Your Dream Business

By Teresa Heath-WareingBusiness Entrepreneurship Marketing

Your Dream Business episodes

June 19, 2023How to simplify and streamline your business for success
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about how to create a more simple business and life for yourself.
In this episode I talk about why making your business a success isn't always about adding things and growing, and why actually sometimes it's about taking those things away and streamlining instead.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How to streamline your business

Some ways I have simplified my business this year

The key question you need to ask yourself when you're overwhelmed

If you're listening to this and know someone who is overwhelmed, please feel free to share it with them, I'd really love you to do that!
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Check out Kajabi (affiliate link)
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
You are listening to Your Dream Business podcast with your host, Teresa Heath Wareing, and welcome to episode 299. I'm nearly at that all important 300. Now, you know what was funny? I'd got all these plans for episode 300, except life has become a little bit busy with going away and speaking and events and all that, but also with home stuff and family stuff and sometimes you just don't quite get to where you wanna be or get the thing done that you need getting done.
So it looks like what I had planned for episode 300 will now be a later episode, which is fine by me cuz it's not quite the time and that's okay. And the episode 300 will just be another average episode, which again, I am all right with because plans change, things change, things move. And as business owners, one of the cool things about it is that we stay flexible and we move and we are not absolutely rigidly stuck in a thing or, we don't take forever to change when we do change.
Man, I remember working in corporate marketing when I worked for Land Rover, it was a massive company. Like we had a whole legal department just for marketing because we had to be so careful of what we said and how we said it, and then it would have to go, like if we wanted anything done, the amount of approval it needed was nuts.
So, You can imagine that idea to actual getting it done would take forever. And one of the things I love about my small business is the fact that I can change and move and be flexible and be agile and do what I need to do that suits me and my business and hopefully always suits my audience and suits my members and my clients.
But importantly, and, and there's nothing selfish about this, is that it suits us because what's the point of being in business if we hate the thing that we do or we create a business that doesn't fit with us? And as you know, I have talked many, many, many times about what a dream business is and creating your own dream business.
So I won't go on about that here. That was not for today's plan. But today's episode does fit in really nicely because today I'm gonna be talking about how I am making my business simple. I've been in business for nearly nine, no, nearly 10 years. I can't remember. I think it's nearly 10, or is it nearly nine?
Anyway, I'll work that out. And I, over the time have built this amazing business that I love and adore and, and obviously over time you learn things and you tweak things and you change things, and you add things. I add team members, I add processes, I add systems. Like when you first start off in business, I think we make the mistake of thinking we need all those things from day one, and we don't necessarily need all those things from day one, and we certainly don't wanna have to pay for all those things from day one.
But what's happened over the years is I've added all these things and I've created this beast, and at the beginning of this year, I have been working on some personal stuff, which will be coming out at some point, and I will be sharing with you what I've been working on. But I decided that I needed to simplify things.
I needed to simplify the business, the processes, the systems, the team, and I needed to just create a more simple life for myself. Because when you have lots going on, it's, it's like more moving plates. It's more spinning plates. I always talk about, like imagine we are a hundred percent and normally work takes up, I dunno 35%.
And then home life takes up 20%. And then, if we look after elderly parents or children or whatever, that takes up another whatever percent. And then if we are trying to work out, that takes up another percent. If we're trying to eat healthy, that takes up another percent. And when something big happens in your world or when suddenly you're working on something that is taking a lot of your energy, It takes up more of the percentage, which means things have to move out.
We can't add more to our percentage because we only have the time we do and the energy that we do, and if anything, when we are dealing with big personal things. It may only take up an extra 20%, let's say, but energy wise it is whipping away a lot of your time. So even though you might think, well actually, you know that physically that thing I'm physically doing isn't actually taking up loads of time.
No. But in your head, the energy that's taking up is massive. So, Even if you're not getting stuff done and you're thinking, I don't understand, that'll be why, because your, the space it's taken up on your head is huge. And this happened to me at the beginning of the year. I started working on something personally that was taking up a huge amount of space and I started to look at the business and go, what do I really have to do?
I looked at what I could streamline, what I could not do anymore, what was the most important things in the business? And do you know what? Obviously I did this because I was dealing with something at the time. However, I think this is really helpful to do. I think sometimes we get caught in the trap of listening to other business owners.
I've got X amount of staff. I use this system, this system, this system, this system. I have this many processes. I'm constantly have to do this, this, this, this, this. I've got X amount of emails. I saw great posts the other day by Becci, who does my show notes about stop glamorizing being busy.
You know, I wanna be at a point where I get all my work done and then can go and sit in the garden or potter in my greenhouse, which I just adore. So for me, it was really important that I started to look at this. And what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna tell you some of the things and some of the ways I've simplified down my business, and then also give you an example of how I kind of did it with the event that I just ran back in May, which took away so much stress for me.
So let's just talk about the business. So one of the first things that you will know that I have done is I've reduced my team size and my decision to do that was really flipping hard. This was probably the hardest decision in everything because of the fact that I love the people who work for me, and I've been very fortunate to have them work for me for a long time.
Some of them have been with me like five, six years. So to make that decision was not an easy decision to make. But basically I looked at who was doing what and deciding did they really need to continue to do that. And I had key people in my business that yes, I needed and I wanted to keep them. But also I had people in my business who were doing things and not doing other things that they could do.
So for instance, I had Sophia, who was the podcast manager who managed the whole podcast, but actually I had Johanne who works in the business full time, and she had capacity to take that in. And she's worked with me now for almost three years, I think. And well, by the time this comes out, it probably is three years.
And for me it was like, actually, why isn't she doing it now? Like there's no need to have that additional person, that additional step, that additional payment and that additional process. And again, I made the decision not to edit these podcasts, just literally to record them as I record them and send them out because I've done them long enough, you know.
You know, I have a fairly okay quality. Well, no, I think I have a good quality mic and you know, a good quality setup, so you know that, you know, it's not horrific. But did I really need to have that person that edits? Did I need Phil in the business to edit, to do those things? To add that extra process? To do those extra steps?
And the truth is, I didn't. So I decided to remove some people from the business. And like I said, I am huge, huge advocates of them. They are amazing. I love them. At that point, I just didn't need that many people in the business, so I stepped away from those people and I reduced those kind of, not only physical people, but also reduced some of the processes, some of the steps, and even things like the fact that there's, you know, two additional pay people to pay for, or two additional invoices that need to come in.
It's like it's just adding all that bit of work. And like I said, I think I'd got into the habit of, oh no, someone you know with a business like mine should have a team of this. Well, no, I don't need it. Like actually, we are just as efficient and as more streamlined than we were. So that was the first thing I did, or one of the first things I did all that was crazy hard.
The next thing that obviously had an impact from changing the team was the processes. Did I need all those processes that we got? Were there processes that I could slim down? Is there ways in which we could not have to go quite so many steps? Now, the processes weren't as easy to slim down, and some of them we still need, even though we don't do them constantly.
So for me, it's always worth having them there, but it's always worth tweaking them and going, do I need to change this? Is there an easier way? What did make an impact on the process was the fact that I re-looked at my systems. Now, systems for me was one of the biggest costs in the business and one of the biggest pool legs in the business.
Because it was like, and some of these systems are so expensive. So for instance, I was paying for Kajabi, which is expensive unless you're using all the parts, which I now am. And I did use all the parts, but I was using Kajabi alongside active campaign. And Kajabi per year was costing me I dunno, about 1500 pounds a year.
An active campaign was costing me like 130 a month or 150 a month or something. And it was like, basically I was duplicating the system and the reason I wanted active campaign was because I had my really fancy quiz. So it's like, okay. One, I have to pay for the really fancy quiz system.
So that's another system. And also I need to pay for Zapier because Kajabi doesn't like talking to anything else. So then suddenly, because I moved to active campaign, I then, because I had this quiz, actually, sorry, from the quiz, I then had to have active campaign. I then had to have Kajabi, not Kajabi, sorry, Zapier, my God.
All these systems. So you are adding on an additional cost of, I don't know, over the year, thousands. And it's like for what? For a quiz, and don't get me wrong, I loved my quiz, but I had to ask myself like, we have systems for taking things from Kajabi to Active campaign. We have stuff from taking active campaign to get back to Kajabi.
We have Zaps, we have this, we have, and again, I just got to the point where I was like, my head can't do this anymore. Like I need simplicity. We can bring all this back in if and when we need to and want to, but right now I don't wanna do all that I wanted. And you know, I think there's so many reasons that have got me to this point, but like, In all seriousness, I think doing hard stuff in your personal life, but also finding like joy in something out of work.
So me finding gardening, like, and I still laugh as I say that cause I literally sound like an old person, but you know, I love that, you know, we love traveling. I love the fact of, you know, I'm recording these before I go away, so that I don't have to work while I'm away, and I want to do that. I want to know that things are simple and everyone knows what they're doing.
We don't have to have all these spinning plates. I have less spinning plates and less chance to things to go wrong. Now, the transition back to Kajabi was a bit of a pain. You may have got a random email from me that you probably didn't need, but or asked for. However, other than that, We're back to simple Kajabi and Kajabi's great. It's excellent.
I'm going to the Kajabi conference in a few weeks time in Austin and I am very excited about it. By the time you listen to this, I've already been be back. They're a great system. I am gonna link up to Kajabi in my show notes, and it will be an, an affiliate link. But honestly, it is a great system and it does all the things in the one system.
So even though the price looks expensive, when I was paying for all those additional things, that is way more expensive. So for me it was like, okay, do I need all these systems? And you know, I decided I didn't. And now not only do I have to pay for all those systems, which is a blessing, which means that my business is more profitable because that was an expense.
It is more simple. I don't have to log into three different systems to do one thing. I just log into Kajabi. And yes, I can't do the fancy quiz anymore, but that is a small price to pay as far as I'm concerned. Also, one thing you should know is I looked at the successfulness of the quiz and decided that it wasn't worth the time and effort and money that I was putting in.
And I, granted, I'm not saying that quizzes aren't, they are the excellent, and I could have put more time and effort into it, but at that point I just thought it's not doing it for me. And I could put other lead magnets out there simply and still get those number of signups. So for me it was okay, but it wasn't.
Wasn't it's worth its money. Now, I'm not saying that's the case for everybody, so don't just go, Teresa, the quiz aren't worth the money. That is not the case for me at that point. I didn't need that extra thing in my life. So yeah, so those are the kind of things I made big changes in the business. But the thing is, there's like an overarching kind of quote or question I asked myself, and I had a really good example of it when it came to my latest event in May was, what if this could be simple?
What would it look like if this was simple? So when you're in a moment of overwhelm, when you're in a moment of, I dunno what to do here, or this is too much, ask yourself, maybe journal it out. What if this could be simple? So I had my May event coming up and I had done some promotion of the event and my dad got ill and as you know, Because you are a business owner, when things happen in your personal life, it kind of can take over your business life a little bit.
And even if it physically, time-wise, didn't take over my business, it took over my brain. So my capacity for being out there on screen, going live, doing all those things was not at full capacity. So as always, I do the key things that I have to do. I do my coaching calls. I love my members. I do my one-to-one calls like, and I'm all good and happy and, and everything is fine with that, but some additional stuff, I just wasn't in the right head space and that's all right.
You know, I feel a bit vulnerable saying this to you because it's like, you know, I teach other people how to do this stuff, so surely I should have it all kind of sewn together. But the truth is we never do. Like, we just maybe recover a bit quicker and have tools to deal with it and know what to do. So lemme tell you what's happening to my May event.
So my event May event wasn't selling as I would've liked. And I had got a sponsor for it, and I had got a sponsor, not necessarily based on the number I told them, but obviously in the negotiations I said, this is what my expectation is for the event, and I wasn't getting those numbers and I felt bad. I was starting to panic and worry about the event.
Now, I wasn't worried when it came down to it. That was the first thing I kind of got clear on what was my issue. So I wasn't worried about not having the numbers I wanted. I knew the numbers I'd got, I'd have an amazing day. I'd have an amazing day if there was like five people, let alone like 25 people.
So I knew it wasn't that I knew, it wasn't my ego going, oh, but I wanted a full room. It didn't matter. That didn't bother me. I knew that when I stood in front of those people, I'd have an amazing day and actually, if anything, they would have an even better day because there was less people in the room and therefore they would get more physical time and we could do things a bit differently.
So what was concerning me at that point was, I'm gonna have to work my butt off now to get all these sales when I really don't feel in the head space to do it. And. I need to do it because I've got a sponsor. So I had the questions myself and in a call, with my therapist, we talked about what if it could be easy, and I discovered that actually it was only really the sponsor that was bothering me and I had a workbook to do, and I hadn't quite got around to the workbook either.
And I was like, what if it could be easy? Well, if it could be easy, I'd speak to the sponsor and go, do you know what? I haven't got the numbers. And can we talk about this? Because also the sponsor paid a deposit. They had paid a 50% deposit and I didn't want to give that deposit back because obviously the other thing, cuz that was the other thing that could have stressed me out was the break even point of the event.
Well, with the sponsorship and the numbers I'd sold, we'd, we'd made money on it. So it was like, okay, I, I wanna be honest with the sponsor, but I do wanna keep the sponsor's money. And other than dealing with the sponsor, everything else would feel fine. So I decided to get on the phone and not get on the phone.
How old school am I, get on Zoom and speak to the sponsor. I sent them an email, really honest email saying Numbers are not where they're at. Can we have a chat about it? Got on the call with her and I said, listen, I wanna be really honest cuz it's very important to me. The numbers are not where I said to you, they might be, and I'm concerned that obviously I don't wanna pitch something and then have you rock up and go, hang on, where are these other people?
So, But in all honesty, I also wanna keep your deposit and ideally I'd like the rest of the money too, right. And I didn't say this laughing down, the microphone to you, but that is what I said. But I went in there with a plan and I was like, right, I have other events, I have other ways in which I can promote your business.
And they are the loveliest people and I know them. So like, again, I wouldn't...
20 min
June 12, 2023Understanding why you act and react in the way that you do
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the Ennegram Personality Test.
In this episode I share what an Ennegram is and how it works, as well as how it's helped me not only in my personal life, but in my business life too.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The nine Enneagrams and what each of them mean

