Facing Failure In the Spotlight

Foreign. Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist, Money mindset coach. Welcome to my live. I'm going live to the Facebooks, to LinkedIn, to YouTube, to Twitter and to Instagram. And I'm back to balancing my phone on my laptop because I just, I'm not sold on the setup yet. I need to figure out a better way to do this. Anyway, welcome to those of you who are joining Instagram. They're, I guess they're telling people that I'm here. Anyway, I wanted to share today and. Hi, Hogna, great to see you. Welcome, my friend from Norway. Anyway, it's funny, whenever I have like actual friends that like spend time with and they come through, I'm like, oh my God, you're here. And I get a little nervous. So funny. And actually it's perfect. It's so perfect that that happened. And like, because this is the topic today, I want to talk about how scary it is. I don't know. Haisan. It's Norwegian for something. I don't know. I hope I pronounced it correctly. I wanted to talk about how scary it is when you first start a business and you have to go and post online and. And I wanted to share about my own experience here because I feel like this is super relatable to anyone who is having to show up on social media to promote their things. So when I first started my business, I was convinced that I would do it like the old fashioned way. I was going to network, I was going to go to happy hours, I was going to go, you know, all over and talk to everyone and even joined. Hi, David, Welcome. Even joined this. Oh my God. This app is called Shaper Shape. I don't know if anyone remembers this or if it's still a thing. It's kind of like Tinder for business. So basically you, you swipe left and right, I think, on people who might have the same, I don't know, business interests as you. Hi. The Gazelle 9 Aiden. Yeah, we did kind of date in San Francisco. But anyway, it's like Tinder but for business. So, like you would swipe left and right on people who, you know, who had the same business interests as you or who might be good investors, who could be potential clients and so on and so forth. I think I probably spent a good 200 hours on things, 15 minute coffee chats with different individuals from that app, trying to spread the word about what it is that I was up to. Now let me tell you the limitations of that because most of the time the People I ended up on the phone with weren't my ideal client. And also like, they, they were just out trying to sell something, right? So it wasn't a great use of my time. A bunch of other stuff that I wasted my energy on trying to game the system of how to start a business, I can't think of a better way to describe it was, you know, I would collaborate with friends who were in the coaching industry and we would create different, like, programs, different programs together. And we would, I don't know, like, plot out how we were going to take over the world. I remember I rented an office, I got furniture, I decorated the office, I got different books, I read the books. I bought online courses about how to start a business and then I did the courses but didn't actually start the business. And all of this was going on while in the back of my head I knew, you have to start posting on social media. People can't hire you if they don't know that you exist. Hi Robert. Welcome. People can't hire you unless they know that you exist. And one of the easiest ways to let people know that you exist. Hi, Grow with Arif. Welcome. Is to post on social media. It's free, it's all organic. And it's also one of the scariest things that we potentially do when we're starting a business. And it's scary because of the people that we're connected to on social media. Right. I can't be the only one here who is connected to people that I went to elementary school and middle school and high school and college. You know, people who maybe were kind of a bully to me at some point or maybe people who just, I don't know, we weren't really friends, but I, for some reason care about their opinion. You know, different family members whose opinion we really care about. You know, it can be really hard to post and let them see what we're up to. Former colleagues, former bosses, especially if you're breaking out on your own and they had ever, ever like discouraged you from doing so. Um, you know, when you post on social media, you do a couple things. You know, you tell everyone, hey, I'm starting this business. And then you kind of assume that they're going to be able to tell if it's going well or not. They're going to be able to see, based on what you're posting about, whether you're crashing and burning, whether you're being successful. And like, here's the. The most basic truth about starting a business is that it has a very high chance of crashing and burning. There is a massive opportunity for failure. And in fact, like, if you're not failing when you start a business in a million different ways, you're not working hard enough. I am very open about my journey. When I started coaching, I started off as a dating coach for men. Okay? Because I was dating in San Francisco. It was miserable, except for Hugna, who, you know, lived in Norway. So, yeah, like, it was just miserable. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna fix the men here. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna coach them on how to be better at dating, and it's gonna be amazing. And I did all this crazy, busy work. It was in. In my description of this post I wrote that, you know, there's like, the. If you want to run a mile, there's the straightforward way of running the mile, right? But the way a lot of people do it in their. When they start their business is, like, they decide to do, like, these crazy loop de loops around, like, different neighbor, you know, like, not even on. On paved roads. They're just, like, going through the woods and through bushes, and they're tripping and falling and skinning their knees and twisting their ankles and, like, whacking their head against branches because there's, you know, trees in the way. And it's the worst way to start a business. You know, it's. It's trying to game the system so that you don't have to post online, so you don't have to show everyone that you knew, you know, and their mother, that. That you're doing the scary thing and that it might not work out right? So I started off as a dating coach in San Francisco. I networked my ass off, and I did get clients out of it. It took so much more work than it would have if I had just posted online. But the funny thing was, is that I actually ended up with eight female clients and one dude. So the universe was not interested in me