Interview with Monica Shah, Founder of Revenue Breakthrough – Small Business Show 219

The Small business show episode 219 for Wednesday, April 17, 2019. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at businessshow Co. The show that is by, for and about small business or our sponsor for this episode is the alternative board@thealternativeboard.com SBS. We'll talk more about that later. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and out on the west coast, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, sir?

I am good. Mr. Gene, how are you?

I am good. I'm good.

I don't know that I've ever called you that before but you know, I don't think so.

That's my father. So, you know, but that's eventually, you know, hey, I want to jump right into a topic today. You know, we, we talk a lot about adversity. We've had some great guest recently talking about powering through things and even, you know, just starting a business on your own, creating revenue streams, trying to build wealth. We talk about that stuff all the time and how difficult it can be super rewarding. You know, if you do it right, you get to live the charmed life that we talk about. But you know, you're often trying to figure out where to start, where to focus your energy, how to develop a system based approach to get what you want. And we've been looking at things and sometimes having a coach pretty provide you with some guidance is just what you need. And today we're really happy. We're joined by Monica Shaw, founder of Revenue Breakthrough. Revenue Breakthrough is a coaching and training resource that helps our clients get through many of the obstacles they face to achieve success. Thank you for coming on the show today, Monica. We really appreciate it.

I'm super excited to be here.

That's great. It's awesome. So tell us, tell our listeners a little bit about Revenue Breakthrough, what you do and what your team does, but also, you know, how you got started and why you decided to launch the business.

Sure. I, Revenue Breakthrough is I'm a business coaching company and what that means is that I help, my focus is in helping entrepreneurs make more money. And I do that. My, I like to try to, I like to help them be able to double or triple their incomes within 12 to 18 months of working with me. And what I do is I teach money mindsets skills, sales skills and marketing skills to make sure that we can get more leads and more money. And what's interesting about this is that I have found when I started my company, my, I've been doing this for over 15 years. And when I started my very first company, I had just graduated from the Kellogg School of Management. I had my mba, and that's the business school at Northwestern. And then I went to l' Oreal Paris and I was a brand manager for l' Oreal Paris. And I left out to start my own company. And I honestly thought that I was hot shit. I did. I thought, oh, I've got the mba, I've got the marketing experience. Like, I can do that.

What else do you need? That's right.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. And you know, I bet you there's a lot of listeners out there who you think you're really good because you are able to sell for other people. You're able to like, create success for someone else. And then you start to do it for yourself and you're like different ballgame. And for me, within 12 months of leaping out and starting my own business, I was $25,000 in debt. And I wasn't worried so much about the debt because you need money to come from somewhere to start a business. So debt itself isn't a horrible thing. We all are going to need to get loans or credit card debt or family money or something to help us take that leap. My issue was that I didn't know how to pay the debt off. And I just kept growing and growing. And as someone, and I always say this to people who are, if you've had previous success, you consider yourself to be at a certain bar. And here I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay, make money in my business, and it just wasn't happening. And so I did everything I could to make money in New York City. I walked dogs, I cat sitted, I rented my apartment out, I sold things on ebay. I tried to do what every, I think startup entrepreneur does, which is like you try to cut all your expenses and make a ton of money to just try to survive. And there was a particular day where I had rented my apartment out for seven days in a row, slept on someone's couch and then someone else's couch and then someone's floor. And I got all my bags and got on the subway. And I got out of the subway, it was a 60 BDF Q stop. And I had two bags on one hand on one shoulder, two bags on another shoulder, a bag across my chest, and then a roller bag that I was carrying in my right hand. And I started walking up the subway stairs. And as you can imagine, the New Yorkers are so nice and they're like running by me and knocking my bags off. And I get to the top of the stairs and I look to the left of the sub and the escalators closed. And I look to the right and the elevator's closed. And I look in front of me and there's three more flights of stairs to get to street level.

Oh, wow.

And at that moment, I just got really tired and I sat my bags down and I could kind of. And I could feel the tears starting to come. And then I did what in New York is the unthinkable, which is that I sat down on the New York subway floor. Whoa.

Yeah, that's. If you, if you haven't spent any time in the New York subways, you might not understand the gravity of what Monica just described. But, yes, this is a moment that will live with you forever. That's right.