The different subtypes of the Enneagram

The benefits of identifying your Enneagram type

If you take the test to find out what Ennegram you are, I'd love to know. Feel free to connect with me over on my socials and tell me what you find out!
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
The Ennegram Institute
Take the free Ennegram Personality Test
Take the paid Ennegram Personality Test
Find out more about the 27 Ennegram Subtypes
Tune into my previous podcast episode with Ennegram expert Sarajane Case
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcipt
Welcome to Your Dream Business podcast and as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing and this is episode 298. Wow. God, I've been doing this podcast a long time. Good job, I love it or otherwise, that would never have lasted this long.
So, today I wanna talk to you about Enneagram. Have you heard about it? Do you know about it? If you don't, don't panic. It's not a change on Instagram or something it's not new social media. Basically, I am a big, big fan of personal development as you know in general, but also of personal development, kind of assessments and tests and things in terms of getting to know myself better.
And Enneagram is one that I've known for a long while, but I'm doing more and more and more interesting kind of findings about it. And the other week I did a session in my membership about the Enneagram and we worked through it and we worked out who was what and how that worked for them and, and all that sort of good stuff.
So I thought I would do a really quick episode today on what the Enneagram is. I would fly through it, explain how it works, and then why it's helped me, not only in my personal life, but in my business and inspire you maybe to go and find out what your Enneagram is. And the beauty of this is knowing what other people's Enneagrams are.
So go and send this episode to a friend or to even your partner and get them to do the Enneagram test. We are going to, put some Enneagram links into the show notes where you can actually go and do yours. They're third party websites. They're not mine. And the one we'll put in, you can get a free Enneagram, but I'll also put in the one where I paid for mine and mine goes into a bit more detail.
So, Let me start by telling you what the Enneagram is. So the Enneagram is a system of personality typing that describes patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions. The Enneagram describes nine personality types and maps each of those types on a nine pointed diagram, which helps illustrate how the types relate to one another, because that's the interesting thing about the Enneagram.
It's not just, this is the number you are, but it's, you also have wings. This will all become very clear. And you have kind of, you show up as other numbers when you are in growth or when things aren't so good. According to the Enneagram, each of the nine personality types is defined by a particular core belief about how the world works.
This core beliefs drive your deepest emotions and fears, and fundamentally shapes a person's worldview and the perspective through which they see the world and the people around them. Now while I was doing the Enneagram training with my members, one of them asked actually, can you change your Enneagram or do you think it's set?
Because they had only heard the not so good side of their Enneagram. Basically, every personality has positives and parts that you just need to keep an eye out for. And all of them do not just this one type that this person was. Personally, I don't think you can. I don't think you can go, I'm going to change my Enneagram because it's based on your values and who you are as a person.
So, I think that's very difficult to do. What I think you can do with ease, though, I say with ease, it takes a bit of work, is make sure that the better sides of that Enneagram is showing up more than maybe the ones that you're not keen on. So why should you even look at doing your U Enneagram and understanding what it is and all this sort of stuff?
Oh, the other thing I should have said, right the beginning is I interviewed the amazing Sara Jane Case who is an expert in Enneagram and we will link up to that in the show notes, but that was a really long time ago. But hers was really, really interesting and mine's just more of a general overview, whereas actually I picked her brains a whole lot about my Enneagram.
Well, you know, while she was on the podcast, might as well. So the first thing it helps you do is understand yourselves better. And, anything that helps us understand ourselves better, in my mind has got to be a good thing because it gives us so much empathy and sympathy for ourselves. So rather than being like, why do I always do that?
You then start to understand why you always do that, and then maybe take on a different feel about it and be like, Hmm, that's interesting, I did that thing again, like. And then you become a little bit more aware, but not so judgey. It also helps you really understand other people better. So for me, one of the things that it's helped, and I'll give you this example a bit later, is I got my husband to do the Enneagram and I've done the Enneagram.
So, it really helps me understand how my husband shows up and how I interact with him and which bits I need to kind of understand that that's the way he is. And it just really helps that kind of relationship too. So, like I said, this episode is very much kind of, this is what the Enneagram is, these are the numbers, this is what they're like, and kind of a, a, a stepping point for you to go and find out more.
So there's nine Enneagrams. Now I'm gonna say the numbers and what they were called on this particular website. Sometimes they do change the name, but the number is exactly the same. So if you're a one, you're a one, whether it's called the perfectionist or whether it's called the reformer. So number one, is the reformer or perfectionist.
Number two is the giver. Number three is the achiever. Number four is the individualist. Number five is the investigator. Number six is the skeptic. Number seven is the enthusiast. Number eight is the Challenger, and number nine is the peacemaker. So for each of the nine Enneagram, I'm going to tell you kind of the synopsis of it, the basic desire, the basic fear, and I'm gonna tell you when you're at your best or what to watch out for.
And then I'm gonna explain the wing thing. Okay. And the growth and the stress area. So let's take, number one, the reformer. So, It says the rational, the idealistic type, principled, purposeful, self-controlled, perfectionist. Basic desire is I want to be a good person to have balance, to live in integrity.
The basic fear of a number one is I'm afraid of being a bad person, being evil or corrupt. So at your best, number one, if you're a number one, you are organized, you're hardworking, you're inspiring, responsible, hopeful, disciplined, conscientious, visionary and driven. Things that you might wanna watch out for when you're not so much at your best is that you might think you're never good enough.
You might have an inner critic of you and other people. You might be dogmatic, impatient, condemning, judgmental, obsessive, and get stressed easily. Now. When you are a one you, every number has wings, okay? So it's basically the number to your right and the number to your left. So if you're a wing, if you're a number one, your wing can either be nine or a wing two.
So you, what this tend to mean is that you tend to lean into one of those others. So even if you're number one and you're listening to this, then make sure you pay attention to two and nine because you might lean or have some of the traits of those two. The other thing to pay attention to is that each number has a growth number that they go to.
So a number that they're more like when they're in growth and a number that they're more like when they're in stress. So for a number one, growth is seven, stress is four. Does that all make sense? I appreciate that actually, on a podcast, this is a bit tricky, but what we will try and do is put an image of the Enneagram on the show notes on my website.
So, yeah, we'll put that there and then, and in fact what we'll probably do is put it in my social media as well as part of the, promotion of this podcast. So hopefully it'll makes sense. Okay. So that was number one. So, like I said, the reminder is the wing is either nine or two, and then your growth is in number seven, and your stress is in number four.
Number two is the giver. So for people who are number twos, they're carrying interpersonal types. Demonstrative, can't say the word generous people pleasing and possessive. Their basic desire is to feel loved and liked. Their basic fear is being unwanted, unworthy of love. At their best, they're altruistic, generous, empathetic, warm, caring, loving, kind, charming.
At their worst, they're martyrs, unyielding, won't self care, resentful, guilt- tripping, manipulative, and become the victim. So my husband is an Enneagram two, so he is a fairly typical Enneagram two, but there's an interesting difference, which I'll explain at the end. But he does, he's very kind and generous and he does give a lot, but he does it in a very practical way.
So he will clean, he will make things, he will fix things. But I do have to watch out for some of his other traits. So for instance, an Enneagram two, and I remember reading Fern Cotton's book, bigger Than Us, I think it's called, and she's an Enneagram two. Lots of Enneagram twos s are the givers. They like to do the things, but also there's a part of them that thinks no one else is good enough.
And that is definitely my husband's straight, no one else is good enough. No one does it as good as him, and that's why he does it. But also if I don't thank him and I don't make a point of being like, I appreciate all this stuff you do for me. He can become a martyr or be resentful or Yeah, get annoyed.
And these people are not good at looking after themselves cause they put everyone else first. But they can use that against them, against everybody. So if you are a giver, if you are number two, your wings are obviously one and three, your stress is eight, and your growth is four. Okay, number three, the achiever, which is me, I'm an Enneagram three.
A success orientated, pragmatic type, adaptive, excelling, driven, and image conscious. Basic desire to feel valuable and worthwhile. Basic fear of being worthless. Only worth based on what I achieve. I feel that massively. Like it's the car I drive. It's the clothes I wear. It's the, like, how good my hair looks on a day.
It's what stages I've spoken on. How many people come to my thing. Like, yeah, that is for real a struggle. When I'm at my best, I am likable, popular, energetic, charismatic, thoughtful, successful, inspirational, humble, and brings out the best in others. Things I need to watch out for. And I've done a lot of work over the years on this is ego, vanity, insecure, self-promotional, arrogant, obsessed. I sounded delight, dishonest to look good and always performing.
Now I always like to clarify the dishonest thing cuz I think I'm very honest and very vulnerable and authentic. But this is like, This is like when someone says, how many people did you get on your webinar and you had like five and you round up to 10.
Like, that's how I read that, and that is definitely how that would've come out in me. I've, like I said, done a lot of work on this, so, I am definitely in Enneagram three. So enneagram three your wings are obviously four or two. Growth is six, stress is nine. And again, as I'm starting to hit these numbers, you're going to see how that shows up.
Okay, so number four, the individualist. So the sensitive, withdrawn type, expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, temperamental. Basic desire to find themselves and their significance to create an identity. Their basic fear is that they have no identity or no personal significance. So at their best, they're creative, self-aware, artistic, honest, accepting pen, compassionate, loyal friend, and heartfelt.
Things to watch out for, for a number four is that they might be moody, self-absorbed, hopeless, not they're hopeless. They feel hopeless. Tragically different. Negative self-image, low self-esteem. So four, the wings of five and a three, and interestingly enough, fours go to one for growth. And they go to number two for stress.
So the negatives of two, let me just go back and tell you what they were, were the martyrs, the young yielding, won't self care, resentful, all that sort of thing. Number four, when they're in stress, they can go to those things. So hopefully that makes sense. Number five, the investigator. So if you're a number five, you are the intense cerebral type, perspective, innovative, secretive, and isolated.
Your basic desire is to be capable and competent. Your basic fear is being useless, helpless, or incapable. So at your best, your pioneers and experts and innovators, teachers, mentors, advisors in depth knowledge and stimulate others. But things to watch out for are, you might be an intellectual hoarder.
Have you bought all those courses and never done anything or need to do 300 courses before you start something? Maybe you're an Enneagram five. Shared responsibilities, disconnect, lost in thought, absentminded, withdrawn, cutoff from the social world. So, Let's just take this Enneagram five. Like so if your basic fear is being useless, helpless, or incapable, your bad sides are going to come out or your not so great sides are gonna come out when you might feel that.
So for instance, let's say you hurt yourself and you need someone to help you. You might then become disconnected, you might become withdrawn, or you might cut off from the social world because you don't like needing help. So it's this sort of thing so you can understand yourself a lot better and go, well that's okay.
That's interesting. I know I do that, so I have to watch that.Okay, so if you're a five, obviously wing four and six, your stress is in seven and your growth is in an eight. Okay. Number six, the skeptic. If you are an Enneagram six, you are the committed security orientated type with engaging responsibility, responsible, anxious, suspicious.
Your basic desire is to have security and support, and your basic fear is being without support and guidance. Let's have a look at your best. If you're at your best, you are a protector's, loyalist, trusted integrator, hard worker, brave defender, confident, prepared, team player, and organized. However, you need to watch out for fixated and perceived dangers, paranoia, worrying.
Looking for ulterior motive, suspicious anxiety, and hypervigilance. And now like I said, this isn't like, I don't wanna be those things. That's just at times of stress or when things aren't good or some of the things you just need to be careful of. Because I know, for instance, as an engram three, I need to watch my ego.
Like if I let that, that come into play too much, then basically I make some wrong decisions. But everyone has an ego and it's important to have one. So, As an Enneagram six, you have wings five and seven, but also your stress area is three and your growth area is nine. Okay, let's go onto, if you're an Enneagram seven.
If you're a seven, you're an enthusiast, a busy, fun-loving type, spontaneous, versatile, distractable, and scattered. Your basic desire is to be satisfied and content. To have your needs fulfilled, your basic fear is being deprived and in pain. So when you are at your best as a seven, your ideators, you are optimistic, you're fun in energetic, curious connectors, always on the grow.
Things that you might wanna watch out for is you might. When you are not so at your best, you might break commitments. Abandon projects, have poor relationships, self-medicate to avoid dealing with anything negative. You might have burnout or be cynical or critical. So as a seven, obviously you have wings of eight and six.
But your growth is a number five and your stress shows up as a number one. So, like I said, when you are not in a good place, let's just go back to number one. You might show up as never good enough in a critic, dogmatic, impatient, condemning, judgmental. So, like I said, just keep an eye on those things, when you are looking at them and it's not just the one Enneagram that you are.
And what did I say? So if you are an Engram seven, that's where we're, so your growth is five. So let's just have a quick look at what five shows as so, pioneers, expert, innovators, teachers, mentors, advisors, in depth knowledge, stimulate others. So, Like I said, there is so much good stuff. This isn't about going, oh God, look how awful I am.
This is about going, this is really interesting. Okay, number eight, the challenger. So number eight are powerful, dominating, type with self-confident, decisive, willful, and confrontational. Your basic desire is to protect themselves, to be in control of their own destiny in life, and the basic fear is harm or controlled by others.
As an eight when you are at your best, your righteous defender's, generous, welcoming, loving, honest, independent and determination. Things that you need to watch out for as an eight is you see relationships as competition. You push away, angry, abusive in pursuit of power, fiery, stubborn, and headstrong. When I looked at the number two, What did I say?
Because my husband's number two. So number two, yeah. When they're stressed they go to an eight. So that's really interesting cuz I can definitely see that. I can definitely see, sometimes my husband going to an eight, which like I said, it's things like pushes away angry, abusive in pursuit of power, fiery, stubborn, and headstrong. I can definitely see those traits when he is in stress.
So as an eight, you obviously have the wings nine and seven. When you're in stress, you go to a five, and when you're in growth, you go to a two. So, Hence, you can see that kind of two and eight connection....
23 min
June 05, 2023The truth about running your own event as a business owner
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about the reality of what running an event looks like.
In this episode I share my thoughts on the pros and cons of running an event, and the key things you need to know about the costs and logistics involved, that you need to consider if you want to run one.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The pros and cons of having speakers

