91: Business Breakthroughs: How Do You Know You're Ready?

We could all use more time, but sometimes I like to think about what am I doing. That's really just a waste of time for me. The one that I struggle with is tv. Now I don't watch TV a lot, but I typically watch one episode of one TV show a night and it's okay. I'm not saying I'm going to give it up because I really love the shows that I watch, but I did catch myself thinking the other day If I watch one hour of TV like once a day, right, that's 365 hours that I could be sleeping. I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. Today I want to talk about how do you know you're ready for the next big move in your business? You know, a lot of times we hold ourselves back or we think we might be ready for something big. And it's hard to identify really when the time is now. But I can absolutely tell you that when I look back over my career, every huge success was due to a series of knowing that I was ready for the next move. And this came with some fear involved, like doing it scared, but doing it anyways and really trying to think about what I needed in order to make it to the next level. So I want to unpack that today mini episode for you and the question that I really want to ask you is to think about the future, more successful version of yourself. When you think about who you want to become or who you want to be in five years or 10 years or what level of success you want to be at, I want you to think about how that person would be acting on a day to day basis. And so for instance, if you want to be a full time licensing artist, well, you could imagine what a full time licensing artist might do, right? They would be creating a lot of artwork, they would be taking themselves seriously, they would be working on a portfolio and pitching their work. And it's a great exercise to see whether what you're doing today matches because. Because the only way that you become that future, more successful version of yourself is to start acting like her today. Now, a great example that's just really easy to understand is always about health and fitness. And so if you envision yourself being an athlete, being really strong, and then you think about how that really strong athlete shows up in their life every day they're probably getting up early, they're probably working out every day, they're walking, watching what they eat, they're careful about what they put in their body, they're full of energy. Well, if that's what you want to become, does your action today match what that person would be doing? And so you can see where oftentimes there's a disconnect. I love doing this exercise because you really have to start acting like that person before you become them in order to become them. So if you want to make six figures in your business, or you want to make seven figures in your business, or want to make eight figures in your business, how does that seven figure business owner show up to work every day? Right. So as you think about that, one thing that is always a really good indicator to me that it's time to change something, it's time to do something different, is when I identify a bottleneck. So I want to talk to you about five different types of bottlenecks. Now, a bottleneck is when you've essentially identified a limiting factor and that awareness is the first step in making decisions around it. And so a bottleneck is typically when things are moving more slowly or they're getting snagged on a particular point in your business. So the five different types I want to talk about are resources, tasks, knowledge, people, and time. The first one is a resources bottleneck. Basically, are there some things that you just need in order to make your work easier and you just haven't been able to bite the bullet and do it already? So, for instance, when I was getting started, I didn't have any money, but I knew that I really needed a drawing tablet and Adobe Illustrator. And so I did whatever I had to do in order to get. I got a Wacom back in 2012, actually 2010, I got a Wacom tablet and I purchased CS6, which was $600 for Adobe Illustrator. And it was really diffic difficult, but I had identified that I have this huge bottleneck without the software that I needed. So there might be a tool or like a new software. Another one that people get tripped up about is paying for a service. Like perhaps it's Kajabi if you want to host a membership or classes, or maybe it's ConvertKit if you want to have a solid email service provider. What resource do you really need in order to release that resources bottleneck? Now number two is a tasks bottleneck. What are you doing in your business that is creating a bottleneck that you need to either stop doing or outsource. There are so many of these and at every new level that you get, there are still going to be task bottlenecks that you need to consider either not doing anymore or transitioning to someone else. There's a book called Clockwork by Mike Mallowix that really talks you through working through all your tasks and deciding what you want to give away and what you want to get rid of. I highly suggest it. So an example of this would be maybe you are editing all of your videos and maybe you're not that great of an editor. You can do it, but it takes you a long time. Listen, it takes you a long time even if you're a great video editor. So maybe you should give that task to someone else and outsource it so that then you can use your time for the things that are not causing a bottleneck in your business. Mark your calendars for this October 19th through the 21st. Because our annual conference for Creative Immersion Live is coming up, we've gathered a spectacular lineup of industry leaders, artists and entrepreneurs like Amy Porterfield, Morgan Harper, Nichols Glow Otonmo and Nicholas Wilton, plus many more for an unmatched virtual conference experience. Immersion Live this year is all about the art of business for the professional creative. Over three days you'll unlock strategies to guide your business effectively, refine your designs and establish a flourishing creative career. And the best part is that you can experience it all from the comfort of your own home. We do a live virtual conference like no, Nobody Else. Sessions will allow for real time interaction, questions answered, and a sense of community that's honestly hard to match. Our event kicks off with Open studio night on October 19th where you'll get to peek behind the curtain of some incredibly successful artists and designers. The next two days you'll immerse yourself in keynote sessions and workshops where you'll learn, interact and have all your questions answered, come engaged with like minded creatives and make meaningful connections and open the doors to Collaboration. We're also recording every session so you can revisit and absorb this wealth of knowledge at your own pace. Head on over to bonniecristine.com 2023interersion live to join us now. The next one I love. Number three is a knowledge bottleneck. When you realize that there is just something that you need to learn that you haven't learned yet. And so this could be something around marketing or how to do a different design technique or a different skill that you need in your business. When can you just really realize that the thing that's actually holding you back is not knowing how to do the next thing? So you might know what the next thing is? Let's say you really need to focus on your email list. You need to grow your email list, you need to nurture your email list and you need to set up like an opt in and a nurture sequence. And you just aren't doing it because you don't really quite know how to do it. That's a knowledge bottleneck. Everything is getting stuck right there. And so it's important to just identify those and get the knowledge that you need in order to break through that bottleneck. Number four is a people bottleneck. And so this is about who you surround yourself with. I heard a long time ago that you are the average of your five closest friends. And now whether that's really accurate or not, I think it's a really good exercise to think about. So if your five closest friends are always complaining, always struggling, always in debt, never healthy, they've got bad habits, it's going to be really difficult for you to be accepted by them if you're not doing the same things that they're doing. And so being really intentional about who you place yourself amongst. So your friend group, your mentor group, your peer group group, you're like your business group, right? So is there a program you can join or a mastermind you can join where people are going to really understand who you are and what you're doing and support you, you know, as opposed to those. Consider five friends who were motivated and energized and healthy and always taking like the next step in their business and reading really amazing books and you get together and your brains are just on fire, right? Those are the types of people that you want amongst so that you help each other move along as well. And then number five is a time bottleneck. We could all use more time. But I like to think about this one because sometimes I like to think about what am I doing that's really just a waste of time for me. The one that I struggle with is tv. Now, I don't watch TV a lot, but I typically watch one episode of one TV show a night. And it's okay. I'm not saying I'm going to give it up because I really love the shows that I. But I did catch myself thinking the other day, If I watch one hour of TV like once a day, right, that's 365 hours that I could either be. I'm probably not going to be working that late at night, but I could be sleeping. I'm losing 365 hours of sleep a year and sleep is really precious and productive. And so I like to just think about, is there anything that I'm doing from a time perspective that just isn't serving me well? And so consider that. Is there anything there that you could or should give up in order to bring back time in your schedule? And so with this, I would love for you to just think about the bottlenecks that are currently present in your business. What's holding you back? What's slowing you down? What do you need to kind of address, identify, and then move forwards with. And then I think that you could make a list and pull out three to five bottlenecks. Again, they're resource, task, knowledge, people and time. Pull out three to five bottlenecks that you've identified and commit to doing something about them to release that bottleneck in the next, let's say four weeks. Remove three to five bottlenecks in your business. I can't wait to hear about it. My friends. Create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world and remember, there's room for you.