Yes. Yeah, it is. I would say, you know, you've hit rock bottom when you sit down on a New York subway floor. And it's so funny because people were walking by me and they're trying to do that thing that we all do, which is we stare straight at someone when we're trying to look away and they're all wondering what's going on. And I could just feel myself giving up in that moment. And I got really clear that I had to figure out how I was going to generate money. And I gave myself 12 months to figure it out and get clear before I decided I would go back and get a job. And I hired. What I did in that time is I pitched myself, hired a business coach, a marketing expert. I went back, I talked to my friends from business school, I talked to my dad who sold his company in college. And what I got really clear on is that as entrepreneurs, we do a lot of stuff, but what we do are the activities that actually generate money. We spend a lot of our days just filling our time, but we're not actually doing revenue generating activities. And therefore, most entrepreneurs I know and myself at that, we're working twice as hard as they need to be. And I was making half as much money as I could be. And for me, what I got really clear on are very clear steps to make money in business. And if you're not doing those steps, you can be working all day long and you're going to continue to struggle and continue to hit walls year after year, month after month in your business about not enough. And I know for me, when I finally figured out, like, what I needed to do to consistently generate money, it changed everything. I was able to pay back that $25,000 within 12 months. I started being able to put money into savings, and then within, I grew my revenue every single year and I crossed the seven figure mark. And today we help other entrepreneurs do the same, like really figure out the money piece. Because I believe that there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there who are just, whether we openly admit it or not, money, a taboo that we do not discuss. And for the most part, we're just struggling around it. And what I know to be true is that if we could just get enough money into the hands of the right people, this world is going to look like a different place. And that's my mission on the planet now.

That's awesome. I commend you for getting up off the floor. That is. Well, it's just a great metaphor as well, and obviously it stuck with you, but it's that, okay, now I've got to change, you know, this is not working. Got to come up with something new and getting up and just moving. It's. It's often the hardest, you know, thing that all of us do.

So, yeah, momentum is easy to keep going. Well, easier than starting it. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

No, that's, that's great. And it's a great story. And I, and I love the, the motivation part. And so, you know, and we agree, we love this concept of coaching and mentoring here because we've had it, you know, we've done that with people and we've done it for people. Can you give me some, you know, what do people look for? What should they be looking for when seeking out a resource like, you know, a coaching business like yourself, what they need to watch out for.

I. A couple of things. I think when you're looking for a mentor or a coach, you want to make sure that that person is well ahead of where you want to be. Ideally, you want that person to be you, metaphorically, 50 to 100 steps beyond where you want to be. So when you're looking at them, you want to evaluate, like, if I want to make 100,000 in my business, you want that coach to be making well above that. If you want to make a million in your business, you want that coach to be above that. And the reason for that is because you want them to have had the experience of going through what you're about to go through and falling on their face and figuring it out and being successful at it. So I think that's the first piece is finding someone who is a masterful expert at what they do. And I also think the second piece is making sure that you find a business coach who is a true business coach. I find that there's a lot of people out there who are trying to get business owners to be like them. So, for example, like, they're trying to get them to model their model. And that that doesn't work for everyone. I know for me, I have a. I grew up. My father sold this company in college. I grew up learning about businesses. I went and got my mba. I know how to look at a revenue sheet and a business model. I know how to take into account people's desires and their interests. And so I'm looking at what's the best business model for them, taking into account the money they better make, the lifesty they want to have. And I'm not looking at them and saying, okay, I want you to be like me. And I think that's where people have to be careful because you can get caught in a trap where you're having somebody who is trying to get you to be a certain model that you don't want to be or that you're not ready for. So really finding a coach that is willing to look at you for what you are is also important. And then also, you know, it's interesting because even like I have a business coach every year for myself, and I've worked with the same one for a number of years. And then when I'm looking for one, I find it interesting how many coaches don't allow you to speak to the actual coach who you're going to be working with until you've hired them, which I think is an interesting model. So it's also important that you get a chance to speak to the coach that you want to work with, if you can. Some coaches don't allow that. Maybe that's just the way their companies are set up. But I know that for me, it's always made me more comfortable myself when I'm hiring someone to actually be able to speak with the coach that I'm hiring. I know that's what we do over here. And that way you can use your intuition about how you're feeling about that person and how the conversation goes as well. And then one other piece that I think is important when you're thinking about hiring a coach, and I think this is not always common sense. The very first time I hired a business coach that she's somebody that I actually ended up working with for over six years, I hired her because she was challenging me not because I thought we were going to be best friends. And so you, depending on who you are, my guess is that you're somebody that wants to grow and learn and discover things. I think sometimes that people are looking for business coaches that they really like that they're going to be best friends with. And while that's great, what you really want is somebody that's going to push you out of your comfort zone and challenge you to do things that you don't want to do or that you're uncomfortable doing. You know, obviously within your integrity and staying within your own value system. But. And that means that you're going to be best friends with your coach.