Knowing how to choose the right price

The pros and cons of getting sponsorship

I'd be fascinated to hear your take on events - do you love them or are you not so keen? Please feel free to connect with me on socials and let me know!
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Find out more and sign up for my Dream Business Live Event on 14th June
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
You are listening to Your Dream Business podcast and I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How's things? I hope you are doing well. I am recording this off the back of a very busy week and the start of many other busy weeks.
And the reason my week was so busy last week is I had one of my in-person events and I have another one coming up in June, and I thought that would be a good topic for the podcast. Because often what people end up doing is, especially if they're a freelancer, one of their thoughts is to go and maybe teach to do the thing that they do as in like if they do social media that they might do an event to say, I'll teach you social media for the day.
And they might have in-person events. And, and also, another event I went to when I was a speaker, one of the lunch discussions was around, whether or not, people want the in-person stuff, whether they'd prefer the Zoom stuff, whether they're sick of the Zoom stuff, and there were some really interesting responses that didn't quite match up to maybe what I thought.
So this episode is gonna look at my thoughts on events, how I've managed my own events, kind of the pros and cons of doing them, and also kind of what came up in this discussion and what the reality of running an event looks like. So let me start by talking about the types of events I've done. Now, I have done two VIP retreats where I have taken people away for a number of days. We have hired a beautiful hotel and stayed away and worked in our businesses.
And then I've done two in-person day events, both in Birmingham. Both at the same location, both fairly similar in structure, but different in terms of what I taught. And then obviously I have spoken at an absolute ton of events.
So I have spoken at huge, massive conferences where I am one of many, many, many speakers. I have spoken at smaller events, I've spoken at masterminds, I've spoken at other people's kind of events where they're doing something similar to what I do. I have literally spoken. I've spoken at events where it is nothing to do with what I do.
They just bring me in to speak. I've spoken at networking type events. I've done everything, like literally everything. As I often joke, my first sort of speaking stuff. When people asked me about how I got into speaking was in a play barn. For those of you who might not know what a play barn is, you are not missing out.
But basically it's like a bull pit type play thing for kids. And I did a talk for Biz Mums and there was literally like three mums in there, in a play barn and me. So it was wild, as you can imagine. But I really have done everything kind of, oh, there's not much I can't think that I haven't done event-wise.
And I've spoken at events in the UK, in Dubai, in Greece, in Cyprus, in the States, in Ireland. So again, I've had a really good mix of locations as to where I've spoke as well, which again, makes a bit of a difference. But anyway, this isn't about speaking. This is about what if you wanna run your own event and the truth about running events, and I'll tell you the truth about running mine.
So let's start off with kind of the type of event I run. So my event is very different. So I run an event where it's about really working on your business and also, kind of spending that time focusing on you as a person as well, and making those connections. Now at this last event I just did in Birmingham, and I have one coming up in Newcastle in a few weeks, which this May episode may have gone out by then, I'm not sure.
But one of the things I said to them, cause I was thinking like in the morning as I was getting ready that like I'm on the circuit, like the speaker circuit and there are some people that come to every single event that I've pretty much done in this industry because they are serial event joiners and they love an event.
Absolutely fine. Nothing wrong with that. Great. But they don't sign up for mine. Now I could take that very personally and think they just don't like me, and that's all right. That's fine. But then I thought about it and thought. The difference with my event and a conference is that you have to work on your business.
It's really easy to go to a conference and just sit there and watch speakers all day and have a lovely lunch and chat with people and do the party in the after party and all that jazz and say, I'm working on my business. When really, you just sat in a conference all day. Now some people will take what they've learned in that conference and they will run with it and do work with it, and they will, you know, really make the most of that time.
Some people don't. Some people literally just have a lovely jolly day out and I just thought, I'm not gonna attract those people. The type of event I put on is not designed to attract those people because you have to work on your event and you have, sorry. You have to work on your business and you have to work on you, and you have to make those connections.
It is about having conversations with people that you don't know and about getting to know those people and about speaking up when I ask you a question. So, that was the first thing that I found really interesting. And in one way I almost feel like, gosh, my ego must be so big when I run an event and it's just me, but it's not me as you know, come and hear me speak all day.
It's me as a facilitator. It's me as a coach helping you do the work on your business. It's giving you an entire day out, whereas lots of events out there. And of course a lot of the events I speak at are speaker events. So let's just talk about the difference in that. And now the first thing is, I don't think I could run a speaker event.
The logistics in that is unflipping believable. So, and I have friends who run events that have speakers, and I'm sure if I had them on to talk about it, they would agree with me. No end. That you've got to make sure you've got the right caliber of speaker, the right type of speaker, and the right kind of person to come and speak at your event because, It's your event with your name on it.
So if you were to have some people come along and they weren't all that, then that's not gonna be great on you. The other thing with having speakers is you are relying on other people. I know that I just have to get ready my stuff for the times that I need them. I am only responsible to myself really.
Whereas if I have other speakers, and it always blew my mind, like when someone says to me, I need you talking for this date, they always get it in for that date. And if I was them, I would always make that date sooner than when I actually needed it. But it blows my mind how, and I've spoken to many event organizers, how speakers don't get their talks in.
Like until days before or even on the day and it's like, what the hell, man, I could, I'd literally have a breakdown. I couldn't cope with that. So personally, even though sometimes those speakers will bring in other people and those speakers promote your event as well. So even though that can help with sales, for me, I just couldn't cope with the stress of that.
I couldn't cope with managing other people. Maybe one day. I'm not gonna say never. You know, when I have a team to organize that and I don't have to do anything to do with it, then maybe, but I don't, I can't see it being a thing I ever offer, to be honest. So let's talk about some of the pros about having an in-person event.
So some of the pros for me are that connection piece. Now I do a huge amount of work online and obviously I'm Zoom all the time, but nothing can be being sat in a room with someone and literally being physically in the same room, having conversation. We all know what it's like on Zoom when we're trying to have a conversation and if someone talks over someone else, it kind of cuts them off or it silences them, or it's really hard to, to take those social cues where it's much easier in person.
So for me, the people who have met at my in-person events have built really long lasting and solid friendships and business friendships and business connections. So that is absolute key for me, and that is one reason why I love the in-person stuff.
When you go to an event, you get that solid time out. You don't get that at home. Even when we say we're gonna be on a Zoom, we're gonna do the thing. We are so used to working from home that the deliveries will come or someone will interrupt you or you have got a million other things popping up on your screen.
Cuz I'm exactly the same. So actually, when I'm in an in-person event, and especially when I'm holding an in-person event, you can't get a hold of me. I'm not paying attention to anything really other than maybe when I sit down for five minutes over lunch or something, I am fully switched on in front of those people the whole time.
So it really is an opportunity for you to focus on your business and get your head down without the interruption of other people. I think as well is having those proper conversations. I think people are much more vulnerable in person when they can like, almost see the whites of people's eyes. I think they're more willing to share and more willing to kind of have those conversations.
And for me, as a facilitator, as a speaker, I am much more relaxed in person because I can read the room better, I can see who I've got in the room, especially at my own event. Now, this last event I did, I had a handful of people in there that I didn't know really well. That's one of the advantages of having such an amazing community because I don't have to kind of read the room or, or kind of really work out who I've got in the room.
And I know if people are signing up to my event only they've had some experience of me. They are very unlikely to sign up to my event if they've never seen a single thing. Whereas you are unlikely to get people that see you when you speak on a stage. Like, you know, there are lots of people going to the events I go to. They don't just go for me.
So I would say I'm a little bit more, not guarded, that's not the right word, but I'm a little bit more professional I guess. Whereas I can be really laid back. I mean, I swore quite a bit at this last event, which, you know, I might rethink that. But anyway, oh, can I just tell you why I swore at this last event because I was doing a meditation.
I like to do meditation cause it takes your brain wings, I into a different state and your more creative, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the fire alarm went off. That's brilliant, isn't it? And it was a test, and I knew there was gonna be a test, but I just hadn't put two and two together and worked out that the point in which I was doing the meditation was the point in which they were gonna do the fire alarm.
So the fire alarm went off while people were in a meditation, not ideal. But then I had to then go, okay, that happened. Let's take you back in. So I took them back in, dropped them back down into the right brain state, and it went off again. And I swore quite a lot. I was very frustrated and I was like, I'm so sorry.
So we did it one last time and we all had a bit of a laugh and a joke and, and I think that's the other thing cuz everyone can read the room. They know like they can read people better and you really can make those kind of funny connections and have that really personal kind of thing. So, for me, the other advantage of having that in-person event is for those people who don't know me as well, suddenly then get to see what I'm like in real life, but also the connection I have with my members.
So one thing that's really nice is lots of my members come to these things cuz they know what I'm like and hopefully think I'm good and that's why they keep coming to them. But they see, and I have to say at the beginning of these events, listen, if you think, God, she's really over familiar. I know these people really well, and they know me really well, so, It's not that I'm just really cheeky to these people, it's that I know them and I, you know, we have a kind of a relationship and a laugh and that sort of thing, but it gets them to see how well I know those people and how much I guess I really do care for them, which I absolutely do.
So, for me, if you are not in my world, that's actually a really good advantage and I have had many people join off the back of attending an event with me, and that is amazing. That is so, so good, and a byproduct that I did not expect. I didn't set up the events thinking, oh well, if people come to the event, they're going to then join my membership.
That wasn't at all, but that just happened to happen and that was awesome. However, I've painted a really lovely picture of events and I do love them and they're brilliant and it's great, but I need to tell you the reality of them. And actually, let me jump to that, that event I was at when I was speaking.
And so this woman asked the question around the table and bearing in mind, I suppose these people were slightly biased cuz they were at an in-person event, but there wasn't loads of them. I think there was about like 15 people there. And she asked them, Like, are we tired of Zoom? Do we still think there's a place for Zoom?
Are, do we want in-person events? And pretty much everyone around the table said yes. They want in-person events, they want to be able to get in person with people. They prefer that personal connection. They like sitting in a room, like being away from their business. And I spoke to her afterwards cuz she invited people to say what they thought.
And I kept my mouth shut, which is very unusual for me. Because I kind of had my own thoughts on this. As someone who has run events and I said to her afterwards, find that really interesting. I said, obviously, it's a very biased group given that they're all at an event. I said, but in my experience, events at the moment are really hard to sell and not just me.
I had, I'm speaking at an event soon and they actually sent an email out saying if we don't get more people signing up, then basically we have to postpone it. I have been given some very expensive event tickets for an event in the States, for free, and they're not giving those tickets away for free if they are full, like, if they are filling the spaces, there's no way.
So genuinely, I think events are really struggling at the moment. Like I said, I knew, I, I know a number of event organizers. And I sort of said to her, you know, I find it really interesting cuz people say they want events and then she finished off the words of, but they don't flippin come.
And it's really interesting of people want events but they don't come or, and then this kind of spans onto the question of, and if you're thinking about doing an event, how much do you charge? Which could really kick off our pros. Because in my experience, in my friend's experience that have events, there's no money in them.
Like it sounds such a cool idea. Like my daughter was counting up the number of people coming to the June event and she was like, how much have they paid? And I told her and she worked it out and she's like, wow mum? Obviously she's 13 and her idea of money, mine are very different. But it's like, yeah, no, that's cool, but obviously she's not taking into account all the other costs, So let me just go back to the customer event.
Knowing what to charge is a really interesting one. You charge too low, people think it's gonna be rubbish. They won't turn up. You charge too much, people think I'm not paying that for a day. But bearing in mind, some people will pay from like 40 pounds all the way up to 400 pounds for a day event. And it depends.
Like a 400 pound day event is probably many, many speakers, but in my mind, Not that I'm slagging off a day event with many, many speakers. Like I said, I adore speaking and therefore they are very much a key part of my business. But, It depends what you want to get from that event as the, as the person going.
If you wanna work on your business and come up with a strategy, then coming to an event of mine that costs around a hundred pound could be more useful than going to a speaker event when you just watch speakers and go, yeah, that was lovely and really inspirational, or gave me a few ideas, but actually I've not worked on my business all day.
But if you wanna be educated by as many different people, then definitely the 400 pound thing might be worth doing. It's a really, really interesting industry, I suppose in sector is the events. Like I said, the event I'm going to in the States should have been 1500 pounds for two and a half days. Like that is a lot of money.
So it's a really interesting one. So, but like I said, if you go too cheap, people either won't sign up cause they won't, there's no value. Or what I had the first year, last year when I did my in-person event, my first in-person event, not the VIP stuff, I went cheap. And then people didn't turn up on the day because they could afford to lose the money.
And that's not good either. So you are always gonna get a dropout on the day. Always, always. So the number of people who bought the tickets will always drop on the day, some people won't attend. Now, the first event I did, I think I probably had about eight or nine people not attend. And this event I did just last week I only had one person not attend.
So actually my dropout was really good for this week. Now you might think, well, it doesn't matter. They paid their ticket and yeah, in one way you can look at that. However, as we'll come to, you're still paying for them at the venue and. I work things out based on the number of people going, and if people don't go, then it kind of can mess things up and I have to be flexible and tweak.
Again let's say you are putting on a multi-speaker lineup where you've got two or three speakers speaking at the same time. If you don't get lots of people turning up live, then you're gonna have empty rooms. So like I said, it's not just about the money, it's about...
26 min
May 29, 2023The lessons I’ve learned from running a successful podcast
As I fast approach my 300th episode, I wanted to share my reflections, insights and top tips on podcasting.
In this episode I share the do's and don'ts of podcasting and the things I would do differently, with the gift of hindsight.
I'd love to know if you're thinking of launching a podcast, feel free to connect with me on socials and let me know!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Whether to choose to do solo episodes or have podcast guests

