, no matter what level they're at.
And actually for me, it was really lovely to be surrounded by people who were at a stage beyond me so that I could be inspired by them as well as speaking for them. And I picked up a couple of things from there, which I think is, really interesting. So one of the first things I picked up was the fact that these women were all about diversifying their income.
So they, and, and actually this goes to contradict something I heard later on, at Kajabi, however, I still think it's important. So they talked a lot about having different revenue streams coming in. So they weren't putting all their eggs in one basket. They weren't going, I've got this one thing and this is all I'm gonna do and all I'm gonna sell.
Or I've got this one client now I have to say as well the predominantly the businesses there. Now, they weren't all but predominantly they were in, real estate. So either they bought properties and rented them out, or they did short term rentals and that sort of thing, or they flipped properties. So that was really interesting for me to see that, that, like I said, it was, they were all about different revenue streams.
The other thing that kind of really inspired me was some of these women had jobs, right? Which blew my mind. They not only had businesses that were hitting the seven figures, but they still had jobs because they were still in their own mind, getting to a point where they were comfortable enough to go, I can now leave my job.
But what blew me away more than anything is these women were working their backsides off. Right? They were literally, Working so hard because they were working a full-time job. And I dunno whether, you know, obviously if you're in the States, you will know, but you might not know that in the UK we get considerably more annual leave than you do.
So vacation time, so I was talking to one woman who works and runs her business and she gets 14 days annual leave a year. 14 days, right? So I then started having a conversation with her about, well, how do you even divide that time up? What do you use it on? And she's like, I was get, she's getting married, so she's using five for that.
So I was like, well, what about your honeymoon? Well, I just won't have one. And then she, and then I'm using four or five for Tony Robbins, and that again, blew me away. So not only did she have very limited holidays, she had a business on the side of her. Actual employee job. And then she was using her most valuable time to go and do personal development stuff.
And I have to say, they all made me kick myself up the backside a bit cuz I thought these women are killing it. And, and I know there's about balance and I know we wanna live our lives and you know, I am totally about that. But it made me kind of had a bit of a hard, long look at myself and go. Am I working as hard as I could be?
Am I showing up as much as I could be? Or am I making excuses for myself? Now. I'll talk about something that Brendan Brichard said later at, at the Kajabi event, but that kind of coincides with this, but, and it's not about beating yourself up going, well, you should be working harder. No, only you can decide that.
I sat there and looked at these women and thought, wow. Like one, I could look at Diversing diversifying my income, and it was a lot about investments and things like that. And two, I could ask myself, am I really working as hard as I could be? So that for me was really, really awesome to hear kind of those women and how they work.
So that was the first thing. The other thing that I really liked, that one of the other speakers talked about was micro, daily micro actions. And actually this was a theme the whole way through, and I've done content on this and I'll probably do content again on this. And I definitely do this when I teach people how to goal set.
It's like, what's that one next step that you can take that takes you a bit closer to that goal? Because sometimes a goal looks so big that you can't even start to think, how do I get there? So it's about breaking them down into micro actions, and by having lots of different micro actions, they will then build up to bigger actions and they will then build up to bigger changes.
So, It's about making it, even if it's like, so for instance, someone was talking to me about, steps and they were like, it's not about doing 10,000 steps every day. It's about going, where am I today and tomorrow can I do a few more steps? And it could be literally 10 more steps. Sorry, my dog is now squeezing a ball and making a noise, so I apologize.
But it's about like, you know, Doing 10 more steps than you did the day before. It's not about trying to hit 10,000 every day because someone said that's what you should do. It's about where am I today and what small improvement can I make tomorrow and what small improvement can I make the day after and what small improvement.
And if you're just constantly building on it, then by the end of a month you will be doing considerably more steps, but hopefully it won't have felt like you've had to suddenly up it to 10,000 overnight. So, That was like a really good and interesting one for me to hear again. What else did I get from that event?
Oh, we had an amazing woman talking about, masculine and feminine and in what parts of our business do we show up more masculine and what parts do we show up more feminine? And that was really interesting. And actually, I might invite her to come on the podcast, even though I don't technically do interviews anymore.
I will still have people on who I find fascinating and think it's interesting for you. So then I went to the Kajabi conference. Which was excellent. It always is. I will link up to Kajabi if you have an online business or want an online business and definitely check them out. They are excellent.
These noises you can hear are my dog. I have, I don't know how much you can hear this until we listen to this back, but if you hear funny noises, it's not me, it's my dog. I'm sorry. But basically we had some phenomenal speakers at Kajabi. We had Brendon Burchard, we had Jamie Kern Lima, if I said her name right.
Really, really good ones. And actually I want to tell you a couple of things about, about what Brendon said. So a couple of things that were really interesting and actually the theme the whole way through was if you are not advertising, what even are you doing? And this, I have to say again, was another bit of an ass kicking for me and a bit of a wake up call.
I have been very lucky and that I am very grateful that I have managed to build an audience without particularly spending a huge amount of money on ads. I do very occasionally do ads. I have to say I have not done them for a long time. Occasionally, I'll boost something on Instagram. I know that is not the best way to do ads, and I will happily tell people don't do that, but I have.