No, it probably means you probably won't be. Right?

Yeah, exactly.

At least not out of the gate. Yeah, right.

I always say that my clients have a love hate relationship with me. Like, they love me when they're having successes and they hate me when I'm challenging them to do more. And that's kind of how I like it to be.

Yeah, I would imagine that's a good thing. Yeah, yeah. That you bring a certain level of accountability to the. To the coaching relationship.

Right.

Where you're setting certain, you know, things in place and your client needs to achieve those kind of things so you can help them be successful.

Right, Absolutely. And that's the piece where it's not an easy thing to develop, like, get into this relationship, but you want to respect your coach. You don't have to like them.

I like that. Yeah, that's a nice little quote there. Hey, I want to take a minute and talk about our sponsor today, which is the alternative board@thealternativeboard.com SBS. We all know that owning a business is super rewarding, but it can also be really lonely and stressful. Even if you have employees, those aren't your peers, you can't commiserate with them and get advice from them necessarily. And if you don't have anybody to consult with, it's hard to know if you're making the right decisions. This is part of why Shannon and I talk to each other. Right. It's how this show started.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And that's why you need the Alternative Board, or as they like to call it, tab, a group of business owners and experts in your area that you can turn to for advice. And Tab's been doing this for close to 30 years, helping owners and CEOs of, you know, privately held businesses, small companies, et cetera, with their business owner advisory need. Each board is made up of up to 10 local non competing business leaders. So you're not worried about, you know, showing up and kvetching about your problems to a competitor or anything like that? No problem. And you meet together for four hours a month and you discuss your business issues, your opportunities. You get feedback and support and you get some coaching too in between meetings, which is perfect for this episode. Yeah, yeah. Having a TAB membership can make a huge difference for your business members that are part of it. Report better work life balance, greater ability to deal with day to day operations. Plus a TAB survey showed that their members surpassed the average sales revenues of privately held businesses by two and a half times. That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. I believe in this concept. I really, I think this is a great thing.

Yeah, we've talked about it, you know, having a board groups around you that you can get support with. And I think it's, it's critically important and it certainly helped me.

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Awesome. So another one, another question for you about revenue breakthrough. When you first got started and you started to see some success, what surprised you the most? What I mean by that? Are there common problems that you saw that needed to be solved with your customers or is every situation unique?

I would say that every business and every human is unique. However, there are some places where we all kind of do the same thing. And what I noticed is it all stems from, you know, we get into business to make money. And the interesting about this money situation is that we're not trained to talk about money at all ever in our whole lives. Like if you're growing up and at the dinner table you're like, how much does mommy make? Or how much does daddy make? Or how much should we pay for that car? You're liable to get into trouble for asking questions like that. And yet you move into entrepreneurship and it's like this huge bait and switch. Suddenly you're expected to ask for money all the time, every day.

Yeah.

And you're supposed to be able to be comfortable talking about money. And I find that entrepreneurs of every kind, whether you're a solopreneur just starting or whether you're running a multiple seven figure company we all have some discomfort around asking for money or talking about money or looking at our numbers or doing our bank statements or sending out our invoices, unless you've already looked at. And every time we hit a new ceiling around money, like you're starting to make more than you've ever made, new fears come up around, I'm not going to be able to make it or I'm not making enough. And really what that comes down to is that all of us have voices in our head around money. And those voices in our head are based on what we saw around money when we were growing up, what we heard around money when we were growing up, or what we experienced around money when we were growing up.

It's so true.

Really affects everything that we're doing.