The pros and cons of having seasons of your podcast

The rules you should consider to ensure quality

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Host your podcast with Captivate (affiliate link)
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
Hello and a really warm welcome to Your Dream Business podcast with me, Teresa Heath Wareing. Now today we are actually on episode 296. Like that kind of blows my mind a little bit that I've done 296 episodes of the podcast. And while I was planning out what was gonna go on these next few episodes, I thought it would be really good to do an episode around, what I would do differently or what I've learned from nearly 300 episodes of a podcast.
So just so you know what that looks like in time, I started my podcast on the 4th of February 2018. And I have never, ever missed a Monday. I've had a couple of Mondays where for whatever reason the tech didn't quite upload it as it should have done, but I've never not had an episode ready to go out on a Monday.
And I think they've always gone out on the Monday, even when the tech has messed up a little bit. And I think that's probably happened like twice. And it was interesting because I was talking to someone today and I was talking about all the work I've gotta do. I've got a very busy couple of weeks and all the work I've gotta get done between now and now, so I can have a calmer couple of weeks.
And I said the podcast, and this person actually said to me, could you not take a break? Like I looked at them like, are you having a laugh? No, I can't take a break. I said, I've never ever missed a Monday, including when my mom passed away. And I don't say that to be like, check me out on I'm amazing. Like I see this as an absolute commitment, and I made that commitment when I started the podcast and I will stick to that commitment.
Now, normally we do recording ahead, so I am normally a couple of episodes ahead of myself. So in particular, when it came to my mom passing away, we did a couple of extra guest episodes, which were easier when you didn't have to hear me too much, and they'd been prerecorded ages ago. And then I did a very short episode about what had happened and how I'd managed during that time and having a business.
And it was a very short episode for the, at that point when I did it. So I've always shown up every single Monday with a podcast episode and I thought, You might be sat there thinking, I want a podcast, or I've might think about doing a podcast, or someone I know might wanna do a podcast.
And what would I have done differently if I'd started my podcast now? So as I was writing it, I, or making notes for it, I kind of got the. It was kind of almost like dos and don'ts of having a podcast, but there is a bit more to it than that. So the first thing I'm gonna cover is guests. Now, if you have been a listener to the podcast for a while, you will know that I used to have guests.
I don't have guests currently anymore. I might in the future, but as we stand today, I don't have guests unless Brene Brown obviously wants to come up and say hi. I'd happily have her. And. I have had during my 300, almost 300 episodes. I have had some phenomenal guests, some huge people in my industry. I have had, I'm just scanning down the list of people who we've had Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, I had Brian Fanzo, Tyler Jay McCall.
I have had James Wedmore. I had some YouTubers, Sean and Benji, I had Jasmine Star. Who else have I had? Lemme keep going. Mike and Kelly from the membership guys. Mary Hyatt. I've had Mary Hyatt twice in that. I've had Michael Hyatt, I've had her sister as well Megan Hyatt I promise. I didn't, just have the whole family.
I've had Chris Mar, Mike Stelzner. I have had so many amazing people. And then fairly recently, I have had Dean Graziosi, Marcus Sheridan, that isn't actually fairly recent since that's back in 2000, 2020. but I had, the lovely, Denise Duffel-Thomas as well. I've also had interviews by small businesses because I did a small business superstar series.
Where I did an extra podcast each week for this particular series. So what have I gotta say about guests? What have I learned? What would I say? If you were doing a podcast or thinking about doing podcast. Now, the first thing I did is I didn't have any guest until my first guest was actually episode 29, 28.
So my first ever guess was Pat Flynn. It was episode 28. So I had done 27 episodes on my own, and that really helped me. It really helped me to get comfortable with how I recorded, what my sound was, how I liked doing it. So actually, I would say that even if you're going to have guests, I would have a bit of time on your own.
Or maybe do every other like I used to. So that's one option. Although I have to say the thing about guests is it is really good to have a guest cuz it's nice to have a conversation. Some people might find it very difficult to sit here and just talk to themselves like I do. As in I don't find it difficult, as in that's what I'm currently doing now.
I guess the thing that I could tell you that I wish I'd done differently was I wish I'd said no to some people. Now, there are some people I had on who I really bought into at the time, and I don't buy into anymore, and I've debated taking down their episodes, but it's all part of my journey, so I've left them up.
There are some people, and obviously I'm not gonna name names, who I kind of wish they hadn't been on at all, and I thought that at the point that we recorded it, and I thought, this shouldn't go out there because that's not either my normal standard or actually, no, it was never, it was never a topic thing, cuz I was always quite strict on that.
I always made sure that the content was going to fit in, but sometimes it was the standard of the guest. Like I had one episode where, and then weirdly it was with a podcaster, but they kept moving all the freaking time and they kept banging the desk and moving stuff and clicking things and it was like, And all I could hear was that, and it drove me insane.
And I should have had the guts to say, this episode isn't going out, or I need to rerecord this episode, or, or say no in the first place on some people. So I think I've always been really precious about who comes on the podcast, but like I said, I think there has been a few people who I wish I'd said no to.
It wasn't the end of the world. I wouldn't have let 'em on, but. There's a couple of ones who I thought, yeah, I should have said no. I should have sent them something like if I had a podcast now I would send guests something, whether it's a handwritten card, whether it is, I've had people actually send me physical things in the post, which is lovely, as in like an actual thing.
But I think even just like a little card in the post is really nice and goes a long way to building that continued relationship because I, some of the people who I've had as a guest or I've been a guest on theirs, the relationship has continued and it's been wonderful. But I think I could have kept some of those relationships stronger if I'd done something.
So that is definitely something I would do if I did it again. I'd also try and get testimonials from them. Now, some of the bigger people, that would've been amazing. I'm not sure how easy that would've been done, and I'm not sure that I have the advice to tell you how to do that. But getting testimonials from other guests to say what a great episode it was, or how good it was to talk or whatever, that you can then use in your marketing to potentially other amazing guests could be really helpful.
In terms of interviewing, and I'll come back to some of the other things, in a bit, but like in terms of the guest thing, keeping down that theme. The interviews conversation style. It has always been my conversation style and I'm glad that I did that. I wouldn't want to have done it any other way.
Do make sure they have rules. Like I said about that one example I just gave, oh, I had one guy be recorded outdoors, and the editor actually said to me, it sounds like there's a pterodactyl in the background. What the hell was going on? And like I should have, and I didn't do it at the beginning. I, I did do it like in the last year or two.
I should have made rules of like, this is, you know, you've got to have headphones in, you've gotta have a good mic. You can't record it on, you know, just the computer's audio. So make sure that you say, these are the kind of the rules. A lot of the people who I interviewed were podcasters. Like I said, that one person was a podcaster and they even did, you know, they're a nightmare.
But a lot of them who are podcasters obviously have an amazing mic and they know the score. But just as a coverall, I then after a, I dunno, like I said, about two years of doing the podcast had this kind of, you have to make sure that you do these things. Don't do. Right. I was interviewed once by someone and they literally started off by going question one, right?
And they'd read the question and then I would come in all loud and like, You know, happy and jolly that I am. And then at the end of my long rambling answer, they'd go, thank you. Question two. Don't ever do that. That is like the worst podcast ever. Not only for your listeners, but for the guest. It was awful.
So definitely, and if the conversation starts to turn, follow it like, you know, it could turn into something really good. Don't be tied to your questions. Do your research on your guest, like, Luckily for me, a lot of my early guests and lots of my guests actually I knew, so it was easy for me to talk about them and who they were and that sort of stuff.
But if you don't know them, cuz that will come a point obviously. Then make sure you do research and then think about with your guests, especially in the early days, which again, I didn't think about who could give you the most growth and reach. Now, you would think with my first few guests, Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Rick Mulready, that that would've helped massively.
It doesn't, they didn't share it. Okay. The big, huge people are very unlikely to share it. In fact, Amy did share it. On LinkedIn, obviously that's a massive platform for her. No, it's not. If you dunno who she is, like that is not a massive platform for her. I was amazed she was even on it, like they didn't share it.
Now at the time, and this is such good advice actually, if you're getting a guest. If you can get a guest who is popular but doesn't have a podcast, that's genius. Now, at the time, Jasmine Star, when she came on my podcast, didn't have a podcast. Hers for a long time was the most download episode, and she shared it before I shared it.
Like I hadn't even got it on my stories and she'd already got it on her stories and tagged me in, and I got a few more followers and a few more listens because of her. So think about that. I am always very, very, considerate. If I'm a guest on someone else's, I always make sure we share it and we don't always share it necessarily on the day.
Like if I'm tagged into stories, obviously I always share them or re-share them, but we put it into our schedule and we make sure that we share it and we talk about it. So yeah, think about that when you're getting the guests. Also with the guests. Don't say yes to your friends cuz they want to come on if you don't think they're gonna be a good fit.
I have had family members ask to on my podcast, I have had friends suggest they come on my podcast and some of them are in my industry, but I'm afraid they weren't right for the podcast. And I did say no to those people. Isn't that weird? I didn't wanna say no to strangers, happily say no to my friends and family.
So yeah, so do make sure that you think about that. Okay, what else have I got down here? Do do a trailer. I never did a trailer. Wasn't really a thing when it probably was a thing, but I didn't know it back when I started. But doing a trailer is really good cause you're telling people what's coming.
Especially if you are doing a brand new podcast, you definitely wanna do a trailer because before I delve into a whole episode of how long it might be, I want to know in the trailer. What type of podcast this is for who it's for, what are you gonna share? How long are the episodes gonna be? Like? I want all the kind of like, it's like watching a trailer for a film and you are asking people to invest time and actually to begin with, just promote the trailer.
Just promote the trailer on social media and often promote the trailer. So I never did one. Still don't have one. Maybe I should, maybe it'd make a difference now, but I don't know. Do keep better track of episodes. These are just gonna be random. Now, fyi, as in, I've literally just wrote a load of notes.
They're in no particular order. I have just got one on my team to do the very dull episode, episode. Very dull activity of going through every single episode that I have done and putting it in a spreadsheet. And the reason I've got them to do that is because after 290 something episodes of a podcast, I cannot for the life for me remember what the hell I've talked about.
And also, sometimes if you're batching, it might feel like you've just talked about something, so you can't possibly do another episode on it. But actually, that could have been a long while ago. So the other thing I'd have done, Which we will do at some point is, so I've got the, a number of the episode, I've got the title of the episode, we've got when it was aired, and we've got who was the guest, and then what my job is, is to go through and put what the theme is so then I can look at a glance.
How many episodes have I done on emails? How many episodes have I done on social media, how many episodes have I done on mindset? So I would keep track of that fairly early on. Cause if you do it from the beginning, then that's gonna be helpful when you're going forward. And also keep an eye on, actually, I haven't done an episode on such and such, but ages or around that theme.
Don't do long show notes. We did really long show notes when I first started. In fact, I had a copywriter write them and they were like, God, I don't even know. Well, to be fair, when I started, I still had the agency, I think it was like $500 a month or something obscene like that, just for show notes. You don't need big, long show notes.
People don't read them. So really, Like the show notes we have now are really kind of simple to the point. They'll tell you what's in the episode, they'll tell you the key points, and that's it, and the links. And then obviously we have the transcript. So the transcript is on the site on each page of the episode, and that's doing the SEO stuff.
So really like you could turn the show notes into a blog post, but I wouldn't go to the effort if you're not doing it as a blog post. I would keep the show notes really short, really simple. I have always had someone do them for me, so, I, you know, you could do themself. It's entirely up to you. But personally I didn't wanna do that.
I just can't even read my own handwriting here. So record secret content. Now with the guests. And actually this is another point still to do with the guests. I should have had it all on the guest thing. I told you I just wrote down things anywhere I should have filmed. And properly filmed every single guest because like I said, I have had some phenomenal people and although they knew they were being recorded, and I might have said to them, I might use some of the video, I did not say, and therefore I cannot put them on YouTube, and as an entire episode, I should have.
When I got, when I started, even if I don't do it, if you are starting a podcast, you should say to them, I am gonna be recording it. You are on camera, and I might use it in full or in part, and then you've got the option. I never had the option. And like I said, I had some crazy amazing people on here who I could have done put 'em on YouTube and had a YouTube channel.
I don't have that. So definitely, definitely film it and consider putting it on YouTube even if you'd not sure whether you're going to, even if it's a down the line thing. Make sure you're recording it properly and then and saying to the guest, this is what we might do with it. So that you've got that there and you can do it if you wanted.
So, yeah. So then when I'm with the guest, I would've recorded secret content. Now we would've recorded secret content for a couple of reasons. One, you could then do something like, I listen to a podcast on health and he does secret content, if you sign up to his, whatever it is, a month kind of membership.
So you could do it for that reason. You could do it for a Facebook group. I always considered having a Facebook group for the podcast, and if I had recorded secret content, that would've been a great place to put it. So it could have been like, here's the interview with you know Denise Duffield- Thomas, but join the Facebook group because we also talk about X, Y, Z, and you could literally just have like five, 10 minutes of content that doesn't go on the podcast, but goes into that Facebook group.
Or you could use that secret content in an entirely different way for entirely different content purposes, but it would just give you an option. The same as having a number of set questions. I never had a number of set questions and anybody that does a podcast now, I say, I recommend that you do that. So for instance, I could have had the set questions of what one book helped your career or changed your life, or whatever it might be.
And then I could have done a whole host of content around, these are the books that the experts say to read. Like, or I could have done a question of what one thing, one piece of advice would you give someone starting out? And then I could have done a whole host of stuff around, if you're just starting out, here's the advice from the best people.
So if I was starting a podcast now, I would have done specific questions that I ask everybody so that I have the same bit of content from everybody. What else have I got down here? Seasons. Now I've written seasons down and this isn't really a...
24 min
May 22, 2023Practical ways to generate money, when business is tough
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about how to find clients, make sales and generate money, when your business is struggling.
In this episode I share practical tips for action you can take right now, to stop you spiralling into panic and to help you find solutions.
I recommend saving this episode somewhere that you can easily come back to it if you need it.
And of course, I would love if you could share on your socials and let me know where you're listening!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
What actions you can take to find new clients