But actually what was fascinating was everybody that spoke and everybody that had got the sizeable businesses were spending a sizeable amount of money on Facebook ads, and they didn't start there. Obviously. None of them suddenly put 10 grand a day on Facebook ads. They started small, they worked out what worked, and then they kept going.
And that goes to the second point that I really got while I was over there was about like how much, how often do you create something and then go, oh, now I need to create something else. Now I need to create something else. Now I need to create something else. Well, the truth is like Brendon Burchard, who is obscenely famous and wealthy in this online world and has done stuff with Usher and Oprah and various presidents and whatever.
You know, this guy knows what he's talking about. He basically sells the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. And I think sometimes we get concerned that, oh right, we've sold it this once and only X amount of people bought it.
So that probably means we need to create something different. And I sat there and I actually thought about all the stuff I have in the membership, all the courses I've done, all the coaching I've done, and I have a ton of things I could sell and absolute ton of them. I don't, fyi, maybe I should. But also I feel like in the past I felt like I've had to reinvent the wheel every time and gone, oh, well I did a course on this and now I'll do a course on this.
But basically he was saying, you just keep selling the same course over and over and over and over again, and stop trying to create a new course and do a new thing and. Because by no means have you, exploited doesn't ever sound nice. It's a funny word, isn't it? But but basically you haven't exploited the course that you've got, you haven't made the most of that content that you've created already.
So actually it really good did make me think, okay, what have I already got that I could just go and sell tomorrow? So, I am not at that point yet, by the way. I have not suddenly come out with one of my courses and gone here we go buy this thing. But also he talked about the evergreen ness. And again, I could do this, you know, running those ads to some evergreen things.
And the other thing that was interesting is he talked about his, his process and how he does it. And he said it hasn't changed for years. And it's still working. And again, I find that really interesting because you know, you expect or think or feel that there's something new out there that you should be doing.
And the truth is, I'm not sure there really is that many new things. Now, don't get me wrong, there are nuances and things change, but when you look at someone like the size of Brendon Burchard, he's just been doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. And you know what was interesting as a speaker?
I mean, he's a phenomenal speaker. I really did enjoy him. I had a chance to ask him a question the day after. Oh no, same day. We, I had VIP tickets and. They do like a lunch and learn where they bring one of the speakers in and you get to ask questions. And I did. And we talked about speaking and I talked about how I could get more bigger gigs cuz obviously he speaks on the bigger stages.
But I had heard a lot of what he had said already and I've only seen him speak once before. So that was really fascinating as well. Cuz again, you know, Rather than thinking I've gotta bring out a new story, or I need a new learning or a new thing, he's just basically doing the same thing over and over and over.
And I dunno whether it's that consistency or the tenacity that's making him as successful as he is. But that was fascinating. So from him, I took one that basically you need to do ads. And lots of people there made me go, you need to do ads. And two, don't reinvent the wheel like, If you know, when you think about how many people are in this world and how many people have their own businesses, and how many people could potentially buy the thing that you're selling, to say you haven't scratched the surface is an understatement.
Like even someone of his level probably hasn't scratched the surface and there are still lots of other people that could buy that thing. So rather than inventing and coming up with something new, is there just a way that you can go, let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. So that was interesting.
The other thing that he talked about, Which again, like, so he went through his whole funnel and, and talked about the many upsells that he does, which kind of made me feel very uncomfortable if I'm honest. It made me cringe a little bit, but then again, how can I argue with the man who's making way more money than I am?
So that made me think, like I said, it's not that I'm necessarily gonna do it, but it did make me think. So the other thing that was fascinating and I was a bit kind of like, do I talk about this or not? Cuz. Me a couple of years back would've been very triggered by this, but I have to say again, I dunno whether it was cuz I'd been at that mastermind and seen these amazingly successful women working incredibly hard or whether I'm just in a different frame of mind now.
But he talked about, so he asked people to put their hands up and said, who works? Sorry, who goes on social media for an hour a day? And I didn't put my hand up because I am very good now.
If you've heard me talk about my own social media before, I now have a team member that helps me create the posts based off my content and then I do all the proactive and reactive engagement. So I'm the one, if you DM me, I am the person who dms back. She'll never do that because that's really important to me cuz you're having a conversation with me and therefore you should get me.
And I've been very fierce about that for years. But when it comes to me viewing social media, I am actually very good at not doing that. I mute a ton of people and a ton of people who are in my world, who are my friends, but they do similar stuff that I do, and therefore I mute them because I find it distracting.
The big people that I used to follow and love, I mute. I find it distracting. The people who I engage with are predominantly my members and people within my world who and my community. And I love the fact that, you know, that's whose feed, that's the content I see when I look at my feed. And obviously lots of gardening.
I see a lot of gardening stuff, which makes me happy. But no, so I'm generally very good. I don't spend a lot of time on social media....
24 min

About Your Dream Business

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Hi! I’m Teresa if you are a business owner who is striving to build a business and life you dream of on your own terms and doing something you love then this is the podcast for you!