3 Things That Get In Your Way

Good evening. And Luna is joining me. She's barking at the cat through the door, so be wary. There's going to be some barking in this one. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and coach. I'm so excited to be talking to you this evening. I was looking at some of the data that I've collected because I do a lot of research into who I work with because I want to make sure I understand exactly what they're struggling with so that I can come up with exactly the solution that they need to position my business. Business as the go to. For. For my ideal client. And I wanted to talk to you about the three things that I see come up all the flipping time that get in the way of someone actually starting their business. Okay? And these things, they're not. They're not complicated. They're not like big, big scary things. Luna, are you really gonna bark the whole time? The cat's on the other side of the door and she really wants to go and chase him because, you know, she is convinced that he's going to be her best friend. Which is a beautiful, actually metaphor of how people try to get clients when they first start out. They're like, you, you. You're gonna be my client. But they don't do a very good job of communicating why they are the perfect person to be this person's friend or, you know, service provider. So, Luna, you need to get better at your sales skills. You need to. You need to convince the cat that you're going to be a really fun dog for it to play with. Anyway, sorry, dog. Tangent back. Hi and welcome whoever's watching. I'm doing this on streamyard as I normally do. I'm streaming this to both my Facebook, to LinkedIn and to YouTube. I do love this to be interactive. So if you have a question throughout the or if you want to add to the conversation, I would love for you to comment. Also, sometimes not all the comments come through. So if you comment and I don't call you out or I don't respond unless you say something wildly inappropriate, it is not you. It is just Streamyard sometimes doesn't show them to me. So don't worry, I'm not mad at you. Unless you say something wildly inappropriate, I'm not going to address those. But anyway, there are just three things that generally get in people's way, and I want to bust them right here, right now because they while completely valid, this is something that most everyone goes through. They don't need to be the Thing that gets in the way of you creating a business and creating the life that you want. Okay, so let's just bust it here. Now, the number one answer I get to. What is your biggest frustration or. Or blockage to you actually creating this business? The number one answer is me. I'm directly getting in my own way. And I see we have a bunch of people watching right now. I want to see if you are one of these people, if you're getting in your own way, if you can comment. And it's so true. There are so many ways in which we get in our own ways. She's really going for the door, you know, she. She gets in her own. She gets so crazy, the cat doesn't want to be with her. And then she starts acting like this, and no one wants to hang out with her. So she's really getting in the way of her own success. Right, Luna? Luna, Come, Luna, come. Come here. Come here. Let's show everyone. You. You can be a good girl, right? Yes. What a good puppy. Yeah, I know. Okay, so anyways, a little dog tangent. I know, I know. The cat doesn't want to hang out with you, okay? So getting in your own way can look like a lot of different things. Getting in your own way could be just not doing the work because you're afraid that it's not going to be perfect. You're afraid that people are going to judge it. You're afraid that it's going to give off the wrong impression. And it's just there. There's going to be no perfect way of doing this. And. Hi, Maria Santos. Nice to see you. There's going to be no perfect way of doing this. Everything is an iterative process. Okay? Cars. And we just think of cars. I don't know why I'm in, like, a car metaphor kind of space today. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna put her away. She is being a terrorist, aren't you? Yes, you are. I'm sorry. We're just gonna let the rest of the house deal with you because you're being awful. So what was I saying? You get in your own way. Oh. Because you're afraid. So everything is an iterative process. So we're talking about cars. So the very first car was not perfect. Okay. Didn't have seat belts. I think it can only go like 35 miles an hour. The wheels were crap. Like, they weren't all terrain vehicles. I don't know what the gas mileage was, but there were a lot. There were no cup holders like no cup holders. Like a car without cup holders. I don't know what they were even thinking, okay? There was no air conditioning, there was no radio. A lot of things were wrong with the very first car. And yet cars took off. Cars took off like they're. Look at the car industry now. And look at the cars now. Okay? I have a Fiat 500. There are a lot of things I love about that car. But is it perfect? Absolutely not. Are there things that could be improved about it? Absolutely. Okay. Just because someone has created a really incredible card does not mean that there's not going to be something better. So if you are holding yourself back from putting up a website, from starting to talk about on social media, from