How to use social media to reach out for sales

How to add value through cold outreach

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Example 'ways to work with me' fully booked sales post from Becci at Be Heard Socials
Example 'ways to work with me' sales post from Teresa
How to become more visible and grow your audience podcast episode
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of Your Dream Business. And as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. So how are you doing this week? I'm about to enter a very busy season in my business. I have a number of speaking gigs, both here in the UK and in the States. I have, a number of in-person events where I've put on the events and it's just gonna be a crazy few weeks.
So I am hoping to batch my podcast so I get them all done ready for me not being around so much. Which is the beauty of having the business that I have, is that I can batch ahead. I can get things ready and I don't have to do so much while I'm away, which is less about taking time off and more about being able to focus on the things that I've gotta do.
I dunno about you, but I always tell myself like if I'm at an event, oh, I can do that while I'm there. No, it's absolutely rubbish. I absolutely cannot do things while I'm there. I think I can. I can't. So it's just best if I plan to not actually be around or not actually have to do anything, and then I can do it.
Just spend the time focusing on the event. So today I wanna talk about sales and coaching business owners and talking to business owners inevitably at some point most months it comes up that some of my members are struggling and they're struggling to get sales. And I think it's naive of us to think that that won't happen or never happens or isn't the case for most businesses because it is.
There are points where we will struggle to come up with clients and money, and this is the point in which we have the opportunity to not panic. Because that is obviously the first thing we're gonna do. That's the first thing that we will kind of go to is that panic mode. So rather than going into a panic mode, which is going to put you into the fight, flight, or freeze mode, and I think lots of us freeze and think, why on earth did we decide to do this?
I want to give you some really practical tips today. If you ever find yourself, and you might wanna save this episode, you know, make a note of it somewhere. Save it to your favorites or something, or share it on your social so you know, you can come back and find it, because inevitably, at some point you, and maybe your business friends are gonna feel like this.
So if you know someone else who is struggling, then please share this episode with them. But at some point in your business, you are gonna get to the point where it feels like nothing is converting and you've got no customers or you've not got enough customers and you're not bringing in enough money.
So what do you do? What is the thing that you do at that point? And what do I recommend to my members and my clients when they are in those times? And it can be a case of they've just started their business and they haven't got customers yet. Or it could be a case of they are well established and they have got a lot of customers, but it's not enough.
Or they're not bringing in enough money that someone else might look at and go, wow, I wish I was bringing in that. It doesn't matter what level you're at, it doesn't matter what size of your business you've got. It can happen. And normally it catches us by complete unawares. And sometimes it's like it aligns to.
You know, get in our way, but it, it can happen. So I think having an awareness it can is always a good thing. And what you can do, and maybe that's another episode I talk about, but what you can do kind of proactively to make sure this doesn't happen. But what today we're gonna talk about is what do you do when you are literally in the mud getting stuck going, I've got no clients.
Okay, so. This is the time I want you to think about what action can you take, and I want you to almost take this as a bit of a list or a bit of a kind of checklist of things that you can do in order to bring in money. And this is the other thing, like when I coach someone, I always have to understand how much they need the money to come in.
There is a very big difference from someone who would like more clients because. You know, and this is not a, this is perfectly good reason why they want more clients, but they wanna feel like they're bringing in their share or they want to feel like, you know, like they, they mean, you know, their business is a proper business and that is completely understandable, but that is very different from someone who potentially can't afford to pay the mortgage or are struggling, you know, getting to the point where they're starting to think about how else can they manage their business cuz the money's not coming in.
So, this is for either of those occasions, but obviously if I am coaching someone, then my advice would be slightly different if we were really at that panic mode. So let's think about things that you can do today if you need to bring in sales and it's gonna be things that is gonna push you out your comfort zone, and I'm so very sorry about that, but.
At the moment, if you're still in your comfort zone, that might be why you're not bringing in some of those sales. And these things are not comfortable. But the more you do it, the more you get used to it, the less you find it bothers you. And also, what's the worst that can happen? They can say, no, that's it.
You haven't lost anything. So by not even asking, you're not even in it. So the first thing I would suggest anybody does is look at where their kind of warm leads, their low hanging fruit is. So obviously the people who you are currently working with are probably, hopefully your best people because they're working with you and they obviously love you and they love what you do.
So, is there anything in addition to what you do for them that you could do? Is there more services that you could offer? Could you offer a review where you look at how you've worked together? Is it a case of they might need an increase because they haven't had an increase in a long while? And I know that's not always an easy thing to do, and sometimes if you haven't got the money coming in, you do not wanna risk losing another client.
So I don't say that likely, and everyone should do that. I just say, is that a possibility? So like I said, go back to those existing clients. First off, is there anything in addition you can do from them? Is there any way of increasing the order value for each of those clients? That's the first place you can start.
The second place you can go to with those clients. Because they love you is, is there anybody they can recommend? There is nothing wrong. And I think, and I think what the social media world has taught us is that we have to constantly make out like we're hugely successful, we're doing amazingly, and life is just pretty and amazing.
That isn't the case. There is nothing wrong with you being vulnerable in saying to them, I could really do with a couple of other clients. Like if any of the people that I work with came up to me and said, I don't suppose, you know, anybody I could do with a couple of clients, I wouldn't sit there and think, oh you're obviously terrible, aren't you?
Cuz I've made up my decision about whether they're good or not cuz they work with me. So I obviously think they're good and I would actually try really hard to help them out to, to see if there was anybody. And even it just meant sharing a post of theirs, go and "I love this person. They're brilliant if you are looking for a whatever it might be."
So go back to those people you are currently working with and say to them, Is there anybody that they could recommend or refer or could they just share or you know, could you get a testimonial from them? Could you do a case study? The next thing is to go to maybe past clients. Now, obviously, As long as you ended on a good relationship, is there anybody in the past that might be able to help you?
And again, there's a number of things you can go to them for. The first one is, do they need anything now? So let's say you're a copywriter and you did a piece of work for someone, specific piece of work. There's nothing wrong with you reaching out, saying, "Do you need anything else doing?" Same if you're a designer.
If you are a, web designer, why not go out to those people and say, "Did you wanna refresh? Do you want to change anything?" So go out to past clients and say, is there anything that you need help with right now? If that's a no, then again, there's nothing wrong with saying to them, is there anybody that you know that might need some help right now with X, Y, Z, or, I am looking for more clients in such and such sector.
Is there anybody you could refer to me? Is there anything you can do on that side? The next thing to do in terms of the warm people is. Follow up on past quotes. So you have probably put out quotes to people you've had conversations about things. Go back to those past quotes and go and have conversations with them again and say, I quoted for you ages ago.
I just wanted to touch base and just see if you had any need or requirement at the moment. Just to see if there's anything I can help with. If you manage to get that sort of completed. Is there another project or anything else you just don't know? What might be coming up for them? You don't know where they might be, obviously depending on how well you know them.
It might be a little bit harder to go, could you refer me? Because they haven't actually experienced your work, and therefore, understandably, I wouldn't do that. Someone said to me the other day, did I wanna be affiliate for something that I have no experience of? And the answer is no, obviously not, because I'm not going to refer to my amazing audience something that I haven't done and I'm, I am not a hundred percent confident in.
So yeah, go back to those quotes. Go and ask them do they need anything else? Is, you know, have they sorted out their thing that you quoted them for? The next thing that you can do, and obviously we're getting a bit cooler and a bit cooler and probably a bit more at your comfort zone, is follow up with past connections.
So if you have met people in person and you had a conversation with them, then why not follow up with them and just say, you know, It was so great to meet you had a lot of time. Even if they haven't asked for any work, even if they don't need any work, just follow up with them and say, is there anything that you need right now that I could help with?
Like I said, what is the worst they can say, "No", you're not doing a hardcore sales follow up. You're not trying to, like, I, I think the thing with sales, what we don't like as humans is when we think we're being sold to and they're not being direct about it. When it's like, When you're trying to push us into something.
So I'd really like to get on a coffee chat and have a chat with you about this. No, I don't want a coffee chat. What do you want? Like that's how I look or when I read those things or how I think when I read those things. Whereas if you said, I loved having a chat with you, really enjoyed it. Listen, if you ever have any need for X, Y, Z i.e. what you offer, then I'd love to have a chat with you about it.
That's it. You don't need to say anything else. You don't need to hardell them. I mean, you could almost write the chunk of that as a kind of template and then just add your personal bit on the front of where you met them or the conversation you had. And again, this isn't about, you know, trying to sell underhandedly.
This isn't about being sleazy. This is about thinking to yourself, I need clients and I need to do things that are stepping me outta my comfort zone. And yes, that might step me out of my comfort zone, but I'm going to do it. The other thing that you can do is, obviously post on social media, so there is nothing wrong again with saying I have availability.
You know, people who do things like project work, like websites or, my mind has gone completely blank. There is nothing wrong with them saying I have some availability. I now have space for someone to work with me in June. If you're a coach or whatever, you might wanna say that nothing wrong at all.
It doesn't look needy, it doesn't look, you know, at the end of the day, we need to ask for sales, and if anybody thinks it looks needy, then. Well, one, they're not your customer, and two, it's not, it's being direct and saying like, okay, let's take, I worked at McDonald's. Have I ever told you that? I worked at McDonald's obviously very, very, very, very long time ago.
And you know, there's the whole Would you like fries with that? It's not needy, it's just adding it in. It's just offering another service. So, instead of the, would you like fries of that? It's like, if you would like to work with me, I have space. The other thing that you can do and I'm gonna get Becci actually, when she writes the show notes for this to tag in her post and my post on Instagram, we both did posts that say how you can work with me.
And actually I think hers was, I am full, but these are other ways that you can work with me. So you could do that. You could do a post and we did carousels on Instagram, but you could do a post that says, this is how you work with me. This is how, what the services I offer. This is kind of how we can work together.
And again, it's not needy. It's not salesy, it's just being direct and just saying. Because there might be someone who could looks at it and goes, oh, I didn't know you did that. Like that would be really helpful. So these are all kind of really proactive ways in terms of you reaching out and you getting in front of people and kind of really directly asking for the connection.
Now, the next way is one that is gonna like. You're not gonna like, I know you're not. Cuz I wouldn't like it and I don't want to do it. Is the cold outreach. And I think when we think cold outreach, we think horrible, salesy, yuckness that we don't like. And that is a concern cuz we don't wanna do that. We don't like it.
We don't wanna come across that way. But I do think there is a way in which you can cold outreach that doesn't feel like that. I think there is nothing wrong with reaching out to people saying, "Hi, I wanted to introduce myself. This is what I do, this is how I can help." Yes, it's not gonna be as successful as some of those warmer things, but you might be at that stage, you might need to be doing that cold outreach.
I have an amazing, Executive club member in the mastermind who did this, she did cold outreach, and what she did was she found a particular industry within her business area that was quite a tricky one to do the thing that she does. This sounds very critical. Like cryptic, but I don't wanna give we who she was cause I haven't asked her permission.
But basically it's almost like when you do the cold outreach, nicheing down or getting a specific on a sector as you can is better. Because for me, so let's say like I'm a coach, I can coach anybody I work with any small business. Me trying to do cold outreach would be an absolute bloody nightmare.
Whereas I could say, okay, what specific product or service am I trying to push? So actually, if I was going to do cold outreach, it would probably be the coaching because the effort I would go to would have to be worth its while. So if I'm gonna cold outreach coaching, I'm not just gonna cold reach out, cold outreach, gosh, can't my words wrong?
Coaching to anybody I might think, who do I really wanna work with? Or who have I worked with in what sector that's worked really well. And then what this member did is she put together a PDF specifically for this industry, specifically for the thing that she did, and basically helped them and give them advice on how they can do something.
So she's adding value to them, very specific to them and their industry. Even though she deals with many industries, she'd had a lot of experience in this one. So that was what she went after. So she went for the warmest thing, even if she wasn't going for the warmest people.
So again, can you, cold outreach, is there a particular industry that sticks out more that is particularly, helpful to, to kind of focus on when you're called outreaching? Okay, so these other things are a little bit different, but worth mentioning. So the first one is other people's audiences. Now, I literally did an episode a few episodes ago, we'll linked to it in the show notes, on visibility and around visibility.
In fact, it was episode 293 and we, we talked about how to get in front of other people's audiences to grow your audience. Now this is a slow burn. This isn't gonna get you a sale overnight, but this is definitely somewhere that you should be focusing on and looking at. Another thing that you can do is think about other ways that you can make money.
Because sometimes when we need to make money, that's the focus. Yes, you might want a particular type of client in a particular type of industry, but sometimes, and I'm not talking about taking business that you would never normally take and putting yourself in a position where you don't wanna do the job.
I'm talking about what other opportunities are right there. So when I look, and one of my other sort of small tips for you is to have a spreadsheet of all the money that comes in and. So on my spreadsheet of my finances, I literally have every product...
23 min
May 15, 2023Back to basics with your social media
Today’s episode of the podcast is a gentle reminder of 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 like 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.
Once you've given it a listen, please share it with every business that you know - because what I talk about in this episode still blows my mind that that people aren't doing!
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 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

Transcript
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...
19 min
May 08, 2023How to become more visible and grow your audience
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about visibility - a must listen for every business owner out there!
Being seen is one of the most important things that you can do for your business, because if someone doesn't know you exist, they're going to have a real job actually buying from you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How to authentically use other people's audiences

Where to find other people's audiences

How to find where your audience is

How to add value to someones else's audience

How to ask to be a guest on someone's podcast

Alongside this episode is a five day email challenge, so if you like what I'm saying and want to put it into practice, then check it out via the links below.
I've already had so many people take part and have loved seeing how it's already getting them results - and I'd love nothing more than for you to have that too!

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Join My 5 Day Visibility Challenge
Find out more about Emma, from Dietitian With a Difference
Connect with Teresa on Instagram
Connect with Teresa on LinkedIn
Connect with Teresa on Facebook
Connect with Teresa on Twitter

Transcript
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Your Dream Business podcast, and I am your host, as always, Teresa Heath-Wareing. How are things going this week? How are you doing? So, I want to say thank you to a few of my amazing listeners who a couple of weeks back, I said to them, let me know where you're listening to this.
Because I get really interested, like I have this debate with one of my team members, is to where people listen because I always listen when getting ready in the morning. That's when I listen to my podcast or my audiobooks or anything. So I just wanna give a shout out to a few of you who tagged me into your posts.
So there was the lovely Donna from Happy Healthy Outdoors on Instagram. Then there was Shannon from Actually Social who tagged me in on Instagram as well, who was listening in the car. And also, uh, Wendy from Camelot Crafts was folding fabrics while listening to me. So what are you doing while you are listening to this? Let me know. Tag me in over on Instagram. I would love to know.
So this week we're going to be talking about visibility because being seen is one of the most important things that you can do for your business because at the end of the day, if someone doesn't know you exist, they're going to have a real job actually buying from you.
And a couple of weeks back, I did an insider experience in my club. Where I opened the doors and invited anybody in to come and join us. And basically you get to experience all the stuff that the members experience. And one of the things that I did that week was the training. And the training was all around getting visible.
How do we get visible and how do we do it quickly? Because we all know what the. You know what it's like to actually try and get seen. Try and get yourself out there. Try and get that all important engagement. And sometimes we just need a bit of a boost, or sometimes we just need a slightly faster way and sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not.
You know, I think everything has its place, but sometimes we just need to try and mix things up. So the training I did was all about how to use other people's audiences, and it's something that I've been doing for a while, but I don't think when I first started doing it that I actually realized what it is and what the strategy was.
And I'm kind of glad because I saw someone doing a talk about this a little while back, and the way they pitched it was, Almost from a very like selfish point of view. Don't I wanna say, I don't, selfish is the right word, but basically it was like, use their people, use the fact that they've built up an audience and use their audience and it's like they've worked really hard to build their audience.
I've worked really hard to build my audience and if I thought someone was coming into me saying, I wanna do something with you, Teresa, just to get in front of you lot. I would have an issue with that. I don't mind introducing people to my lovely community. If I think they're a good fit, if I think that they can add something that I can't add, and if I think they're a nice person.
So if I thought for one second, they were just trying to pitch me to get in front of my people, it would be a hard no. So I want to do it from a point of view of this is how I like to do it. This is how I think that this is a nice way to do it, which also has the added benefit of you being put in front of people's audiences.
And because like I said, I've done this sort of presentation that I did for my group. I thought that it would be good to kind of take you through the presentation a little bit. Obviously you can't see it. I'm just using it as a guide and just to kind of cover off the main points we were talking about and hopefully help you think about this.
Now, what is also awesome is alongside this episode is a five day email challenge. So if you like what I'm saying and you think I fancy given that a go, then go along. And I've already had loads of people join it. And in fact, someone just got in touch with me the other day saying, Teresa, what you said is working.
Always reassuring to hear, of course. But basically she'd been reaching out to podcasts. She'd done it the way I'd suggested. And she had not had a no yet, which is brilliant. Now, I can't guarantee that for everybody, including myself, but wonderful for her. So lots of people have already opted into this download, but if you go to https://teresaheathwareing.com/visible, then you are going to get the challenge that will fit really nicely with this episode.
So make sure you go and get that after you've listened to the episode. So how does this work? Why do we need to get in front front of people? Like how do we get visible. Now. You've all seen the funnel, okay? We've all seen the funnel, top of funnel. People coming in, they get free content. It might be short form or long form.
By short form, I mean social media. By long form I mean something like the podcast, because you're listening to this and it takes a little bit longer. It's not like a quick tap on Instagram. Then you have gated content, and your gated content are things like your email list or a Facebook group. Basically something where someone has got to actually show who they are, if you like.
So this is what I call hand raiser content. So basically they're saying, yeah, I like your stuff, I want to know more. And then from there, that tends to lead through to your sales and to your customers. But what happens is that bit at the top of the funnel is massive, and it comes really, really low down to the bottom of the funnel, which is your sales.
Again, super interesting. On a coaching call the other day, one of my amazing members, In fact, I'm gonna say who she is, Emma, and we're gonna tag her in. Um, she's Dietician with a Difference. She was talking to me about a webinar that she had done and she was saying that she wasn't very happy with the webinar and she didn't know if it was any good.
And we went, it actually started, sorry, with the conversation about email open rates and click rates and she wasn't sure whether she was getting good click rates. And one of the emails that she sent got a really good click rate and I said to her, that's an excellent click rate. What did you do in that email to get that click rate?
I'm really digressing here, but I promise you it's worth it. Um, and she said, oh, actually that was one from my webinar. And you know, that was kind of the sales email. I was like, well, that's reassuring. And then she went, yeah, I don't think my webinar went very well. And so she gave me her figures and her sales rate was 10%.
Now, normally your sales percentage of something, you know, pretty much the average across abroad is around 1% to 2%. So the fact that she got a 10% sales rate on her Masterclass was just brilliant. Um, so yeah, go and check her out. I'll make sure she's, uh, hooked up in the show notes. But that's the truth.
Like, so now what we talked about was, okay, if you got a 10% rate on that, that's a really good rate. But if you want x amount of sales in your, um, you know, to, to buy at the end of that process, you've gotta get more people in the top of that funnel. So if you know that how many people you get in about, 10% are gonna buy. No, they might not be 10% next time.
We'll have to wait and see. But even if you know 1% are going to buy, the more you put in the top, the more you're getting out the bottom. So that's why it's so important to get those people into the top of your funnel. Which basically just means get visible. You know, sometimes when I think we talk funnels and stuff, we, you know, we put people off or, or it sounds a bit like you may have to have some fancy funnel.
That's not the case. It's as simple as view you get your free content, get into your gated content and pay. So how do we get new people into the top of that funnel? Well, this is where our other people's audiences come in. So this is an audience that's already been established and they are not starting from scratch.
So it's not like they're building an email list. They already have an email list. They already have podcast listeners. So where do you find these other people, audiences? Well, they can be in loads of different places. So I, in the presentation, talked about lots of different places you can find them, but a couple examples could be on a podcast or speaking or writing, like for blogs.
But basically you are looking for places where there's already an audience. So when I go onto someone else's podcast and get interviewed, They've already got listeners. When I go and speak on a stage in front of people, they're the people responsible for bringing those people into the room. So that's what I mean by other people's audiences.
And one thing actually I wanna put in here is it doesn't have to be a ginormous audience. I think people are so obsessed with numbers. It really doesn't have to be a huge audience. I'm speaking in a few weeks. Um, I was just wondering whether I'd have already spoke by the time it's come out, but no, I won't have.
I'm speaking in a few weeks to a mastermind in the States, and it's a Seven Figure Female Mastermind. So all of these women are seven figure business owners, and there will be a small number of those, I think probably no more than 10. And you might think, well, why would you find all the way to the States to speak to 10 people?
But it's 10 people who could be my perfect audience, who could be my perfect customers, who I could work with one-to-one. And I love speaking and it's in Nashville, and I love Nashville. Um, so like I said, It doesn't have to be massive audiences. I think people get really like obsessed with, well, I only wanna do it if it's a huge audience.
And that's when it comes down to, well, you're not doing it. It's kind of your ego kicking in because it's like, okay, if you've only got, you know, 20 people, I don't wanna speak to you, but if you've got 200 people, I wanna speak to you. And it's like, well actually those 20 people could be the most engaged audience of the world.
And actually those 200 could not give a down about their, their person that they follow. So for me, I don't care about the size, which I've said to you before. And if you have got an event or a podcast or training or you wanna go live with me, don't ask me to write. I'm not writing. Um, but other anything, then just give me a shout.
If I'm free, I will do it. Like I said, I'm flying to Nashville to speak to potentially 10 people, so I will do it. Because I know how important this is, and I know those connections are so important. And actually the thing I'm doing in Nashville is a whole day and evening, a couple of overnights. So actually I'll be hanging out with these people for much longer than just speaking for 45 minutes to an hour or whatever it is.
Okay. So like I said, loads of different places that other people's audiences are. So how do you get in front of those audiences? So the first thing you need to decide is how do you wanna show up? So those various things I just talked about. Which of them do you like? Do you like speaking on stage? Now.
Like is a strong word? Like could you be comfortable with, could you get to, you get used to, cause I know there's some people who are like, couldn't do a podcast. Well, actually doing someone else's podcast is the easiest thing in the world. Like for me, granted. But generally of all the different things takes little to no prep, so.
Other than having the discussion about what I'm gonna speak about, they ask all the questions, it feels super easy for me. So once you've done it a few times, actually, it's really good and you are never as bad as you think you are. Fyi. But yeah. So number one, step one is how do you want to show up? Think about that.
What are you comfortable doing? Now, me, I have done that much other than writing, I am pretty happy doing anything, but you might decide that actually you're much better training online or you're much better speaking on a stage, or you're much better being interviewed on a podcast or going live with someone.
But basically, how can you get, and you might sit there and go, I'm, I love writing and therefore, Well the new, cuz that is not for me. So that's the first step. How do you want to show up? And in the challenge, uh, that I said earlier, we go through these and you have to make the decisions. So don't forget to go and get that.
It's https://teresaheathwareing.com/visible. Obviously it's all in the show notes, and if you want the show notes, go to teresaheathwareing.com/ the number of this episode, which is probably a good idea if I tell you what it is. Hang on. This is the problem now with me recording all of these clean, it's like I don't say the episode number, which I used to include to the intro thing and we don't anymore.
Um, so I had to just double check. So it's 293, so it literally will be 293. Okay, back on with the episode. So. Next step. Step number two is where do my customers hang out? So once you've decided the type of thing you like to do, then where are your, where are your customers hanging out? So there's a few different places that you can look.
So one of the places are where are your customers sharing? So if your following your customers on social media, on you know, you talk to them, they're in your groups, whatever it is, what do they share? Are there, and obviously I'm gonna talk about podcasts a lot because I have a podcast, I go on other people's podcasts.
But whenever I speak about a podcast, I'm talking about any of those different places. So for instance, what podcasts are my members sharing or my customer sharing, or my audience sharing? Um, it might be, where are my competitors showing up? So for instance, uh, you might have someone who's a competitor or in a similar field or a complimentary business.
Where are they showing up? Have they got, are they going on people's podcasts that you think, oh, that would be a good fit for me? One of the things that we used to do, which I have to say is like, Bit of a genius move, and I don't even think I realized at the time, I definitely didn't realize at the time is when someone came on my podcast or asked to come on my podcast, I would ask them, where else have they done podcast interviews?
Because the reason I did it is I wanted to hear them being interviewed and to hear whether I thought they'd be a good fit. But of course, in turn what happened was I got loads of other people's podcasts. So every time someone said, oh, I've spoke on this podcast, or in this podcast, I would get one on my team to go and drop that into my Asana.
And therefore, when I was looking for podcasts to go on, I could just go in there and go, does this podcast still exist? Cuz sometimes like depending on how long you've done your research, it might not still exist. Um, or the episode that someone might have listened to was a really long time ago and actually they're not recording anymore.
And it's important stuff like that that you need to know before you reach out to someone. Um, so yeah, so we have got this constant kind of feed of things coming in or we did when we had interviews. And then of course there's good old Google, like just go on and Google podcasts for small business owners, podcast for Mums, podcast for engineers.
I dunno, whatever it is that you are doing, just Google. Blogs for marketers, like whatever it is, just go and Google it and find it. And the idea is you are gonna start building that list. Now this is an activity that either you could give to one of your team if you have a team, or I would do in like, I'd give myself an afternoon and you do need a bit of time.
This is going to take time, but I promise it's worth it if you do this right. So that's step number two to basically find where your customers are hanging out. And that's the key bit. It really has to be your audience. And don't even think, like, so obviously my audience are business owners, but my business owner audiences might listen to a finance podcast or they might listen to a motivational type podcast.
So it's not just people who do what I do, cuz the chances are they're not gonna want me on if they're a competitor. Okay, how can I add value? That is step number three. So the key thing about doing this exercise, about going in front of other people's audiences is it has to be win win. So you have to provide a benefit.
No one is gonna put you in front of their audience just for the sake of it. You've got to provide some benefit to your, the person that you are approaching. So the benefit or the value is the thing that you do every day is the thing that you know about. And I had a really interesting conversation with, I did this, um, exercise with my mastermind, my exec club, and we did a challenge where I did the challenge, as in I set the challenge and I followed them through and I made them give me their answers and things.
And I had one of my members jump on a call with me because she was struggling to see, cuz one of the things I did in the challenge was like, okay, I'm in a room if you want to come and ask questions, I'm here if you're stuck on a challenge.
And she jumped in the room and she was like, I don't know what podcast I can go on or what places I can speak. I don't know what an expert I am at, what I don't know how I...
26 min
May 01, 2023The vicious cycle of procrastination and how to tackle it
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about procrastination - and if you’re thinking you’ve heard this 101 times before and don’t need to listen, please do, because you’re in for a treat!
In this episode I look at procrastination from a different perspective than the way we usually hear it spoken about, and share my real life and practical tips for how to tackle it.
If you struggle with procrastination you will learn a lot from this episode, so I can’t wait to hear what your biggest takeaway is, please do connect with me on social media and let me know.
And if you know someone who regularly beats themselves up for not getting things done, then please share this episode with them too. I would really love for you to do that!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How to slow down your procrastination process

