#7 - 5 Secrets to 5 figure months - When to Hustle + When To HIRE! (4/5)

I pretty much never invested in my business or myself until that point.

So not in my own education or growth because I was just so sure I could figure it all out on my own. And I was just so worried about, you know, spending the money. I definitely the thing I had more of at the time or the thing I valued more of at the time was money in the bank versus my time.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your host, serial entrepreneur, six and seven figure funnel strategy and super nerd Kate McKibben where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hey. Hey guys. It is Kate McGiven here and welcome back to episode seven of the Doing It Online podcast. And today is actually number four in our spring special, five part Kick off the podcast series which is called five Secrets to Five Figure Months. Now, if you haven't listened to the other three episodes in this series, I highly recommend that either after this episode or even right now, you go back and have a listen because there's definitely some gold nuggets in there that are going to be super, super helpful to you if you are currently trying to crack that five figure ceiling. But if you have and you're ready to dive in today, today I want to talk to you about how to know when you are ready to get help and what type of help you are going to need. And I want to kick things off today by sharing a little story about that I think will really show you the difference between when you try and hustle and when you hire. And this story is basically how I set up and scaled my very first business all the way back in 2007. And in comparison to how I did the same thing in my third business just last year, but how I did it about five years faster. So let's start off by going all the way back to 2007 to business number one, where online shopping is still considered new and scary and Instagram doesn't exist yet. So this is dating me quite a bit. So it's 2007, I'm 25, no responsibilities. I've just started my own, as I said, just out of my first business. And I am determined to make it work. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm sure I can figure it out. All out. I'm getting into work. I'm still working full time. I'm getting into work at 7am every day. So I have an extra two hours to work on my business in the morning, plus lunchtime. And then I get home and I work most nights as well as on weekends. I am diying everything, including designing my own website. It looks terrible, but it does the job. I know I'm smart and I'm determined and literally have nothing more important to do with my time. So I'm happy to hustle as hard and as much as I can and, and I do for years. In fact, I don't get any help whatsoever until about five years later. And I pretty much never invested in my business or myself until that point.

