10 Lessons Learned in Growing my business | Right on Time Podcast

Get ready because everything is about to change. There's a new way of living life and doing business that will blow your mind. This is a podcast all about the timing of life and the timing of success. It's what we call the Right on Time life. And you are listening to the Right on Time podcast with Amber McHugh. Here we go. I have 10 lessons learned strategies that I have come across in more than 10 years of running my two businesses that generate multi seven figures a year. I'm so excited to dive into these with you and we're gonna, we're gonna get right to it. Number one, lesson learned, you don't have to do it all. Like all the things, throwing spaghetti at the wall, try it all. It leaves you stretched too thin, burnt out, and not actually getting traction on any one specific strategy that's going to get you the results you're going after. So you've got to align what you're going after, what your skills, areas of expertise are where you feel engaged and energized with the strategy or the tactic. Make sure that's all in alignment. Because if we've got too much or if we've got things we don't really get that excited about, especially as small business owners, it's going to drain our energy, pull us down and slow us down. And I want you hitting the fast track number two, as you build your business. Lesson learned. Focus on the customer problem. You know, there are times when I can feel in my soul when I can feel in my gut that yes, we are aligned in speaking to and serving up what we see our clients and our customers need. And, and then there are other times I'm like, I just cannot tap into it right now. I cannot put my finger on it right now, or I think I've kind of got it. I can feel the difference. So I want to invite you to get in connection with your customers, talk to them, have focus groups. I actually will share if you comment below with the word focus group, I will share with you our focus group methodology so that you can have that as well. But have focus groups reach out, have surveys, and if you don't have a client base yet to invite to complete a survey, talk to anyone you know that may have the problem that you are looking to solve and go deeper and deeper and deeper so you can really get to the heart of what it is that your clients and your prospects need most and focus on that problem when you build your offer, when you design your marketing, and when you get into sales conversations number three, Lesson learned. Opportunity and something that has really benefited us over the year. Get that sales and marketing strategy dialed in. We talk about this a lot inside the modern CEO in our sales systems. But what is the one offer that you can count on? What is the one marketing strategy that you can count on? And what is the one way that you have to attract and invite new clients into your world? I want you to identify one thing in each of these areas that you can continue to go back to that you can build upon. Even if you layer other things in over time, you may decide you don't want to after you get this one thing strategy dialed in. For example, in our photography business, we have one way primarily that our clients come to us. It's one offer, it's one strategy, it's one approach. Yeah, we test, we try, we layer in other things, but we have one thing that we can kind of build the foundation on and grow and expand from there. And I gotta tell you, it's a beautiful thing. When you have this in place, your business starts to operate a little bit like a faucet with water coming out. Typically, we turn on a faucet and water comes out. You're able to turn off the faucet if you've got too many leads coming in at any given time. Or if you want to have a business model where you only bring leads in at certain times of the year, but really get it dialed in so you have a little bit more control and a little bit more comfort in your revenue generating activities. Because we know we are not running a business if we cannot continue to generate and bring in revenue. Which leads me to our next. Lessons learned, lesson learned. Number four, manage the money. This is something that I really am keen on. And we have done this since the very beginning of our business. In fact, even when we just had a few sales coming in and I could track it in a spreadsheet, we managed it in a spreadsheet. I can pull up all of those spreadsheets going back over a decade at this point where we've got data on our money coming in, on our number of clients, on our cash flow, on our expenses. So we've been tracking this since the very beginning. And it gives you so much peace of mind when you have some data to go back to. I can't tell you how many times we've had an idea in the business or we had a belief or a guess that something was happening. Our leads are down, our sales are down, people aren't buying as much, and instead of just Worrying about it or guessing or going back to that sort of spaghetti at the wall strategy. We could go back to the data and we could make decisions based on the data and it's all there. And now we can see the data and the trends over time. And when you start to capture this information in an organized way over time, this is what we talk about in CEO systems, inside the modern CEO. Actually, your business data starts to become a crystal ball for you and you can start to predict based on what's happening in the business. Okay, this is going to be a great month. This is going to be a great quarter. This is a great year. Or