The role of self compassion in procrastination

Practical tips to prevent procrastination

LINKS TO USEFUL RESOURCES
Join my monthly mindset sessions in the Dream Business Club
Teresa Heath-Wareing Instagram
Teresa Heath-Wareing LinkedIn
Teresa Heath-Wareing Facebook
Teresa Heath-Wareing Twitter
Transcript
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The Dream Business Podcast. And as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath - Wearing. If you are new to the podcast, let me take a minute to introduce myself. I am a business marketing and mindset coach. I am a speaker, a podcaster, and an online business owner, and I help small business owners through my membership, one-to-one work and my mastermind.
So welcome. I am very grateful you are here and if you listen for a while, then obviously I'm very grateful you are here as always. Now, I mentioned last week that I am doing completely clean episodes and they are not being edited. So after 290, whatever this is, episodes, I have always had them edited.
And then I just thought, you know what? I wanna simplify my life and simplify my business life. And actually I've been doing this for a long while. I pride myself on being authentic, so I just record them as is, and you get them. Obviously, if I mess up, I delete that bit as I'm recording it, so you're not gonna get me really making huge mistakes or say in bad language, so we should be fine.
So today we're gonna be talking about procrastination, but I don't want you to think, oh yeah, we've, I'd know about this, or I've done stuff on how to try and work better and be more organized and manage my time. We're not actually looking at it from that point of view.
I listened to a podcast and as if you are in my world and have been for a while, you know, I learn continuously. It's very important to me to constantly develop my knowledge and understanding of things, and I just love it. I'm one of those people that like, Could happily go to university for their entire life, I think, um, if they paid me, obviously.
But, um, I really enjoy learning new stuff and I was listening to something weeks back about procrastination and they gave a different view on it. And so then I started to do some research as I do about what procrastination is. And I was kind of like surprised and relieved to find out some of the stuff that I did, because what happens when we procrastinate is we think we're lazy.
We think we're either really un organise, really lazy. We get really frustrated with ourselves and we just think, why can't we get on and do it? And that really bothers us. And we know we're smart, we know we can do these things. So why is it that we don't do the things that we know we need to do? And when you run your own business, procrastinating can be really, really damaging for you because if you are putting off sending that proposal or reaching out to that podcast or connecting with that customer, then that can lead in loss of money.
It's not just a case of, you know, you're gonna get told of by your boss. It, it really is a case of that could effectively stop you earning the money you should be earning, um, or the potential to earn money that you could be earning. So imagine my delight and joy when I did the research and it said, you're not lazy.
People who procrastinate are not lazy people. And do you know what? For a long, long time I was told I was very lazy, uh, by my family for things like I would, uh, park as close as I could possibly park in a parking space, like if I had to walk somewhere. And then I realized actually I'm not lazy. I'm really efficient.
Like that's my aim to be as efficient as possible. And I think lazy is such a horrible word, especially to be calling ourselves. So I was over the moon. When I discovered that actually it's not laziness, it's actually to do with your emotions, which I just thought like this is ace, but also like blew my mind a little bit because often so much comes back to us and our feelings and.
And our own mind and our mindset, and it was just really reassuring to know that even something as practical of this comes back to it. So it's the fact that you are trying to avoid feeling in a certain way, okay? And by procrastinating, you are avoiding that one feeling you don't want to feel, and you are then moving to a feeling you want to feel.
Let me try and break it down and explain it. And I think this is gonna be really helpful to you and anyone else, you know, who is in business that procrastinates. So if this is something that you, uh, can share, I think they're gonna really love this. Especially if they've been beating themselves up thinking, I dunno why I can't get this done.
So if any friend has said that to you, you need to share this episode with them, and I think you're gonna learn a lot from it. Okay, so let's take you doing a proposal or something for work. So you've got a proposal to do and you know that you need to do this proposal. You know that that is one of the only ways that you are going to be able to get that business is by doing that proposal.
And you know that actually when you've had the meeting with them and you're having a conversation with them, you're really excited about it and you think, yeah, this is awesome. I'd love to work for this customer. But what we try and avoid when. The emotions that no emotion is bad, but what we're trying to avoid with some of the emotions are the ones that don't feel great.
So the emotion could be bored, it could be anxiety, it could be insecurity, it could be frustration, it could be self-doubt. So, Actually, when you think about some of those things and you think about, what if I was doing a proposal? Well, there might be an element of you that has serious self-doubt about the proposal.
And in fact, when I think about it, lots of people I know do this. So they might be really confident in the work that they can do or, or they might not. They might think, well, I've never worked with this type of person before. And the self doubt is kicking in. They might think, yeah, I would love to do this work.
I'm a little bit nervous about how much money I'm gonna charge them. And you might be feeling anxious about that. You might be thinking to yourself, I, I just dunno if this is right or if this is enough. So in our head, before we even get started, We think of the activity and our brain immediately goes, what do I know about this?
And it's basically brings up some of those emotion, oh, I'm anxious about it, or I'm having some self doubt. Of course, unless you are over self-aware, you don't know this is going on. This happens in a millisecond in your brain and all it does and the thing that it really kicks in is makes you go, I don't wanna feel like that cuz no one wants to feel like that.
Although none of these emotions are bad. And I remember like, You know, some of the things we say to our children or have been said to us as children of like, don't cry, don't get upset. And it's like, no, it's fine. And I have to say, I have conversations with my husband when I'm angry about something or upset about something, I'm like, I am allowed to have those emotions.
These emotions are fine when they're in the right place. And actually, you know, I don't wanna stay here very long, but there's nothing wrong with me feeling them. But on the whole, we wanna avoid them and this is what's happening when we are procrastinating. It is just our very, very smart, clever brain trying to keep us safe from those emotions.
We don't want to feel, but we probably don't even realise that we're feeling those emotions. Because one of the key things about mindset, and one of the key things about doing this work is slowing yourself down enough, which we don't do. And even with all the practice that I've done, it still takes work.
But slowing yourself down enough to go, what's happening here? What's going on here? But okay, so let's ignore that side for to begin with. So what normally happens is within a very quick millisecond of a moment, our brain goes, oh, I don't wanna feel like this. So what our brain does very kindly is go, let's do something else that makes us feel nice.
Like we don't wanna feel nervous or anxious. We don't wanna have the self doubt. So why don't we clean your desk? Because that's nice. We always feel such a sense of accomplishment once we've done it or we like doing that cuz we could put some music on and you can sing while wiping down your desk like, so what it's trying to do is it's trying to replace that emotion.
And give you a nicer feeling. So it's procrastinating you in order to make you feel differently. It's not that you are lazy and you can't be bothered to do that thing, it's the fact of even when it's a, even when it's an emotion where you might be bored. So let's say. You've been putting off. In fact, I was just about to say, let's say you've been putting off, like doing your admin for your finance, but I think that's probably down to like anxiety For me, when I think about it, it's not boredom of just doing the same thing.
In fact, I quite like on occasion doing a very monotonous task, but for me it's probably the anxiety of, oh my God, how much money have I spent? So that, it's funny that that's just come to me as I was talking to you. But anyway, so like even when it's a boredom task, it's still not laziness. It's just that you don't want the feeling of boredom.
So what your super clever brain and very kind brain is trying to do to you is go, let's feel something else. Some something so much nicer. Why don't you go cook some food? Why don't you DM your voice, your friend on voice message? Uh, because that's much nicer and you like to have a laugh and that's great.
So basically it's trying to put off that feeling. It's trying to stop you from feeling that way, which is lovely and great, however, It's just making it worse because what's happening is it's almost reconfirming. You will definitely feel that way. Cuz also as well, you don't actually know that by the time you've done the thing that you will feel that way.
Like it's just the thought of sitting down, doing my accounts that make me feel anxious. I could do my accounts and come out the end of it and go, awesome. I feel really good about that. In fact, I'm, you know, I normally do, to be fair. Um, even though I go, I still spend too much money. Um, but it could be that you finish the proposal and think, now I feel really confident about that.
I feel really happy. So it might not even be that that emotion comes into fruition. So it's not even the case that you are in that emotion at that point. It's your brain going, How might I feel, or what might come up from this and trying to protect you before you can get there. So the problem is you go off and you do a lovely new activity to replace that mood.
You know Canva is a good one for me. I love designing stuff in Canva, although I don't need to. Um, but what happens is you feel good for a little bit, and then when you get to the end of that feeling, because emotions come and go and move all the time. You're just back to square one and you feel worse. And you feel worse because now not only do you have the initial emotion of doing the task of the anxiety or the self doubt, but then you can lump on thanks very much, brain, a whole load of shame and annoyance and.
All these things that basically make you feel even worse because of the fact that you've put the task off. So you'll beat yourself up because you're like, oh, I still didn't do that task, and I've got to the end of the day. And instead, I've just spent all afternoon peeing around in Canva and actually, Really what we wanted to do was get that one thing done.
So it is actually more like a vicious circle of every time you procrastinate, you are trying to avoid a feeling. You feel good for a bit, but then you have that feeling back again and chucking on top the shame and the guilt and the frustration. So actually, although our brain is trying to be really clever and really kind, it's actually making things worse for us.
And although we think, I don't wanna do this right now, let's do something else. And maybe not even that consciously. It's not doing us sunny favors. So what do we do about it? How do we stop the procrastination? How do we move past that feeling or manage that feeling to get past? So I've got some tips for you in how you can manage your procrastination, but before I give you those tips, I want you to go on social media after you've listened to this episode and tag me in into a post and tell me what's your favorite thing to procrastinate with?
I want you to share it on your social media. Tag me in so I can see how you are loving procrastinating, and what kind of things do you try and either avoid and what thing do you do in order to avoid that thing? Like what's your favorite procrastination?
Okay, let's get on with these tips. So how do we fix it? Now I think the key thing to know here is it's not about time management. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan. I've done some stuff recently on it and I do some tactics and tools and things, but actually when it comes to procrastination, it's not about managing your time.
It's about managing your emotions, which are, this is why I love the research I did on this so much cuz it really tipped on its head for me, it's like, oh, it's not that I'm just really bad at time management. And when I think about. The coaching I've done over the years and some of the people who are like, oh, I'm so disorganized.
I don't get stuff done, and how I've tried to support them with time management stuff. Actually my view now is, is completely flipping. It's really gonna be digging into, well, why don't? Why? What is stopping you doing that? What is it that you think is gonna happen when you do that? So, how are we gonna stop these?
These wonderful procrastination tools that our brain tries to fix. So if it's about emotions, it's about slowing back down again. And actually, for me, this is the biggest and best thing that you can ever do. Also, for me, mindset is about getting curious. It's about being to being the scientist, not the judge.
So it's about. Kind of asking questions and, and trying to understand something rather than sitting there going, you're useless because you procrastinate and you know, what do you think you're doing? And that sort of thing. So I think the first thing to think about is that slowing down process, and it's about trying to, and if we think about the brain, it's about trying to rewrite what our brain knows.
Because what happens is it very quickly goes to a neuro pathway to go, what do we do here? How does this work here? And over time, It's like, um, it's like you're going down a road, right? So you are going down a track and there's, you are come to the end of the track and there's two ways to go. And what happens is when you choose that one way.
And imagine these attracts in your brain, the more you go down that path, the more that path gets established. So, you know, they probably put some concrete down and then they put some street lights down there and, and that becomes like as you get to the end of the road and you're constantly given the choice of that path there or that path there, the one that you keep going down, which is lovely lit and has a, you know, nicely concreted and now is a road.
Compared to the very dark and dingy and overgrown, scary looking other path, you're always going to keep going down the one that's the most familiar, the one that you know the most. And that's what our brain does. So our brain likes to do the familiar thing. Cause it's like being here before, go to write proposal, don't like to do it, put it after 10 other things.
And of course, every time we do that, It cements that pathway even more. So now we have to slow ourselves down to go, okay, I'm here at the end of this road, and the easy route would be to go down that path. And it's the same when it comes to. Anything really like, you know, that almost becomes a habit. So get to the end of the night, have a glass of wine.
Whereas if you're saying to yourself, I don't want a glass of wine, I really don't wanna have a glass of wine tonight, actually, when you reach the end of that path, it's really hard to go, okay, I know that pathway is so very clear. In fact, now it's a motorway because I go down that path so often. However, I'm gonna have to do this very uncomfortable, scary thing and go.
I'm gonna make myself feel very much out in my comfort zone and go down this other route of this scary path and then try and build that path up. And then as the more you do it, you start to build that path and the other path starts to grow over and they get potholes and it gets rubbish. So this is what it's about.
It's about rewriting those habits and those neuro pathways, if you want to be fancy, which, you know, I like to feel fancy sometimes and pretend I know what I'm talking about. Okay, so how do we do that? So some of the ways in which we can do that is we need to think about that emotion so we can either, the first thing that we could do is slow ourselves down.
And give our chance ourselves to actually question and chance to think about it. So the next time you find yourself about to procrastinate, about to put something off. And this FYI can take a lot of effort and a lot of skill, like doing this on the fly is hard. In fact, I did an episode not so long ago, we'll link up to it in the show notes talking about how I use these tools and how I manage to use it on the fly.
But this takes practice. So sometimes you're not even gonna be able to catch it, but the more you think about it, the closer you get to catching it. So if you've done it, don't beat yourself up. Just go, oh, that was interesting. I procrastinated again. Why did I do that? So, and I know this science, even as I say the words coming outta my mouth, it can sound a little bit like, this is where I'd swear a little bit of a.
Jerky thing to do, like, oh yes, I will just sit there
28 min
April 24, 2023How to mindset tools and strategies into practice in real life
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about how to put the mindset tools, tactics and strategies that you hear me talk about all the time into practice!
In this episode I share a vulnerable and recent real life story where I took everything I teach about mindset and put it into practice to actually make a difference to something I experienced, at the moment it happened.
So get ready to learn, and if you think there is someone out there that could benefit from this episode, then please go ahead and share it with them. I would really love for you to do that!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
What mindset is and why it is important