coaching men. It was very straightforward that the univers course was all about me coaching women. And it was funny because I would be at, like, a happy hour or a party or a networking event, and I'd be in one of those little semicircles of people who are getting to know each other. And, you know, everyone would go around saying, you know, this is who I am, and this is what I do. And it would get to my turn. People are like, well, what are you up to? And I said, well, you know, I'm a dating coach for men, and I'm not even exaggerating here. The women in the group, in unison, would just go, hands on hips, and look at me, just annoyed. And they would say something like, well, what about me? What about me? I want a dating coach. I was. I was really confused by this. I was like, okay, well, fine, I'll. I'll coach you too. That's okay. So we'd exchange information, and we'd hop on a call and they'd sign up. And the funny thing that happened is that most of those clients. Clients, like all but one of the women that I signed on for dating coaching, only one of them stuck with that topic. Every other woman I coached and the man that I coached, everyone wanted or needed leadership development and executive training. Like, they needed to learn how they could own their power at work. Because what was happening that was causing dating problems for them is that they didn't know how to set boundaries. They didn't know how to say no to their boss. They didn't know how to manage up. They didn't know how to manage down or sideways or any which ways. Okay? There was so much going on, and it was just stuff that they'd never been taught. And I loved that it was so powerful to be able to hear someone say that they negotiated a higher raise and they were working or a higher salary and that they were working less and that they were actually able to go on dates. You know, ipso facto, it did have the desired result and then tripped and fell into what I do now. Because all my coaching friends turned around. They're like, wait a minute. How. How did you get clients so fast? How did you do that? So just sharing this so you can see failure is baked in. Okay, I failed numerous times as I was trying to get my business up and running. Okay? I failed with my. My first niche and my second niche and my third niche. I didn't really fail with the third. Nich realized as I transitioned to teaching people how to start their business that I liked that so much more right now. It took me a long time to grow the ovaries to actually start posting online. And really, it wasn't until I was doing leadership development and executive coaching that I actually started posting online. And even the stuff I posted was, like, very tentative. It was just. I was, you know, lightly dipping my toe in the water. I was giving people a little insight as to what I was up to, but I didn't want them to think that I like Thought so much of myself that I was putting myself out there as, like, this, you know, executive coach who, like, you know, like, saw herself as. As better than everyone else. There was, like, this weird story I had, and there was also this massive fear that if I kept posting and trying to get clients, that people would watch that and be like, she's crashing and burning. Nope, not going well for her. That's so sad. She had so much potential. And I mean, we all know people from our past who, like, if they were to say that stuff to us, it would be soul crushing. Even people we don't care about. So really, the wake up call that I got was a mentor of mine kind of gave me a verbal slap in the face, and he told me that you can't be a secret and a success at the same time, right? And at the time, I. I desperately needed to hear this. I desperately needed to hear that, like, there was no other way except for me to out myself on social media, for me to start posting and just giving myself credit that there would be something that I'd say that would resonate with someone, right? And here's the main fear that I hear from so many of my clients is like, well, what do I have to say that will, like, be interesting to anyone, right? Because no offense to my clients, but they're just like me. We all lead fairly boring lives. You know, it's not like we're all going and, like, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro every day. Well, I have one client who actually does that. He's a different story. But anyway, you know, we all live normal lives. We let our dogs out in the morning, we go to work, we, you know, cook dinner, we watch TV in the evenings. What's noteworthy or important about that, you know, what kind of content can be made out of that? And the thing that really helped me realize, like, what it was that I could share is that those, like, benign moments that we have throughout our life, you know, the small moments, the things that are every day are the things that are most relatable to our ideal clients, right? Because they're not out there trying to find the most exciting, sexy, you know, flashy person to work with. No, they're looking for someone who actually feels like a friend that they can connect with, that they could have a conversation with. And the more perfect and, like, exotic and exciting we make ourselves, the more inaccessible we actually make ourselves. David Freeman, who's watching, or he was watching, he commented earlier, you know, he has this post that was. It's now his second highest engaged post on LinkedIn. But I'll never forget it because it was so relatable. It was just a simple post about how he put his coffee on the roof of his car while he's getting his daughter in, in the backseat and, you know, early morning, had to get. Drop her off at school and then get to work. Gets in the car, we all know where this is going. Starts backing up, and here's that plop. That plop that just means, like, there's no caffeine this morning for you. So he gets out because I think it was a reusable mug or something. And like, miracle of miracles, it landed right side up. It had barely spilled. He still got his coffee. Oh, no. The danger of balancing your phone against your computer anyway. And it was just such a relatable post because we've all had that moment where we've lost our coffee and we would all give anything for that little miracle to happen. Right? You know, the other thing that we have to remember is that our clients, like, they're in their own problems. You know, they're in their own frustrations, they're in their own fears. They're also in their own daydreams. You know, when we post to social media, we actually don't have to really post about ourselves at all. You know, what we can post about is the stuff that points out, hey, I see you, I