So not in my own education or growth because I was just so sure I could figure it all out on my own. And I was just so worried about, you know, spending the money. I definitely. The thing I had more of at the time or the thing I valued more of at the time was money in the bank versus my time. But doing it that way, it took years. And now looking back, I can see it actually probably cost me a lot of money doing it that way because I stayed stuck at the start for so much longer than I needed to. But you know, at the time it was fine. I mean, I was 25 years old and I had nothing else to do. But let's skip forward a bit to when I started my third business. This time around, I'm 37, I have a mortgage, two step kids, a dog, way less stamina and desire to work all the hours, and I'm about to find out that I'm pregnant. Now. This time around, rather than it taking over six years to crack, you know, I got the multi six figure mark. So basically to crack $200,000, I did it in less than one. So what was so different? Well, once again I diyed my own website. Look, I'm a. You know, some habits do die hard, but that's pretty much the only thing that I did the same this time around. I knew I'd never be able to grow as quickly as I wanted if I was trying to do everything myself. I also just didn't have the energy to do everything on my own anymore. Hey guys, it's just Kate here. So first of all, I just had to quickly stop by and say thank you so, so much for listening to and supporting my brand new podcast. It really means the world to me. And to help kick this puppy off with a real bang, I actually have an amazing free bonus just for you guys, which is I'm giving away access to my 5 day mini business accelerator workshop worth $97 totally for free to everyone who leaves a 5 star review of the Doing It Online podcast on itunes right now. This five day workshop walks you through creating your own killer online business plan for your online course. Business. One that is scalable, profitable and enjoyable too. It's chock full of my very best lessons and strategies from over 13 years online. And today it's yours for free. All you have to do is step one open up iTunes. Click on this podcast, click, write, review and then click those little five stars and share what you love most about the show. Step 2 Head to katesbonus.com that's K A T E S B O n u s.com Kate's Bonus and Pop in your contact details and itunes account name so we can know the review is from you and we can send you your login details for your bonus. It's that simple. Step one leave a five star review. Step two head to Kate's Bonus.com and send us your details. And that's it. And as an extra little thank you, I'll be choosing my favorite reviews every week and sending that lucky reviewer an exclusive I Do It Online mug so you can sip along in style while you listen to your favorite show. So what are you waiting for? Hit pause, go, leave that review, then head over to katesbonus.com, pop in your details and claim this amazing five day workshop for yourself. I'll see you inside. So I hired as quickly as my very paired back budget would allow. Just two VAs for a few hours a week to start. But I brought on new team members. Sorry. As quickly as I could. Now, of course, I had the benefit of nearly 12 years of online experience, so I knew what to focus on and when. You cannot underestimate how important that is when starting and growing a business. But even then, I knew there was always gonna be things that I just didn't know that I didn't know. So I still hired a coach and a mentor. Now, that was actually my number one expense in setting up business. Number three, I spent over $20,000 on getting someone who had the kind of business I wanted to help me get over all the slow and boring and painful and unnecessary stuff to help me literally save way more time and money than what I was investing. Because I was able to jump ahead so quickly thanks to their help. Because that is what investing in a coach or a course or a mastermind is designed to do. It's there to help you get your way. You're going quicker and easier And I would be lying if I said it didn't scare the pants off me to lay down that kind of cash, especially when I had just basically turned off my all of my income and revenue almost completely. But I knew that as long as I picked the right person and it, you know, there's a few sleepless nights about whether or not I did. And as long as I actually did what they suggested, that it would all pay off. Now, in my first 12 months of running that business, six of which I was pregnant and fairly unwell and very tired, my new business earned just over $300,000. So I would say that's a pretty damn good return on investment, don't you think? So you can see the difference here between the I'm going to go it alone and DIY everything route and the I value my time too much to waste years and years trolling through Google and never seeing my family and being grumpy and tired all the time trying to figure out on my own, like those are kind of the two options that you have. And this doesn't mean that you have to go and drop 25k on a coach to, you know, to get you where you want to go or that you have to go and immediately hire a big team. But I know for a fact that pretty much everyone waits just that bit too long or that bit longer than they should to go and get help. Usually because, you know, we're a bit scared or we're too busy. And whether that is outsourcing the day to day tasks with a team member or outsourcing the years of figuring it out yourself with a coach or a course. And I guess the real message that I have for you all today is that if right now Google is your go to business guru and you don't feel like you are ever making, you know, that progress in your business because you're just barely keeping your head above water with the day to day, then it sounds like you need some help yesterday. So ask around for a coach or a program that's going to help you figure out exactly what you should be focusing on right now and how to crush it. And here's a bonus hint. You don't need a coach for life. You will have many overtime. You just need to find the one who can help to get you moving right now and get you that next step along, help you with that next most important puzzle piece, whatever that is for you. And then when you've done that, I challenge you to sit down and make a list of all the tasks that you work on day to day, that keep your business rolling and see if you can find about five hours a week worth of work for a VA or someone to come in and take off your plate. Just five hours. Just start small and go from there. And yes, I know you're probably at capacity right now, so the thought of trying to find, hire and train someone might seem almost impossible. But from me to you, no, it just only gets worse the longer that you leave it and the longer that you are doing these little 5$, sorry $5 an hour jobs rather than working on the big stuff that can really grow your business. Well, from someone who's done who did that for almost six years, let me just say saving this little bit of time here and there by doing it yourself is actually wasting you, most likely very possibly years and years of your time on the other side. Or that's what it was for me anyway. And even if you're listening to this and you already have some great team members, I challenge you to have a look at your to do list again. Because I bet you there are still some things on your plate that don't need to be there. And you already know how powerful freeing up your time can really be. And even if it's not to fill up with more work, even if it's just to give you that brain space and that bit of time and freedom to be creative again and to start coming up with these next big ideas and next big visions for your business, it is so important as a business owner that we have that creative time. So that's it for today and I'd love to know if this episode has inspired you to either outsource the years and years of figuring it out the hard way, or outsource those day to day tasks that you know you really don't need to be doing. If it has, make sure you tag me on Social It's Ake mckibben and let me know what is the first thing you are going to be outsourcing. I can't wait to see what you're going to take off your plate first. And when you have finished freeing up that little bit of extra time, make sure you jump back in here ready for tomorrow's episode, our lucky last one in this special kickoff podcast series. I think you're going to love it. I'll see you all then. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel. Let Kate show you exactly how today@Stealmyfunnel.com.