just generally outing yourself as a business owner because you're waiting for it to be perfect, babes, I got to tell you, you got to cut that out, okay? Because it's never going to be perfect. You. You could be 40 years into running this business and you're always going to see improvements that could be made to your offering, to your marketing, to your website, all those things. You gotta bust yourself on that, okay? The other way in which people sabotage themselves and get in their own way is they actually do talk about themselves. They talk about their service, they talk about their business. They are out there posting and they end up in conversations with folks who are genuinely interested in being in business with them. And they crash and burn their own sales calls. They do. I hear it every single day. Oh, I was on this amazing sales call with my ideal client and I didn't. I threw it out there that I would love to work with them. And then I ended the call. Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no. So many things here. The thing that I see most often and the question I ask is, what would the next step be if they did become a client? And there's this like, oh, my God. Well, I'd have to put together a contract and I'd have to figure out how to take payment, and I have to figure out how they book their sessions and all this stuff. And it's like, oh, my gosh, this is so easy to fix. This is what I do with my clients every single day. Designing exactly what that workflow is and setting it up so that when you do get a client, you know exactly what you're supposed to send them. It's already set up and you just. It takes maybe 20 minutes for you to send them the stuff that they need to be able to become your client and give you their money. Learning sales. I know it sounds scary and sleazy and gross, and we lean away from it because we've seen sales done in a very manipulative way. Okay, if you've ever gone to a car lot and tried to purchase a vehicle, used or new, you've gone through all. Not all car sales people. Forgive me if you're a car salespeople person and you don't do this, but we've all gone through that, like, well, young lady, like, what could I do to get you in a car today? You know, or pressuring you in other weird ways to make a decision. Because we've seen that we lean so far away from sales that we don't ever actually ask for. For money for our services. What this communicates to our clients is that, oh, they don't want to work with me. They didn't, like, outright ask me to be their client, so they probably didn't want to work with me. I probably wasn't a good fit for their business. Or they're just confused. They don't understand, like, what the next process is. Everyone knows how to go and buy a white T shirt. I talk about this example all the time. Okay, you go to the clothing store of your choice, you find a white T shirt, you maybe try it on, and once you find one that fits and that you like, you go to the person at the cash register, you give them your money or your credit card, and then you walk out the door, and voila, you have a white T shirt. People don't know how to hire service providers. I can tell you I have inquired with multiple copywriters, website designers, and, you know, different coaches throughout my life and throughout my career as a business owner. And I can tell you, I get lost as a customer when they don't have a clear path of how I'm supposed to become a client. You know, I inquired with one copywriter in particular who I really liked. You know, her stuff on LinkedIn was absolutely incredible. And I wanted to support her, you know, because she shared some stuff about her life that sounded like she's going through a hard time. And I really wanted to support her. And so I asked her, you know, what that looked like? And she said, oh, well, it depends. It depends. Like, I've never hired a copywriter before. I don't know what I'm supposed to be asking. I don't know what I'm supposed to be giving you. I need you to give me some information here, but I have money burning in my pocket that I want to spend with you. And so she sent me a very vague document that didn't give me any instructions as to how to become her client. And so what happened? I didn't become her client. And that is such a bummer. That is such a bummer. I don't want anyone ever doing that for themselves. And this is one of the things that I work on with my clients, because you don't have to do the thing the same way as everyone else, okay? This is the fear. So maybe you have signed up with someone before and you just didn't like something about their process. The beautiful thing about owning your own business is you get to design your own process. You get to figure out what your client expects experience is going to be, okay? And because you're designing it towards yourself, you're going to attract people like you who like the same things. But the thing is that oftentimes, if you don't have that shit built before you get on the phone with a prospective client, you will crash and burn yourself. You will sabotage any potential success of getting that person as a client because you're worried that, oh, my God, I'm gonna have to get all this shit together and I'm gonna seem unprofessional that I don't have it all together. By the way, like, there aren't professional police out there. They're not issuing tickets. They're not putting