like, oh, okay, something's off here, it's not going to be so great or we got to try something different so we can get it back to where we want it. You will create your own crystal ball if you manage your numbers, manage your money and start to track that information early on. Lesson learned. Number five, hire experts. Bring people into your world that have been there before or that have a different complimentary skill set to you. I have a program called how to clone Yourself, but it is not about cloning an exact replica of you. You are great. You are fabulous. But chances are we don't need another you. We need your peanut butter to the jelly. Because we need someone who can do the things that you can't do that you're not interested in, that aren't your zone of expertise and want to hire people who know their stuff when you are looking to fill a gap. In addition, there may be times when you're running the business where you need some strategic expertise, you need some consulting, you need some guidance. And then there are other times when you just need someone to do it. I just need someone to handle this. You know your stuff. You can handle this. Thank you. Thank you so much. Number six, this one might be a little controversial and I'm a little nervous to say it. The myth of the visionary. We are running small businesses. And yes, while I am a visionary, while I do have ideas and strategies and concepts and things I want to pull through for the team, for all of us to work on together to better serve our clients in our marketing as we look at the business strategy of a whole, that's the visionary mind at work. And I am also a doer in our business. Most experts that I know, most business owners that I know are actually doing incredible things inside of their business as well. In fact, there's a lot of data and research to support that. The best selling CEOs get in the business still, they connect with their customers and their clients. They're constantly learning and receiving that feedback from customers and clients and that helps them craft a better vision as well. So these things kind of go hand in hand. And I call it the myth of the visionary. Because many times I have heard over the years, get out of the business, only work on the business. Spend the majority of your time as the CEO in your CEO role. But heck, in the modern CEO role. One of the jobs that I have as a modern CEO is to stay connected to my clients and customers, stay connected to my team so we can weave all of these things together in a really beautiful way. And yeah, there are a lot of things that I hands on do in the business still. The myth of the visionary. Sometimes we, as modern CEOs are going to do. Lesson number seven. So many times I've had clients say to me or I have said to other people, I wish someone would just tell me what to do, tell me what to do and I'll do it. I totally get it, I totally get it. But business is not one size fits all. So you've got to craft that vision that we just talked about. You've got to have an idea of where you want to be going. So then the how to can match up against that. Have a strong vision, have a strong strategy, have strong goals in place. We call all of these things your CEO systems. Get strong leadership systems in place for your business and then you will be able to say, okay, now how do I do this? Because that aligns with my strategy. Does that make sense? Business is not one size fits all. So before we can identify this is what needs to be done, there has to be clear goal in place. So you want to lock in those goals, you want to be clear on your vision and yeah, you can strategize with people about that, of course, but don't just grab any blueprint and try and apply it to your business. This is when we get watered down. This is when we will find ourselves spinning our wheels and going nowhere and feeling like we're on a hamster wheel. So get clear on your goals, your vision, your purpose, your objectives, your plans first and then match up the how do we do it? Number eight. Now this one has come up with a more glaring light for me at a few key distinct points in the more than 10 years of running our business businesses. And that is when things start to look a little bit the same, when things get crowded, when you can't clearly identify what differentiates you in the market. It's time to consider the philosophy of when everyone zigs, we zag. If the entire market is moving one way and it's not working, you identify a gap, you identify a different way. All right, time to tap into that and you can start to look at what's happening in the landscape using a SWOT analysis, looking at your strengths, your weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats. And by doing the SWOT analysis, some of the opportunities for you that there may be in the market. When everything seems to be going one way, this is when it's time for you to really look at how are you different and how do you stand out? Because if everybody's moving in one direction in your industry, chances are there are people saying, ok, everything kind of looks the same and actually this isn't working. Ok, what do we need to differentiate? What do we need to change to make this work even better than it is right now? When everyone is zigging, Consider zagging strategy and lesson learned. Number nine, Prepare today for tomorrow's success. If you know me, if we've been hanging out for a while, you know I love to plan. Every year we host the annual planning event of the year called the Plan A Thon, and there's a reason