Yeah. I remember when my. My daughter started babysitting, the first, you know, she was going to. It wasn't her first job, maybe her fifth job. And I was like, oh, what are they paying you per hour? She says, well, I don't know yet. And I had to point out to her, like, okay, I know that it feels awkward to ask about money, but. But put yourself in their shoes, right? They need to know what they're going to pay you. So having that conversation up front long before you show up to take care of their kids actually makes everybody feel more relaxed. It seems weird, but trust me when I say as soon as you open the door, everybody's going to be a little more relaxed. But it is. You're right. It's a weird thing. It, like, gets into our heads, and we've talked with our kids about money, and it's still got into their heads.

So, Yep, it's true. I mean, and you use that. That's such a great example of your daughter with doing it. And I find that I have entrepreneurs who have signed contracts to go into corporations, and they don't know how much they're getting paid and when they're getting paid and what the rules are. What are the terms of this agreement that they're going into because they just were afraid to do it. And I also have clients who do sales conversations. And when they get to that ask point of how much it is, they start whispering or they're unclear about the payment plan or when people are going to pay and really know this is. I actually had. And it goes, like, in a lot of different ways. I had a multiple seven figure she was making around $5 million. Person who stopped me, we were going to an event together, and she's like, monica, I Have to talk to you. I have this horrible fear around money. And so we sat at the McDonald's to hash it out. And it turned out that she was terrified of making any more money because she was afraid that it was going to be taken away from her because as a child, all the money was taken away.

Wow.

So she had this horrible tendency to not save and to like, spend it all because if she kept it, somebody would take it anyway. This was all just sort of subconscious beliefs that were coming up.

Yeah, it sounds like you spend a lot of time, you know, getting people comfortable with, you know, talking about money and also maybe comfortable with being successful. Because I think a lot of folks, you know, kind of undermine themselves along a similar lines, you know, with money.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, because this belief that I'm talking about, you know, all the money. There are also underlying beliefs around sales, like the very asking of money and underlying beliefs around success, as you, as you put it. And I've been doing this work now for over 15 years. And when you ask like, what is the thing that everybody has in common? What I started to really learn in the first five years that I was doing this work is that I could teach about sales strategy and lead strategy and marketing strategy all day long. And if people. And what I would notice is that we would come up with the sales strategy and then my clients would come to the calls and they would keep procrastinating around it or not quite doing it. And it was because we needed to get to the underlying fear first and be able to clear that fear in order to, for them to have the space to actually execute on like the actual strategies. And I find that over and over again at every level. I work with a venture capital firm who has pretty high level businesses and executive boards. And again and again I find that if they're not doing something, a lot of us just assume if I'm not doing something, I'm like not disciplined or enough or I'm not productive or great time management skills. But a lot of times I find that if people, if entrepreneurs aren't doing something, it's this sort of latent fear that's underneath the surface that we need to look at.

Yeah, that's great. I commend you for bringing that to the surface because I think all of us, and we've had, you know, hundreds of other business owners on the show and there's a commonality there where people, you know, if they're really honest and transparent, they'll say, oh yeah, you know, we're afraid to do certain things. And so getting comfortable with that is I think really important. So your website@revenuebreakthrough.com has a ton of great resources. I spent some time up there and one of the things I noticed there's like an awesome five part series, really in depth on helping female entrepreneurs. And can you talk about some of the unique challenges that women face when creating businesses, being successful and building wealth?