people in jail, okay? So you get to do things haphazard when you start. That's fine, too. So getting in your own way also looks like. What was the third one I'm forgetting? Sorry, the dogs are barking. It's distracting me. Getting in your own way also looks like not. Not having a call to action. So you may get on social media and write beautiful posts that are inspirational and change people's lives and shares, and you share vulnerably, but you're never leading anyone anywhere, okay? They're just like, why is this person shoving value at me? Like, what? When are they going to ask me to do something? Or when are they going to tell me what the next step is? When are they going to give me something to download? You need to make the ask. And if you feel weird about making this ask, I would. And with all of this, all of this is tied to relationship with money, relationship to deserving things coming to you, relationship to deserving attention, that whole belief structure taking up space. I'd ask you to look at that very carefully, okay? Because if any of that is getting in the way, guess what? You're never gonna make any movement on any of this. This is one of the things that I work on with my clients, depending on what their main struggle is. Because if you're afraid of taking up space, you're not gonna end up on a Facebook Live or LinkedIn Life. Because who the fuck are you to take up time and energy and just screen space on someone else's computer or iPhone? Oh, no, I can't. I don't deserve that. You know, if you have a story around not deserving money, you're never going to ask anyone for their money. And if you do, you're going to ask for so little that they're going to assume that you're either no good. That happens. People choose me and they tell me because I charge more than my competition, because they assume that that means that I'm better. And I am better, okay? Because I have the confidence around money, that I teach the confidence around money. Okay? I can say that confidently because I know it to be true. But side tangent, so. But if you don't have that cleaned up, if you don't understand that that's just a story you're telling yourself. And it's a story you've been telling yourself so often throughout your life, and you've probably been taught it by other people who love you and have the best intentions for you, but also have a crappy relationship with this stuff that you believe it at a very core level. And I don't know if any of you have ever lived near a pond in a wealthy area, but what happens in ponds in wealthy areas, I want you to think wealthy homes, right? So you have wealthy homeowners, they want their property to look really nice, so they invest in landscaping. And what do landscapers do? They pump those gardens full of fertilizer. Okay? And what does fertilizer do when it gets rained on, gets washed down the hill into the pond and it poisons the fucking pond. It kills all the fish, it kills all the wildlife. Any reeds, lily pads, frogs, like, they're all dead. It just completely changes the chemistry. That is what a bad relationship with money or your belief around deserving attention or deserving to take up space can do to your business. Okay? So that's. That's a major way in which you actually get in your own way. Okay? So that's just number one. That's just number one. We're 14 minutes and you're ready for a couple more. These won't take as long the next way in which next thing that gets in people's way when they're trying to start a business is they get all flipped out around. Do I pick a niche or do I serve everyone? What's my branding? How do I promote myself? I can tell you the last. The last. The biggest thing that people do or the most common thing that people do when they first start out is they worry about their website and they worry about their logo which honey, I want you to calm down. Stop, stop playing with your website. Stop doing your logo. If you don't know who your niche is, if you don't know who you're speaking to, those things just don't matter. Okay? You can, you can create a beautiful logo that doesn't resonate with your clients at all. And guess what? It's actually going to get in the way of you having success. Likewise, you can design a website. And a lot of people do when they start a business. And I'm against it, but I'm also for it. There's something energetic about hanging your sign somewhere. And what are websites other than hanging signs? Right, but normally people create a website that's all about them and what that looks like is, hi, I'm Katie McManus and I went to this school and I studied philosophy and then I worked here and then I worked there and blah, blah, blah. And my ideal clients, if they were to land on that website, they would read for a second, be like, I don't know how the fuck any of this is relevant to me and my problems. I'm going to keep scrolling, I'm going to keep like, you know, hopping around to other websites until I find something that's relevant to me. Okay? So you may think that your background is completely relevant to your clients problems and the solutions that they want from you. They can't make that logic jump with you, okay, because you haven't laid it out for them. So getting clear on who your client is, what their problems are, what they're afraid of, what they're frustrated with. Just like me doing this research and knowing the three things that generally