for it. We know that businesses who create a plan perform better. We know that businesses that get a plan in place actually get to their destination and implement faster. So there's a lot of good reason to get a plan in place. I do deep, intensive planning a couple of times a year, then quarterly, then I cascade that down to what we focus on weekly and then daily. And then, yeah, throughout my day, I'm making sure I'm in sync and focused on the right things as all the random things pop up throughout the day, whether it's on social media or even just here in the house. So you want to start thinking about tomorrow today. You want to start thinking about the end of this year today. You want to start thinking about next year today. And we're going to think of them at different levels based on where we are at any point in time. More detail, the closer we are to executing. For example, my plans were very detailed today. I had the full list of the breakdown of what I was going to do, play by play. If I'm taking a year out, it's not quite that detailed, so you don't have to get super detailed for those plans that are far away. This is where you hold the vision. You build out your roadmap with the future in mind and we get more detailed today. But you definitely want to get those plans in place. This is going to serve you in a big, big way. Every year for the last nine years, we host the planning event of the year for entrepreneurs and freedom seeking business owners. It's called the Plan A th. And if you want to join us this year, you definitely want to get on our wait list@theplanathon.com because this is year number 10 and we're going big. We are going to spoil you from now until the Plan A thon. So hop on that RSVP@theplanathon.com so we can shower you with celebrations and love and business strategies to take your business to the next level now and beyond. Lesson learned. Number 10 bet on yourself. And if you don't have a business idea that you would bet on, if you are not operating in a way that you would bet on yourself, change some things up, look at what you may need to shift and adjust. But above all, we want to be implementing something that you would bet on. We want to be showing up in a way that you would bet on yourself and don't give yourself too hard of a time. So oftentimes as entrepreneurs and business owners, we see a better way of doing something and we might hold back to launch something until it's perfect. When I say bet on yourself, I am not saying wait until everything is perfect to bet on yourself. In fact, a client once caught a typo in my message and was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for letting me know. Typos absolutely sneak out even though we look at them a million times. Sales pages, landing pages, emails, social media, there are a couple lots of eyes on that before it goes out. And still it happens. And the client said back. And I commented actually to this client and said, your stuff is just so incredible. It's so perfect every time. And she said back, it's perfect, but one of us is doing bigger sales than the other one. And I knew in that moment she was bringing that typo to me because she thought she caught it. We're helping each other out, right? But she was not making a judgment on me at all. She was being hard on herself because she was going for perfection when everything was really, really, really, really good already. She just needed to put it out there more and more and more and she needed to place that bet on yourself. When we're making a bet, we don't have 100% guarantee that it's going to work, but man, it's good. It is good. And I'd bet on you. I would bet on you probably more often than you would bet on yourself. And I want you betting on yourself. Take a chance on you, have an idea and show up in a way that is so aligned and so strongly aligned to what your customers want that you would bet on yourself. Wherever you are in this journey, you are right on time. I'm at a different point in my journey because we've been running our businesses over 10 years. Maybe you're further along, maybe you're just getting started. But I gotta say these are lessons learned and strategies that I've been working and that stand out to me as things that show up and that we want to work on and refine as especially in seasons of Change, which we are absolutely in now. There is a lot shaking for our clients. There is a lot shaking for our customers. There is a lot shaking for us as business owners and for our teams. So pause, reflect, look at where you may want to adjust. Do that SWOT analysis and if you want to grab these lessons learned and my roadmap, my case study on how we went from nothing the very beginning of this journey. Oh my gosh. In this case study we have got some real, real, real not so good looking stuff because we started scrappy, we started not perfect, but we implemented and we continue to this day to make improvements. We're in this case study going to show you how we went from nothing at the very beginning to seven figures in business and now beyond that. Just comment the word lessons below and we'll get you that case study and how to go from nothing and just starting in your business all the way up to seven figures and then beyond. I've got 10 lessons as a part of this series and that was just one. If you want to grab all of the lessons and the case study in how my businesses grew from the very beginning, that nothing point, that startup point to seven figures and beyond in revenue. Comment lessons below and we'll get you everything.