The $10k Freakout

Hello, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Oh, my gosh. So I have a puppy now. She's asleep in the corner right now. I'll pick her up later in this live. But oh, my gosh, what a love. And also exhausting my energy seems a little like, ah, it's because my sleep has been a little interrupted the last couple nights. We're getting used to each other, though. It's lovely. I mean, she's just. She's just, you know, stolen my heart. She's so adorable, and she's learning, you know, the ropes of our house. But anyway, tonight I actually wanted to talk to you about this funny thing that I noticed happens with a lot of my clients. I experienced it when I first hit my. My very first 10k month. And that is. I call it the 10k freak out. The $10,000 freak out. And I noticed it happened for me the very first month that I made $10,000 in a month. And my initial, you know, response to making that amount of money from a business that I had started, you know, signing clients that I had found out there in the world, like, that sounds like magic, right? My first reaction was, oh, my God, I was so excited. And that lasted about five, five minutes. And after those five minutes, it turned to panic. It turned to, oh, my God. This is now my standard. This is now what I do. I want to talk about it this evening because I want to normalize what success feels like for recovering perfectionists. Oh, sorry, I'm getting text message. What success feels like for recovering perfectionists and for active perfectionists. This is the conversation on Clubhouse today. And just so you know, if you go through this, you're not alone. You're not a crazy person. It is a part of the ride. When you're starting a business, you're doing something incredibly brave. Incredibly brave. And bravery looks cool from the outside. It doesn't feel great when you're in it. Okay. Bravery, when you're in it, feels like you're questioning yourself. It feels like you're looking around and you're comparing yourself to other people. It looks like you have moments of panic thinking, did I massively screw this up? That's normal. That's normal. Being brave and having success has much of the same thing. It is totally normal to question yourself. Sorry. She's moving around and she's starting to play. Oh, she's just moving. Oh, my gosh. She's so cute. Let me just show her cute. Come here, Luna. Come here, come here. Come here, baby. Oh, I know, I know you're just napping. I know you're just napping. This is Luna. Luna Lovegood. Oh, baby. I know I showed her last night, but I'm still obsessed with her. Oh, my gosh, she's so sleepy. She's playing so hard with the dogs. Maybe she'll just sleep in my lap. Okay. But it feels sleep scary and it feels like you're screwing it up when you're in it. And when you're a perfectionist and you hit some marker of success, your first five figure month is a perfect example of this. You so quickly shift from, oh my God, I just accomplished something amazing and I should celebrate to this now. Has to be the thing that I do every month. Like, I have moved the bar for success so far. Like, I have to do this every single month for me to consider myself a success going forward. Can we just breathe through that for a second? Oh, like that's a really weird breath. Okay. Oh, wait, you want to get down? Okay. Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. That's a huge jump from I just succeeded to this has to be the thing that I do every month. And it's normal. It's normal. So if you find yourself in that, it's normal. By the way, companies do this all the time. And I come from a sales background. So you know what? Like, this was built into me. This was set up for me in advance. So, like when a sales team hits their numbers or they exceed their number, say, say they, everyone. So you have five people on team and everyone had to get 10 sales in a month. If everyone gets those 10 sales in one month, then the next month it's going to be 12 sales because they're constantly moving the bar forward, which I get. I get like, we're out for profit. We're out to make more money and serve more clients and build our influence and our impact and all the things. Wonderful. But how effed up is that that we do that to ourselves in like five minutes. Five minutes from looking at your bank statement, seeing that you just hit your first five figure month. Oh, my God. I've talked to my clients. This. Okay, this happens. You see that and all of a sudden that becomes SOP, the standard operating procedure. You have to hit $10,000 a month. And of course, of course the goal is to make $10,000 a month and more. Of course. But when you're first starting out, your first 10k or yeah, 10k months is probably gonna go before any other months that are that. Sorry, I'm distracted. She's now starting to play and a little worried she might pee somewhere. Anyway, and. Hi, Ron Joseph. Good evening. Welcome. I'm splitting attention between doing the live and making sure the puppy's taken care of. She's really tuckered out. She's been playing all day. But anyway, so it's super normal when you start your business that you're gonna have your very first big month and then a few more lower months after that is totally normal. The thing that we hold ourselves up to is we look at companies that have been in business for a really long time and so they have quotas and goals that their salespeople have to hit. And it's because they've been in business for a really long time. They can look at the historical data and they can predict what's likely to happen based on that time of year, what holidays are coming up, how they're positioning their products, and how many salespeople they have. Okay, so if you're coming from a background like that and the work and the influx of leads and potential clients is predictable, then yeah, absolutely, hold yourself to that standard. But if you