get in people's way. So helpful. Okay? So figuring out your niche, your branding, and promoting yourself. So promoting yourself doesn't have to be gross. This is one of the things that I also design with my clients is what is an authentic, heart centered service way that you can promote yourself in your business that doesn't feel like you're being super salesy. I mean, there's so many beautiful ways to do this. If you're stopping yourself because you're like, oh, I don't want to promote myself, I don't Want people to think that I'm like, full of myself or anything. Like, get over it. Get over it. Because what you're actually doing is you're robbing the world out there of all the amazing gifts that you have to offer because you're not willing to put yourself out there because you're insecure. Great. Your insecurity is robbing the world of all those gifts. Okay, which do you value more? Your insecurity? You want to be committed there or do you want to be the generous gift giving soul that I know you are? I bet it's this. I bet it's being the generous gift giving soul. Hi, Jonathan. Welcome. Good to see you. Oh, gosh. Well, the cat just got out, but he broke through the screen of the screened in porch. We were having pet drama in this house tonight. Welcome to the zoo. But anyway, if you're gonna let your insecure security tie in here, don't. And also just know that when you're starting out, no one expects you to have a logo. And by the way, this logo that I have in this corner, I made this on Canva. Okay? I didn't hire anyone to make this. It's in my. My brand colors that my friend Jesse Cohen helped advise me on. She had me do this really fun exercise, but I know it's gonna evolve. This is just a placeholder, okay? Your business is gonna evolve as you grow. Just like the car industry, okay? The Model T Ford, if we were still driving that around right now, oh, my God. Could you just imagine how. How long it would take to get anywhere and how expensive it would be and just all the things. Okay, so we busted that. We busted the niche bit, the figuring out who you work with and getting precious about your branding and being insecure about promoting yourself and just owning that there is another way. And I invite you if this sounds appealing to you and you're like, oh, my God, yes. I'm so ready to bust myself on this. And I am ready to figure out a way that's authentic to me, that feels good, that I can go out there and start talking about this gift that I have to offer and start being in business with it. I want you to send me a direct message and just say, hey, I saw your live tonight, and there's something in there that I want to commit to start doing. And what we can do is we can either book a call, you can come to my being brave call. We'll figure it out. But send me a direct message, because I don't want you getting stuck here anymore. It's a complete waste of your time and it's a waste of resources for the world. Okay, the final thing. So you're sending that dm, right? Thumbs up. Thank you. Like I can see. I'm just pretending I can see everyone who's watching. Hi. Finally. Okay, so this is the third thing that gets in people's way. And it's so crazy because it's something that we actually have far more control over than we own time management. And for those of you who have a full time job, I understand it is really hard to carve out some time to design your business, okay? But let me tell you, it's not impossible. I have multiple clients who were working full time 40 to 50 hours a week. We set up very specific hours for them to work in their business doing very specific activities that would get them in front of their ideal clients. And the average, these are my most successful clients is the average amount of time they take to get their first high paying client. When I say high paying, I mean anywhere from 4,500 to 18,000, okay? For either a six month engagement or a year long engagement. Okay? 4,500 to 18,000. Working a full time job that is completely available to you is two and a half months. Two and a half months, okay? So the thing about designing a business and starting a business is we're on the 40 hour a week model, okay? So we think if we're going to do this, I have to pour my all into it, okay? When really you don't really. Let's just, you know, rein it in there, buddy, okay? Especially if you're working 40 hours a week, you have to be very deliberate about how you use your time for your business, okay? So you are devoting two to three hours, four days a week to working in your business. And when I say working, I don't mean just like scrolling on social media and commenting on stuff and blah, blah, I mean actively working in your business, interviewing clients, networking specifically to your niche, pitching yourself for speaking gigs and getting on sales calls and actually working with clients, okay? You get to be so deliberate about that. Also if you don't do this, let me tell you, the downside is you end up burning yourself out and you end up giving up because you can't as a human, you can't work around the clock. And if you don't set a time frame around this work, what your brain is going to do is it's going to kick into overdrive and it's going to feel guilty constantly. That you're not working in your business in every free hour that you have. This is going to tank your mental health. It is going to tank your physical health