Sure. Yeah. It's interesting because, and I'm not from the perspective of women, I think men, we like men and women have different challenges that are put upon that. Sure. And so I think it's not necessarily unique to women, but there are unique challenges for women. Meaning that generally like we could also do this study with men and the pressure that's put on them to be providers. But one of the things that's interesting about women is to be a successful business owner, it does mean that you have to become visible and in a lot of ways courageous and powerful and step into leading at the forefront. And depending on one of the things that I wrote about in the article is depending on where your cultural background is, that can be looked down upon or you can subconsciously fight it. So for example, I am first generation, my parents came from India, so I'm first generation Indian. And in the Indian culture, as a woman you're taught to be very nurturing and to be small, to not be large, like in your presence and your stature. And so I remember that when I was doing my first live event, my first three day live event, I was standing on the stage and my coach who is an Indian kept saying to me, monica, own the stage, just own the stage, command the stage. And she just kept saying that. And my husband, who is Indian looked at her and said, you know, she doesn't know how to do that. And my coach was like, what? And he's like, she doesn't understand what, like those words like on the stage, command the stage, they're not going to make any sense to her. And he's like, because she's not culturally programmed to own or command anything. And I, it was really wise of him to say that because it's true. Like we weren't communicating. Like, she just kept saying and like my, my translation of on the stage was like walk faster. You know what I mean? I had no idea what she was talking about. And then finally for me it took the like what we were trying to get, have me like have resonance and presence on the stage. And the way that I could translate that from My own background was to realize that I'm an empath. It's part of being a nurturer. And for me to be open to feeling what the audience is feeling and then respond, Respond to that, but not to necessarily command it, but to respond to it. Now, if you want to see stage, you might say that it's commanding. Right. You might choose to use that word. But I choose to use the word responding because that goes better with who I am. And I think that the reason I say that is because as a woman, we all come from different cultural backgrounds. And it doesn't even mean that you have to be an immigrant. Like, you may come from a family where you women were told that you could only be a teacher or a secretary or an artist, or you may come from a family where you weren't really heard but your brothers were, or you may come from a family where you can have a job as long as you get married and have children. What's interesting is that we can openly say, oh, I'm against that, or I don't want to go with that as women. And we do. But what we have to understand is that even if we are openly going against that, the effects of our vocabulary and who we are, it's going to show up in our business. So just being aware of how and where it's showing up.

Yeah, it's fascinating. And I really loved how you put it into context. Male and women, unique challenges. And then your example of being on stage is it's really powerful. So it's a great resource. We'll link to it in the show notes here. And great to have all that information up on your. On your site.

Yeah. And then just one other quick thing that I think is a fun thing for women to just get to is a lot of us, without even realizing it, have the Prince Charming thing going. And what the Prince Charming thing is is that we don't realize it, but we're waiting to be saved around money. And so what tends to happen with this is the way that this might come up if you're a woman, is that you aren't taking your numbers very seriously. Like you doing what you're doing, but you're not necessarily in it to make money. And so therefore, you're struggling with money, you're tolerating living on less. You may be depending on a husband or family or boyfriend, or you may just be, like, slightly angry that the money's not coming, and partially it's because you're waiting to be saved and it's not true for every woman. But it's something to just examine about yourself. Like, I know when I was asked in a great way to pull this out of you is to like, do some journaling and to ask yourself the question, who am I waiting for in order to make before I make real money or before I make huge amounts of money? And when I did that question, I realized, without even realizing it, that consciously, like, I still was depending on my father to like, help me make money or to give me money. And it took me a moment to really get that, oh, I don't have to do that. And I can actually stand on my own two feet and I can make this happen. So that's also just something to be aware of as women. Especially if you've got an unexpressed anger that you aren't making more. That more money isn't in your life. Like, usually that's due to the fact that you're wondering why someone else hasn't created it for you.

That's fascinating. It makes sense.

Yeah.

So much of this seems like, you know, you're helping people on this journey, kind of self discovery.

Right.

Of really looking at the core of what's causing these actions or inactions, if you will, with their lack of revenue.

Yeah, yeah. And then getting to the actions for sure. But what I find is that if we can get to the beliefs and the fears, we clear the path to make the actions a lot easier.

Yeah. When you first started and you've been doing this 15 years, I mean, did it take you. I imagine it took you a while to kind of get this figured out, that you had to start really deep before you get out to, you know, to the what you want.

It's true. And I often actually think it works the other way around. In other words, like, I believe the most important thing we can do in our businesses is ask for money over and over and over again. Because the thing that's going to create more money in your bank account, the number one way to move money bank account is sales. But what's interesting is that sales and moving money into your bank account is going to for certain bring up all your stuff. So it's. So it's really, it's as I really helped people to become more successful, I noticed that all this stuff came up in the process of getting there. It often doesn't work the other way. Meaning, like if you're theoretically looking at all of your fears, but you're not taking the actions often and you know, that way of doing things is a Much slower process and you don't get as far.