see what you're struggling with. And just so you know, a lot of people in your position struggle with the exact same thing. And, you know, if you want help with that, that's exactly what I do. Like me. And I just want to, like, show behind the curtain what I am doing here. I'm sharing about my own struggle. This is a version of that, right? Because anyone who works with me, I tend to work with people who are having this exact struggle because I'm not really sure how they can show up on social media to get clients. Right? They have all these very similar fears. Maybe not the exact same, but they can hear this kind of stuff and be like, well, it's not that, but it's kind of this other thing. David, thanks for the post, love. Of course, it was a great post. You're a great writer. But anyway. But you know, back to the point, like, one of the things that is going to be most impactful in your business is learning how to create content, learning how to put yourself out there, how to put people yourself in. In people's proximity. Right. Virtually or in person. Right. Virtually is so powerful because, like, literally I'm here. If you have a cell phone or on, you're on your computer and you're connected to me on any of the social media apps, you got a notification thing that I was going live. Right? Even if you didn't watch this live, you still would have had that, like, tiny second where, oh, Katie McManus exists. She exists and she's going live right now. You might have actually forgotten who I am and you might have just had that moment of like, who is this lady who's going live? Why am I connected? Why am I getting this notification? Right. And just helps jog your memory just a little bit, right? I mean, I could honestly come on here and just do show and tell with my dog, which I'm sure a lot of you would really enjoy. I would enjoy that. She's just not very cooperative when it comes to stuff like that. But we have to remind people that we exist, right? Because no one, no one can give you their money to hire you for your product, your program, or your service unless they know that you exist first. Okay? Just doesn't work if they don't know that you exist. Are you, are you just going out willy nilly, just like holding out money for some person that you don't know exists to come and grab and hope that they can solve your problems? No. That's not how business is done, right? For any of us to grow our businesses, we have to put ourselves out there. We have to be willing to fail in front of the mean girls from high school. We have to be willing to show up as the person who's struggling to get their business off the ground in front of their, their distant family members. Because the only way we're going to get the clients out there is if we make sure that they know that we're here and also that we make sure that they know that we focus on the problems that they have and we help our clients get the outcomes that they want. Right? That's really the only way you can grow a business in a time and energy economical way, economically safe way. Right? I also want to name that when you're starting a social media strategy, it can feel really tempting to say, cool, I'm going to post like seven times a day. I'm going to be in the DMs and be doing this, doing that. All the things, Slow down, slow down. You do not need to do that. You do not need to post every day. Okay? You can post five times a week more. It depends on the, on the, on the platform. You can Post a little bit more, you can post a little bit less, and you can still find your ideal clients. They're still there. You do not have to keep up with people like Gary Vaynerchuk, okay? You don't even have to keep up with people like me who go live and post. Right? By the way, I want to out myself now. I'm at the point where, you know, some of the posts that I do, my social media manager handles, you know, we. We take stuff that I've written before, repackage it, post it, and then we re. Reuse it. You know, we. We do a lot of recycling in my business, right? My podcast producer, he takes stuff that I wrote, that I wrote or said or filmed when I was producing my, my podcast and I was recording, and he takes it and turns it into a post, right? I green light it. It's all my words. But I'm not the only person doing this, right? So it's so tempting when you're starting to compare yourself to people who are, you know, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 years ahead of you. And also, it is so unkind of your. Of you to do that to yourself, right? Because you don't know how much support someone is able to afford once they're at that level. Okay? So if you have had any fears around posting, if you are nervous what people are going to say or think when they see you showing up on social media, this is your sign from the universe to just get over it, okay? The funny thing about facing fears is that there's really no way to deal with a fear without just facing it and doing it. Because your brain is basically telling you that this thing is so scary that if you do it, you're going to die. If you do this, you are going to die. That's what your brain is thinking. That's the signal it's sending to your entire body. And the only way to get through that is to do it and show your brain and your body, wow, we didn't die. We didn't die. We're fine. Okay, cool. Let's try it one more time. Maybe, maybe we'll die then. And you have to do it a few dozen times. And at the end you're going to realize, oh, this isn't deadly. Right? The bad news here is that there is always a new fear that pops up. That's like, next level, you know, that new level, new devil kind of saying, you know, welcome to being a business owner. There's always something to be afraid of. But anyway, this is your sign go and post, go and post. Go share. Go dare to think that you have something that is interesting enough for other people to read. Okay? Go claim that you help people because it's the only way you're going to get the opportunity to help people. All right? With that, I will leave you to the rest of your evening. I want to say hello and thank you for joining Caesar Audendell. I think that's how I'm pronouncing your name. And that's just your username, so it might not be your name. Hogne, Arif, Aiden. Who else? And from the computer, Sazeed. I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. David Robert Marshall. Thank you all for joining. I hope you've enjoyed and I hope to be going live again with you tomorrow. If there are any topics you want me to go live on, I love crowdsourcing ideas, so just shoot me a dm. Otherwise, I hope you have an amazing night and I cannot wait to see what you post on social media soon. Bye.