because you're probably not going to go to the gym because you're going to feel too guilty about stepping away from your side business. It is going to take a toll on your relationships, your romantic relationship, platonic, familial or family. I don't know why I'm speaking in fancy talk, all these things. It's going to also take a big toll on your sleep because it's going to keep you awake at night. So you have to set boundaries around your work and just understand that you do have 40 hours of your week taken up. It's expected that building a business may take a little longer and that's totally fine. You get to go at your own pace. There's no timeline that everyone has to fit to grow their business. Okay? And you are right on time. Wherever you are right now, you are right on time. You're not too old or too young, you're not too inexperienced, you're not over experienced. You are right on time. You have everything you need to do it right now, okay? And you have resources out there in the world like myself and Colleen Wurtek and Rick Tamlin and Suzanne Evans. Like you have a million different people out there that you could choose from to ask for support on this, okay? So there's stuff you don't know. You can go and get that you're creative and resourceful and whole, okay? And also if you are starting this, if you have free time, if you've already left your job or if you're lucky enough to not have to need to not need to work to support yourself in this time again, you need to set office hours, okay? Because what happens when you have all that free time is one activity can expand to take up the whole day and then you feel like, oh my God, I'm such a failure. That took so long. Okay? So playing with deadlines with yourself, having someone holding you accountable, like a coach or some accountability group, there are a lot of entrepreneurial accountability groups out there, by the way. So you have a ton of options here. And if you do something that's boot scrappy, it's not that big of an investment. But know that you own your time and it's the one resource that you will never get back. And I don't mean to scare you guys there, like I just got a little like, oh God, like I need my time back. But it is the One resource that you're never going to get back. The beautiful thing about designing a business is you can design it to take up as much of your time or as little of your time as you want. Okay? It all like whatever goal you want for your life. It's reverse engineer, okay? Everything is reverse engineer. So if you want to work 10 hours a week, that's possible. If you want to work 30 hours a week, my sweet spot is 30, 35 anymore. I get burnt out any less, I go a little nuts, okay? I love my work, but you have control over that. So take control. Schedule things out, block things out. Your calendar. A couple of my clients who just recently one left their job, another one is really getting ramped up. We had to look at their calendars and decide, okay, here's where you run sales calls. Here's where you're going to be doing networking and doing promotions and spending time on social media, and here's where you're going to be doing client work. You're designing a business that you can have your ideal life. So design a business that allows you to live parts of your ideal life as you're building it. I mean, I say that and it sounds common sense, but even I got sucked into just working all the time when I first started because I felt like that's what I needed to do because there's this hustle culture and people, you know, talk about waking up at 4 o' clock in the morning and working until 10pm and not necessary, not necessary at all. Anyway, those are the three things that get in the way. And I hope, I hope just hearing about them. And if there's just one thing in here that bounced for you and you're like, oh my God, I do that. I'm totally sabotaging myself there, or I'm getting hung up on my, on my website or on my, you know, little doohickey here. Just stop. I hope this was just enough of a little slap in the face that you're going to cut it out now. I want you to go and start your business. People need you. We're in the middle of the great resignation right now. People are owning that they no longer want to be beholden to someone who doesn't really care about them. The only person who's going to care about you the most is you. Honestly, I know there are lots of people in beautiful, loving, committed relationships still. You're the one you've got. So take care of that person and give them the life that they deserve. And if it takes building a business to do that. Go for it. You can do it. And like I said, if you need support on any of this, reach out to me. I'm not the right fit for you. I know a billion people like me that I'm more than happy to refer you to my one goal here. I believe that everyone deserves to make a solid, decent, abundant living from doing work that they love. And I want that for you, too. Okay. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and coach. I hope you have a lovely Wednesday evening. I hope to be going live tomorrow, but we'll see. Things are a little crazy over here, but I hope you have a great rest of the week. And again, if I've spoken to you at all in this and you're ready to start this and you don't know how, just send me a dm. I'm not that scary. Anyway, I will talk to you all later. Have a great night. Bye.