Oh, that's great. That's good to know. So, okay, let's talk about marketing for a minute. How do you find new clients for Revenue Breakthrough? And you know, what have you found that works the best? Or in an example, maybe something that didn't work well for you guys?

Sure. So I'm just gonna. So flat out, for those that are listening, I found that I run a service business and I have found even for product businesses, that one of the best ways to market yourself and to get high quality leads that want to work with you is by speaking and live speaking, doing talks in front of people where you're eyeball to eyeball, hosting your own events and also going for other people's events. And the reason for that is because we're in a sea of Internet marketing right now and a sea of emails. And I find that to this day, the tried and true speaking is what ends up bringing the highest quality leads and leads that are very easy to convert because they're already in love with you. And at Revenue Breakthrough, I do quite a bit of speaking. Like I speak all over the country. I host my own live events. And that ends up being for us, not only the way that we get so much of our business, but also the way that I create raving fans because I'm able to distinguish to find the people that are really good fits for me because they're able to like meet me, gauge my energy, listen to my teaching. And it ends up then that so many of our clients stay with us for like three or four or five years.

That makes a lot of sense because of it.

And then I would say the secondary way that we get a lot of our clients that I also recommend other people get clients is through sponsorships. Again, it's another offline live thing where you're actually going to events, you're buying a table or you're buying a speaking spot, and again, you're talking to people you're meeting that are within your target market. And we do a lot of sponsorships that way as well. And then the third piece that I recommend and that I also use at Revenue Breakthrough, and this is an online piece, is webinars. And again, part of this is all based in visibility marketing and education marketing, essentially letting people know who you are and educating them about something that is really important. And so speaking does that sponsorships do that webinars also provide that which allow for people to really self select, meaning they decide based on what they hear after you educating them about whether you'd be a good fit for them. And the only caveat with webinars that I would share is that it does, because for webinars to really work, you do need an online email list. We have at least 1,000 people.

I see. That you can recruit into the webinar from that.

Exactly. That you can recruit into the webinar doing things. It's always about how visible can you be and how much can you teach people an offer that is going to have them be inspired by you and then also making offers, making sales offers that allow people, people to sign up for conversations with you as well.

That's great. And you're. I mean, I get that you're adding value upfront, Right. You're giving them something, the talk, the webinar, you know, something that they're going to connect with and then moving them into your paid programs, right?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And for us, a lot of that happens through conversations, and then people move through, are inspired and educated, then move through various programs.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great advice. So the other thing I really liked on your site is you really talk so much about planning and throughout your website, talk about the marketing calendar, talking about adding value to people. Tell us what that is and how you've used it in your business.

What I'd love to talk about with planning, one of the aspects is what I call the 90 day rule. And the 90 day rule states that, let's say the month is April and you're experiencing a day dip in your revenue, a low in your revenue. If I were to look at your marketing activities and your lead generating, my I would guess that what happened was 90 days before April. So say, you know, January, February, you didn't do as much lead generating as you needed to be doing to make sure that you have leads coming in in April. And the same is true for 90 days from now, which is that anything that you're doing now, whether it be speaking or sponsorships or webinars, or being present on podcasts or doing videos, where you're really putting yourself out there, all of that is going to develop over the next 90 days. And so what we have to do as entrepreneurs is start looking at what is our marketing calendar, what activities are we doing to make sure that leads are coming in six to 12 months from now, not just what's happening in this month. So I've created a resource to help people with this is what activities should I be doing? How often should I be doing them? How Do I plan this out? And I've created a money making, what we call our money making marketing calendar. It gives you an example of the revenue generating activities you should be doing. There's a blank version so you can fill it in for yourself and it explains all the activities for you. And you can pick that up@revenuebreakthrough.com marketing calendar. Revenuebreakthrough.com marketing calendar.

That's great. So one of the things we ask everybody that comes on the show is to talk about mistakes because we, well, maybe because I've made so many, but a lot of it is, you know, we learn so much from these mistakes. And so it's tradition here to ask everybody what the best mistake is that you think you've made. What mistake taught you the most, you know, during your career? And would avoiding that mistake be kind of the best piece of advice you'd give other small business owners?