How to reframe thoughts into facts

The importance of knowing and noticing your triggers

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Join my monthly mindset sessions in the Dream Business Club
Teresa Heath-Wareing Instagram
Teresa Heath-Wareing LinkedIn
Teresa Heath-Wareing Facebook
Teresa Heath-Wareing Twitter

Transcript
You are listening to your Dream Business Podcast, and I am your host, as always, Teresa Heath -Wearing. So if you are a regular listener, then right now you might be thinking, this doesn't sound right. Normally, Teresa does an intro. She tells us what episode it is, and then some music kicks in and it's Teresa again telling us what this podcast is all about and why we should listen to it.
Not today and not from now on. I am mixing things up a little bit again. Uh, I mix things up at the end of the year by stopping interviews and now I, I'm on a quest for simplifying things in my life. We have busy and full lives, which is lovely and beautiful, and we are very privileged. However, I am no quest to kind of bring it back to almost like not when I started, cuz I can assure you life is nothing like when I started business, but just bring it back a bit.
Like do I need all the things that we do and should I do them that way? And I just questioned a few things. So one of the things I've decided to do is give you entirely what I'm calling clean episodes. And what I mean by that is as I speak to the recording now, this is what you're gonna hear. No editing, no tweaking, no improving the sound of my voice or whatever it might be.
And I am hoping that it doesn't sound that different. I'm hoping that you don't notice a huge difference cuz we were always very careful about the editing, but I just want to simplify things. I just wanna have things a little bit kind of less complicated, one less step in the process. And if me just hitting record and you hearing me as rawly and as authentically as I am when I record it, then great. I am happy with that.
And like I said, I really don't think you're gonna notice a massive difference. I don't record it and make massive errors that my lovely editor had to edit out. If I swore, which was more likely the case because I'd messed up, then I would go back and delete that as I'm recording it.
So it wasn't like he had to get rid of any of that. It was just that maybe if I took any sharp intakes of breath or paused for too long, like I just did then, then he would probably clean that up. But we're going with it. And this is a. I think this is in line with some other stuff. Like I did a story today on my Instagram saying that I don't use filters anymore.
I used to use filters because I used to think I don't look good enough. I don't, my skin doesn't look clear enough, or my eyes don't look bright enough, or my teeth aren't white enough and I dunno whether it's an age thing. I don't know whether it's a confidence thing that has come with all the personal development stuff I've done.
But no longer, like, this is who I am, this is how I show up. I am very confident in who I serve and what I do, and I know I do a great job. So does having a filter on an Instagram story change that, does having a perfectly edited podcast with amazing intro and outro music and all that jazz change that? No, it doesn't.
It's, it's exactly the same, regardless. So that's what I'm doing. I am showing up perfectly imperfect. And I am debating, and I really wanna get your feedback on this, so I would like you to take some action on this if you could. I would be very, very grateful. I am debating recording myself on video when I do these episodes.
This is not something I've ever done before and I'm debating about checking it up on YouTube like, It's the same. I'm recording it sat at my computer. Um, and I'm actually co-working as I'm recording this, so I'm actually currently on screen with the co-working, uh, people in my executive club. Um, but yeah, just wondering what you think it, you know, does that interest you?
Do you think that could be good? Let me know. Anyway, let's get on with today's episode. So, have you ever thought that when you've heard me talk about mindset, tools and tactics and strategies, and you've thought, yeah, that's great, that all sounds brilliant, but how do you actually put them into practice in real life?
Well, that's what I'm gonna share with you today because this is what happened to me a couple of weeks back. I have the most amazing story, which is very vulnerable, uh, but in my quest to show up even more vulnerable than I do. I'm gonna share this story with you as how I took all these tools and strategies and tactics that I have used over the years to actually make a difference in something at the moment it happened.
So get ready to learn, and if you think there is someone out there that could benefit from this episode, then please go ahead and share it with them. I would love for you to do that. So someone asked me the other day. What mindset was, and no one had ever really asked me that before. I think one person had, and I sat and thought, and I said to them that I think mindset is just the fact of noticing, slowing down and being conscious of stuff.
That's what I think mindset is. That's what I think it comes down to. But how do we get conscious in the moment? How do we stop during that moment when if we could just master our mindset, then it could make a world of difference, because that in itself is hard.
Like knowing the tools, learning the tools is great, but actually when we need it in the moment, that's the bit that's really, really difficult. So how do we do that? So, The first thing I wanna say is like everything. This is a practice, and I know people don't wanna hear it. Like they don't wanna hear that things don't work.
Because if I could give you a magic tip or trick or something tomorrow to make all this perfect, I'd take it. I would happily give it and I would take it because this stuff is hard. But I promise you it's worth the work. So let me tell you my story and then I'll share how I did this and how you can do this too.
So I went away from my birthday. I went to Amsterdam and I chose Amsterdam for two reasons. The first reason was on my goal list this year is going new places. My husband and I have very favorite places that we go, and we go there all the time. And as much as we love it and we really do, I really wanted to try somewhere new.
And the second reason I chose Amsterdam was it's very close to the UK so the flight time for that is about an hour and a bit if that. Now, I don't like sitting in economy because I'm not built for it. And when I say I'm not built for it, I don't mean from a high maintenance point of view. Although I do love the nicer things in life.
Who doesn't? I mean, physically I live in a larger body and sitting on a plane in economy is physically painful because the seats will dig into me. Um, it is. Actually quite humiliating sometimes having to squeeze yourself in and I get a little bit claustrophobic, so I don't like how much space I take up in the seat and how close the seat is to me.
If you are brand new, this is a very vulnerable episode. They're not all this vulnerable, so I. And, and, and I didn't want my poor husband to have to pay for a premium or a business class flight. I will do economy if it's under four hours because I can just about manage in those four hours. And if over four, I can't manage.
So anyway, we get our flight to Amsterdam and my husband being an absolute, well he works in the, um, he used to work in the military in the RAF and now works for Boeing who build planes. So he loves planes, he loves flying. So he always gets a window seat, and I was in the middle seat. So as we get on the plane, and we're normally one of the last ones to try and get on, because who wants to sit on a plane longer than you need to?
So we get on the plane and there's a woman sat in the outside seat. So, um, I get on and my husband goes, we have to get this woman to move, and my husband goes into the window seat and I squeeze into the middle seat, and this woman looks at me in a way that makes me feel as if I don't belong. And as if. I am taking up too much space in this world.
She almost looks me up and down and has a element of disgust on her face, and huffs and puffs a little as I'm trying to get comfortable and get myself sorted. And already feeling pretty anxious about the fact of being in an economy flight. This starts to send me over the edge and I start to get really anxious and I can feel myself, uh, my heartbeat quickening, my breath quickening.
Uh, I can feel it in my throat, I can feel it in my chest, and I am starting to get hot and I am starting to feel very uncomfortable, and I am doing everything in my power to make myself physically smaller than I am, which obviously is impossible, but I have got my hands and arms tucked in as tight as I can. I am leaning as far over on my husband's side as I can, and I'm starting to get really upset.
And I tried talking to my husband, but obviously she sat next to me. So I'm trying to like sign language and whisper to my husband that this woman has just looked at me in a way and I'm so upset and I'm so angry and in my head I start thinking of all the many things I might say to her. Now, the staff, she was from the Netherlands, so I'm not entirely sure that she'd be able to understand me.
But in my head I start thinking about all the things I would say to her, all the many reasons people live in a larger body, and if it was only down to calories and calories out, what a lovely thought that might be, but it isn't ever down to that. And actually there are many reasons people do to do with trauma, to do with, you know, many, many things like treatments, some drugs make you put on way.
Like there are so many reasons why people live in a larger body and lots of them might not be anything to do with them. And also, it's none of this woman's business. But in my head I am like, you know, if this is what you think, you need to educate yourself because that is a very shortsighted view, but of course, I'm doing this in my head, right?
So this is taking about five minutes for me to start to spiral up, and I'm literally holding back tears, feeling like I'm about to burst into tears at any point, and then a moment came in my head and I took the tool that I have been using for a very long time. But I was able to see it at that very point cuz I was able to see me getting triggered.
I was able to feel that I was having these emotions. So then at that point I went, oh, hang on a minute in my own head while still sat there and I sat in the seat and I closed my eyes and I breath. Okay. And I literally took some really long, slow, deep breaths and I got fully in my head. And when, I mean in my head, I mean, I kept my eyes closed.
I had my noise canceling headphones on, and I literally was like, it's just you, you, you know, you're just here. And I thought to myself. What do I know as fact? Okay, so one of the tools I use we look at circumstances or we look at what's fact and then what's thought. Because often we take the thought as fact and it's not. So what did I honestly know as fact?
Well, what I knew as fact was she looked at me in a way I didn't like. Now, I didn't know what she was thinking behind that. Now I can guess, and I'm pretty sure I was right, but I had to say to myself, what did I know as fact? Fact was she looked at me in a way that I didn't like and I assumed the rest. So once I had got to myself, okay.
All the fact is, is that she looked me in a way I then was able to start to change my thoughts. My thoughts changed into ways of, there could have been many reasons she looked at me that way. She could have looked at me in that way because she thought she'd got a whole seat to herself, and suddenly these two people come in and sit next to her.
She could have come off a horrible trip into the UK because something awful had happened. Like there could have been a million things that happened to her to make her look at me in that way. But none of them were to do with me. Even if it was, it still wasn't to do with me. Her thoughts and opinions and, and whatever of me were none of my business.
And I started to relax and I started to feel my chest calm and my breathing slow, which I did on purpose. And by doing that, I am telling my body there is nothing to worry about and telling the anxiety to calm down. I am safe cuz when your breathing speeds up, your body thinks you're not safe. So I brought my breathing down and I, I was telling my body I am safe.
And I went through and thought, well, I don't know the reason she did that. So actually it's none of my business why she looked at me like that. And what do I know for a fact? What I know for fact is I deserve to sit here in this space. I deserve to take up space in this world, and there is nothing wrong with me or anybody else's business, how much physical space my body takes up.
And actually how she looked at me should not impact me one little bit. And I did this and I went through all this process in my head and I reframed the whole thing. And within probably 10 minutes of being on that flight, I had almost dropped into this kind of spiral of I'm gonna have the most horrific time and I don't wanna be on this flight, but I couldn't go anywhere to actually, I don't know this woman, and she's done nothing to me and I'm gonna smile and be my normal self.
And just because she chooses to be a certain way that has no reflection on how I should be and how I should show up in the world. And I sat there and I tried to communicate to my husband how freaking proud of myself I was. And I don't know that he necessarily got it, but like I was like, I just did that.
I just like took myself from potentially spiraling outta control to changing my thoughts. The thing that I have been practicing for such a long time and it worked and I have sat here with a big grin on my face, feeling very happy about going away, being on this plane sitting next to this woman, I am not trying to shrink myself.
I am sat very comfortably in my seat and I deserve to take up space. So that, for me was an absolute revelation. Like I've been doing this work for a while, and sometimes you do the work in faith that it's going to work, but you're not really entirely sure how and when. And that's what happened. I'd been doing the work and then it got to the point where I was able to reverse a situation in a very short space of time. A situation that previously probably would've ruined the weekend, and I know that feels like a complete exaggeration, but my filter of me and my body and the space I take up brings a lot of shame like it has done in the past.
There's a lot of shame that I am the size I am. So for me, that would've spiraled out of control and I would've felt very uncomfortable for most of the weekend and I didn't, I genuinely, and I wasn't even kidding myself. You know how there's the whole fake it till you make, it wasn't even that. It was absolutely deadly serious.
I was fine, genuinely fine and happy. So how do you do that? How do you get to that point? Well, the first thing you have to do is notice. You have to pay attention to yourself, and you have to notice these triggers. You have to see when things are starting to affect you, and one of the ways in which you can do that is noticing when you get an emotion or a reaction that you don't like.
Now, there is no bad or wrong emotions. Emotions are fine. They are all perfectly human to feel every emotion. Someone, people think mindset is like just walking around with a big, that grin on your face all the time. Well, that's not the case because things are gonna happen that are gonna make you sad.
People will die, people will get ill. Life will be rubbish and they will make you sad. And it's not the fact of you shouldn't feel those things, it's the fact of you wanna move through them as quickly as possible or as as appropriately as possible because they just don't feel great. So for me, it's about paying attention when you feel feelings that you don't like.
For me, it might be anxiety, shame, frustration. My anxiety often comes out in anger. So anger is a big trigger for me. It's about noticing those things. Then once you've noticed them, it's about then slowing down and giving yourself the chance to breathe and just pay attention. And it's about then trying to separate your thoughts from your feelings and your thoughts and feelings from the actual facts.
So, For example, uh, you might have put a proposal out there to someone or I, and this is definitely been true for me. Um, I'm sure you guys will relate as well. I have asked to speak. It might not be someone to speak, but you've put yourself out there. You've said, I want to do this thing, or I want to, uh, Work with you or whatever it might be.
But I put myself out to speak on a stage once of people that I knew very well and they said no, and I was devastated and I got upset and I got frustrated and I felt shame because I thought they don't think I'm good enough. And I read so much into that no of my own thoughts, which equated to my own feelings, but the fact is all they said was no.
They didn't say, "No, Teresa, we think you're a terrible speaker, and we'd never put you on our stage in a million years." In fact, they gave me a really good reason why they couldn't pick me. And it was a perfectly reasonable reason. It had nothing to do with me. In fact, the reason they didn't have me was because I wasn't part of their membership.
Oh, no, no, no. It wasn't. It wasn't. It was because I didn't have the product that they were speaking on, so I wanted to speak on a particular subject, and I didn't own one of those products myself. I helped other people with them, but they only wanted people there who had those products themselves.
Perfectly reasonable explanation. But of course, instead of reading that, I read everything else into it. But again, you need to take yourself back to the facts. You need to become the scientist. You need to become the investigator and go, what do I know is true? And then you are able to say, okay, so if that's what's true, Are the thoughts and the...
26 min
April 17, 2023Why I used to think coaches were full of sh*t!
Today’s episode of the podcast is all about why I used to think coaches were full of a lot of rubbish, and what made me change my mind!
In this episode I talk all about what a coach really is, what you can expect to get from working with one and why every business owner would benefit from having a coach in some capacity.
I’d really love to know where you’re listening to this episode, and what you do whilst you tune in - is it whilst you’re on a walk, whilst you get ready in the morning, as you work or somewhere else?
Take a photo or a screenshot and tag me in your Instagram stories to let me know!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
What a coach is and why you need one