That's a great question. I, you know, it's, it's funny because I'm at a point in my business, I've been doing it for so long that I've trained myself out of thinking in terms of mistakes and success. That's powerful because you have to, you know, at some point you really start to get, you know, I had the privilege of business school and being around my father, of being around a lot of really successful entrepreneurs as I was growing up and as I was starting my company. And one of the things that they all have in common is that they're like, they're delusional.

Absolutely.

And what I mean is that like, they don't even recognize something that hasn't worked. Like, they do not even talk about it as a mistake. So I think for me.

That'S a valid answer. You don't have to dig or anything because we love that here. I mean, we preach it all the time.

I would say that, yeah, I think after years of experiencing disappointments and like, and for me, what I, I'm a, I'm a result oriented person. We do more than 30 events a year. I always have goals going into everything that I do. We do multiple launches per year and we don't always make them. And so my relationship with this appointment and not hitting a goal is as strong as my relationship to hitting our goals.

Nice. I like it. Yeah.

And so I think the learning that I would take from it for any beginning entrepreneur is to understand that the more that you do statistically, the more you will fail. So therefore, if you want to be more successful, it means that you're going to do more, it means you're going to be risking more, which means that you have to get more and more comfortable with failure. And so if you find that you're someone out there and you're like, gosh, this keeps, you know, things keep not working, that's actually probably a good sign, because if things keep not working, then it means that you're trying a lot of things. Now, don't get me wrong. You probably want to make sure that you get some help and some guidance so that you know what to do along the way. But I think there's also something to be said of saying, you know what? Like, if you're gonna be successful, you're gonna risk a lot. If you're gonna risk a lot, you're gonna fail a lot.

Yeah, that could be the best answer we've ever had.

Yeah, I really think so. What you just said, the more you do, the more you will fail. Like, what a powerful piece of information that is to give to someone. Someone really at any stage of entrepreneurship or at any stage of life. It's just. That's really good.

Awesome.

Yeah.

You know, I came up with that because of the number of weekends I spent in heartfelt stomach felt disappointment, literally. Like, I would do something, it wouldn't work. I would spend the whole weekend obsessing over it. It would invade my life, invade my relationship with my husband. My animals knew about it, you know, like, it was sad. And then I finally started doing statistical analysis because I'm an analytical girl, and I was. Monica, how many times are you. Do you do something that you have an expectation? And I just realized, like, statistically, I am doing more than the average person. So therefore, there's going to be more disappointments. And I honestly think that that is true for so many entrepreneurs.

Yeah, that is fantastic. For sure. So, you know, this is all. This information is really great. I'm looking forward to listening to the show again and picking that up. So we've got thousands of small business owners that are listening, listening right now. What would you like them to remember about you and revenue breakthrough when they're done listening to the show today?

I think that. So I think that there is a money crisis out there with entrepreneurs that not everybody's talking about. And that crisis is that we're not making enough money. We're not putting things away for savings. And so underlying the success, there's often fear. So the message that I want to put out there is that you can actually, no matter if you're an entrepreneur who's making great money, but you don't have time. You can create more time. If you're an entrepreneur who isn't making great money but you'd like to, you can create great money. And it's just about learning the steps to do so. So there is a path to it. And so if you're out there and you're thinking, oh, there's no hope and I don't know what to do next, I really encourage you to get some help to get there, to figure out how to create that time or to figure out how to create that money. And if and if you know and to reach out to us or to reach out to another business coach, to reach out to know that there is hope and it's possible for you to have everything that you want because I've seen it happen over and over again.

That's a great, that's a great message and it is really powerful. And, you know, I want to thank you for coming on today, sharing your, you know, your journey, the things you've learned. You know, what's the best way for our listeners to connect with you and to learn more about revenue breakthrough?

Well, I think the first thing is pick up the marketing calendar@revenuebreakthrough.com marketing calendar. And if you want to connect with us directly, Please email us supportevenuebreakthrough.com and then you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. If you just look up revenue breakthrough, you can can join our group and follow us on Instagram. I do a lot of great videos. Great information on those channels as well.

That's fantastic. Thank you again for coming. Once again, I always say I've learned the most here and I know Dave and I really appreciate you taking the time out to share everything with us.

Thank you so much. This is awesome. Really some great advice and it's a great thing you're doing, too. This is awesome. So thanks for coming on the show, Monica.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you next week.

Keep living that charmed life.