Why I decided to invest in a coach and how I got one

The difference between group coaching and one to one coaching

The difference between coaching, mentoring and accountability

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Find out more about my One to One Coaching
Join my Dream Business Club or Exec Club
Teresa Heath-Wareing Instagram
Teresa Heath-Wareing LinkedIn
Teresa Heath-Wareing Facebook
Teresa Heath-Wareing Twitter
Transcript
Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So, I was getting ready the other day and I went down an absolute rabbit hole of watching this really funny guy on reels and it got me thinking, cuz normally when I get ready, I listen to a podcast or I listen to a book or I normally do something. So where are you listening right now?
I want you to like take photos, screenshot, whatever it is, and tag me in on Instagram stories and let me know where you're listening. I'm really interested to know, like I said, normally mine is kind of getting ready in the morning in the car. Not that I go in the car a whole lot really, cuz I don't travel unless I'm speaking.
But yeah I'm fascinated to know where are you listening to this? Please come and let me know on Instagram by tagging me in a post. So a few weeks back I sent an email to my lovely community and it was titled Why I Think, or Why I used to Think coaches were full of, and I won't say this swear word, but you can guess.
And I also shared it on social media and I got a really good response and I got a lot of people coming back to me saying, yes, this really resonates. This is what I thought. And I thought it would maybe make a good episode to talk about why I thought coaches were full of absolute rubbish and. What is coaching and why you need one and why I don't think that anymore.
Because I did. I genuinely thought for a really long time you don't need one and, and I and I, the problem was the coaches that I knew and saw when I first started my business were middle-aged, white, straight men. And. They had no idea about me and my business. And the problem is, I guess this comes a lot from me, not necessarily from them.
I'd worked in a very male dominated industry. I'd worked in the car industry. I worked with a lot of white, middle-aged, straight men and corporate guys, and they were really patronizing. And I was a girl and I was young-ish at the time, and they really did patronize me and made out like, because I liked to laugh because I was chatty, that obviously I wasn't very smart.
And I guess my problem was that I looked at these other guys and thought, you can't relate to me. And by this point, I was older and I'd got my daughter and I'd gone through a divorce and all this kind of stuff. But I genuinely still thought, you can't relate to me. You don't know who I am. You dunno what my life is.
And I had fallen into the trap that most people fall into. And I'm not saying it was all bad cause I think there is an element of it that's good, where you find these big, massive gurus and. You start to follow what they say and then after a while when you get confident, because actually you find someone who does pay attention to who you are and makes you feel worthy, that you realize that all the stuff they were telling you to do you can't do because that's not your life.
And when you've got a four-year-old waking you up at God knows what time I can't get up and do a morning routine and work out. Not that I want to. Thanks very much. And actually, you know, now I'm much more empowered to do what I wanna do and what works for me and my season of life and where I am. But back then I wasn't.
And I guess, like I said, I looked at these coaches and I guess the coaches I knew were only local and thought. Yeah, no, you don't know me. I'm not interested. And I actually used to think, if you're that flipping good, why don't you do it yourself? God, I was so naive, so naive. And then I found my coach and, and all I knew was, and it was actually my team member at the time, lovely Katie, who said to me, do you think you need a coach?
And I was like, I don't even know what they do. I dunno why I'd want one. I dunno where I'd find one. And I was really kind of like, I don't understand it. And I really didn't, I didn't understand what the purpose of a coach was and why I would need one.
And it was through having a conversation with her that kind of got me thinking about it. And as the universe would have it, and I'm sure, well, I'm not sure. I know I've told this story before, but I'm gonna tell it again about how I got my coach Mary. So I was sat in San Diego and I had been to trafficking conversion, and I was on my way to social media marketing world.
Just so happened that in one particular year they were right next to each other, ie. Like trafficking conversion were the first three days and then the next four days were social media marketing world. So I ended up being out in San Diego for about two weeks. It was Ace. Obviously I'm heading in San Diego and at the time there weren't many people who did that.
Like not in my world. Now a lot more people I know go out there and do social media marketing world. But back then it wasn't like literally no one I knew would do this sort of thing. Anyway, so, and I was out there with my team member at the time, which was Ace that we both went and we were sat in trafficking conversion and it was huge.
It was like 4,000 people. And all I could think was, who the hell do I think I am. Like what on Earth am I thinking this is what is gonna make me different from any of these other people. There's too much competition out there. There's, it's ridiculous. And instead of feel all inspired and motivated, cuz I was in San Diego at a conference with loads of business people, I actually felt completely overwhelmed and a little bit like just not good.
I felt really kind of sad and just not in a great place. So anyway, I wake up at four o'clock in the morning, which you do when you got jet lag. And I'm sad and I can picture myself now cuz we had a really lovely room on the harbor looking over the boats and I'm working away and the sun's coming up and while I'm working away I've got my headphones in.
Cause my husband's sleeping. Obviously he was in the military at the time. He's very used to jet lagging and could sleep through it and I'm listening to Amy Porterfield, who at the time I was a huge fan of, and very much wanted a business like hers. And as I'm listening to a podcast, she starts talking about her coach Mary Hyatt, and she talks about the fact that Mary is Michael Hyatt's daughter, and how the Hyatts are a phenomenal species, which I can confirm they are.
They are amazing humans. I basically, You know, amazing She was, and all this sort of thing. So I thought, let me check out this person, Mary Hyatt. So I went onto Mary's website and I can't remember what it said on her homepage, but I remember just thinking, oh my God, that's me. Like, yeah, 100% totally me. So she had a form which you could fill out and it had a, a salary requirement, as in you had to earn X amount in your business.
And I did in dollars, but I didn't in pounds. So I thought that'll do, filled it in, sent it off. Go off to the conference. A couple of hours later, I get a message, an email from Mary go in. How weird is this? Oh, that was the other thing. Sorry, I missed a bit in the form. You had to say why now. What made you at that point decide to reach out to her?
So I put, I'm in San Diego, should be feeling amazing and all pumped and excited and I'm not, I feel completely overwhelmed and sad and all the things. And she messaged me going, oh my God. I'm in San Diego. Well, she was actually in Carlsbad, just down the road, not like, not too far. And she's actually based in Nashville, so she's like, and I've got some free time before I go to the airport.
Do you wanna meet for lunch? And I was thinking, are you kidding? Like, this is crazy. So I was like, yes, obviously jumped at the chance to have lunch with the, you know, amazing Mary Hyatt, who I didn't realize at this point how amazing she was. And. Anyway, left the conference, met Mary for lunch. Had a really lovely chat to her, started to understand more about what she did and what she could do for me.
And then she told me her price. Right? And Mary at the time, this isn't the case now, but Mary at the time was, I think it was $15,000 for six months. And I was at the time. I was like, that was lovely. Thanks for lunch. See you later. Bye. Never gonna see you again Mary cuz I obviously could not afford that.
And I, she said to me, get back to the UK, let's get on a call. Let me show you what coaching is and what it can be and then make a decision. So said my goodbyes, thought you're amazing. What a shame. I'd love to coach with you. Looks like I'm gonna have to go with one of the, you know, dudes from my local chamber of Commerce or whatever it's gonna be.
And anyway, get back to the UK. Mary contacted me, let's book in a call. And I was like, okay, thinking I can't afford it, but I will book the, the call in and see what it's like. And anyway, book the call in. It was really good. Had a great session with her. And so she's like, you go away, you have a think about it.
So I messaged her going, can you do part payments? She went, Nope. And I was like, okay, can you do this? Nope. And I was just like, oh God, would you do three months? Nope. Anyway, I. She messaged me going, what's, what's up? And I said, this is huge amount of money. Like let's get on a call and discuss it. She said, I thought I don't wanna get on a call and discuss it.
Just realized I've been telling this story for a really long time. I hope you're not bored. So anyway, I get on a call with her cuz she makes me and she says, what's your concern? And I said, what if you're not worth it? And she went, good point. What if I am. And I was like, yeah, I don't know. And basically crazy.
Long story short, I signed up and I paid the money in full and it scared the living bejesus me. And within a very short space of time, I'd made that money back because of something that she coached me through. I basically was working with two clients, and both clients were seriously going over their hours.
And she coached me through how to ask them, have the courage, how to reach out to them, and how to put together an email, which she read. And basically both of them ended up paying me big chunks of money, which I would never have got if I hadn't have had her as coach. So that is the very long-winded story of how I met Mary, but she completely changed my mind in terms of what a coach is.
So what is a coach? What do they do and why do you need one? The first thing that you have to remember and think about is if you are a, if you are Beyonce or if you are an athlete, or if you are anybody else, you have coaches. And no one bats an eye at that. It's really funny, like no one thinks, you know, well, if Beyonce's coach was so good, why aren't they Beyonce?
Well, because that's not what they do, is it? And if you know, I don't know. Michael Phelps's coach is so good. I literally just pulled a random sports person name out my head. I dunno where that came from. You know, if his coach was so good, why isn't he doing it? Well, cuz that's not the job they do. But none of those people have an issue having a coach, none of them.
So why do we think we can do it without one? So when I did my coaching qualification, one of the things they talked about was like some of the basic stuff was, you know, what is coaching and all that sort of thing. And I got a few different definition. So the Association for Coaching, which is who I'm qualified with, says it's collaborative solution focused, results orientated systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning, and personal growth of the coachee. Did you get all that? Bob Thompson, who has got a book who I've read is says, A relationship of rapport and trust in which the coach uses their abilities to listen, ask questions, and play about what the client has communicated in order to help the client to clarify what matters to them and work out what they want to achieve in their aspirations.
And then Tony Robbins says, the life coach definition is someone professionally trained to help you maximize your full potential and reach your desired results. They are like a supportive friend and a trusted advisor rolled into one. They are someone who will push you to identify your goals, hold you accountable, and provide encouragement throughout the journey to become a better version of yourself.
I actually really like that one. I think that's a really nice example of what it is. So that's basically what. You know, the professionals describe as coaching, but then. The general consensus is that a coaching relationship is between a coach and a coachee. They have an assumption that the coachee has all the resources they need inside them.
So sometimes coaching, it's not about like, you know, yeah, there's tools and things to help you get to them, but ultimately, if you know you want a coach and need a coach, you've got the resources inside you. You just need someone to help you get them. The coach helps unlock their answers and potential through gentle questioning, listening and playing about what they've heard from the coachee.
And it's about, it's about facilitating a move towards something, whether it's growth, development, goal or aspiration. So basically, My role and how I see A, me being coached, and B, me coaching is that I get to understand you. I get to understand what's important in your world and what you want. And sometimes that is a task in itself.
Sometimes people don't know what they want and that takes some work to get it out. So that sometimes is like the biggest hurdle that they're not entirely clear, but when they are clear, it's like, oh yeah, now I can see it. And then that next bit's easy for both of us. Sorry, if you can hear my crying downstairs he's moaning cause he's just been put back in his bed.
So yeah, so sometimes it's that space and then once we find out, think they want, then it's about going, let's put a plan together. Now the way I differ slightly from coaches is I kind of do three main things. So I coach, I mentor slash strategy, and then I'm account, I hold you accountable.
For me, a coach will hold you accountable. A coach won't always give you strategy. So for instance, I've been on a coaching call on a group thing, and I've told you this story before and it makes me laugh so much. And this group I was in had different types of coaches for different types of things. And one of the coaches was a Facebook ads coach, right?
And this Facebook ads coach was great, by the way. She was really, really good. And. Kind of, you know, had a conversation with me in private that basically she was told she wasn't allowed to give answers, she had to coach. So what would happen is someone would come on and go, I've done this ad, you think it's any good?
And she'd go, well, do you think it's any good? It's in a Facebook ad. Like, tell them. And obviously she couldn't cause she was looking for someone else, but it just really makes me laugh. And sometimes you just need to be told, okay, do this, do this, do this. Like here's the strategy. So for me, I span all three. I offer the coaching side, I offer the mentor strategy side, and then probably the most importantly of all, I give you that accountability.
So that's what I see and define as coaching in terms of what they actually do. How does it look? Well, you'd get on a call with me and the first call would be, let's sit and talk about who you are and what you want as your business and what your business look like today, and what's your family done and like, what's important to you and what's the dream and all this kind of stuff.
And then that's where I would kind of flip a bit over. I'd probably do the coaching side there, but I'd flip a bit over then after that first session to the kind of strategy mentoring. But then what happens inevitably is we will get to a strategy that we both agree is a good idea and for some reason you don't wanna do it.
So then we'll go. Why is that? And then the coaching comes back into play. And then once we coach through that, then we get into action and go, right, when are you gonna do it by? But by that point, you're feeling much more confident and much more happy about it. Okay, so what's the difference? I wanted to address the difference in group coaching programs.
Dog is crying again, real life over here. Group coaching programs versus one-to-one now. None of these are good or bad. They're just different ways of doing it, and it's just important that you know the different ways of doing it. So I have been in group coaching programs that have been massive, and I have been one of 80 plus people, which I would say is not a group coaching program.
It's no, okay. It is a group coaching program, but it's not what I needed at that point. I needed...
23 min

About Your Dream Business

From the publisher's feed

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!