and. Hi, Guy Graves. How are you? Sorry, I'm very tired tonight. But anyway, but if you are just starting a business and you're learning how your business is going to run, you're learning how to get clients, you're learning how to go out and speak and do this thing and do that thing, it's not going to be a system yet, okay? So you can't hold yourself to that standard that once you do a 10k month, it's going to be a 10k month from every month and then they're out. It's just unrealistic. And if you hold yourself to the standard, here's where it gets dangerous for a business is if you do this and you, you know, have your 10k freak out and don't let yourself just freak out and acknowledge that you're thinking crazy and you actually hold yourself to that standard, you're going to see yourself as a failure every single month until you hit your next 10k. And when you see yourself as a failure in those ways, when you hold yourself as a failure and your energy is really low, it is that much harder to get to your next 10k month. I know, I know. I was in sales for a really long time. When you're in a slump, every little failure just feeds into the slump. It digs you deeper into that hole. And no one wants to sign up with someone who seems desperate. And needy. Like, they have to have the money that's in your pocket or like, they're just upset. They're just sad. It's one of the. Actually one of the reasons I think salespeople shouldn't be paid, you know, solely on commission. I think they should be paid a decent salary so that when they do have tough months, it doesn't also feed into, oh, my God, I'm not gonna be able to feed myself and pay rent story for another day. But anyway, the. The worst thing you can do for your business is to hit that first successful month, that first big month that actually pays the bills and start pun punishing yourself that you can't replicate it immediately after. The best thing that you can do is to look at exactly what set you up for success that month. Did you run a workshop? Did you speak at an event? Were you writing a blog? Were you doing this? Were you doing that? I want you to look at all that stuff, all that data, and recreate it. Just keep doing the things that work, okay? We get really excited. And especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're creative and you're resourceful, you know, you see how quickly you can throw spaghetti at the wall and see how it works. And not the tendency, however, becomes, just keep throwing spaghetti at the wall. No, you have to stop and you have to look and see which. What's sticking, what is working. The more you do this, the more you track the data of it, the more you look and see. Okay, cool. I got four clients that month. I need to look and see where they came from. Oh, awesome. They came from this event that I spoke at. Awesome. Great. Okay, cool. I need to speak at more events like that instead of, oh, I need to make a lead magnet, and then I have to run this workshop, and then I have to do this, and I have to do that. No, do the stuff that works. The stuff that worked once will likely work again until you get too big for it. We outgrow things fairly quickly when we're entrepreneurs and we're achieving success. So just know that. Just know that they're growing pains, but also don't get yourself into a slump. Don't hold yourself to that standard. Oh, hi. I'm glad you're doing well. But anyway, let me see a guy graze. I've got all the spaghetti on the floor at the moment. Well, you know, that's valuable too. Spaghetti on the floor, trying things and seeing how they don't work. I mean, how did Edison make the light bulb? He found A thousand ways not to make a light bulb first. Sometimes it's just process of elimination, and it can be exhausting, and it can make you feel like you're not getting anything right. But you know what? You're going to get it right at some point. And, you know, just to do a little plug for the service that I provide and many other business coaches provide, if you don't know, if you can't figure it out, there are people out there who have hacked it, who know how to do it and can teach you. You just have to find the right one who explains things in the right way and who guides you in a way that is authentic to you. Because here's the other thing, is that if you're trying to follow someone else's plan and it doesn't fit you, you're not going to be successful with it. This is one of the reasons why I don't have just a formulaic plan that I hand every single client. I customize it with each client because I want it to fit their personality. I want it to be their plan authentically, so that when they go out, they feel pride in it and they're confident in it. It works for them. Will there be moments where they're like, oh, shit, that's. That's kind of, you know, scary. That's outside my comfort zone. I'm not 100% comfortable with that. Yes. But it's never anything that's out of integrity or apart from their values. A good coach, and this is just in general, if you're hiring a coach, a good coach will push you to step outside of your comfort zone, like my coach does. She's. She's sleeping right now, and she's panting, but she's like, her cheeks are going in and out. It's so cute. I looked it up. It's not dangerous. I'm like, everything she does, I'm. I'm on, like, pet web. Just a short little live this evening because I'm exhausted. I need to go get some sleep. Hopefully she sleeps through the night tonight and doesn't fall off the bed again and need me to pick her up and get her back on the bed. And for those of you who are like, oh, why aren't you crate training her? Like, yes, I will do that when I've had a little more sleep and when I can handle, you know, you know, dealing with it at night. But anyway, thank you for joining, those of you who did. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Thank you Ron. Thank you, guys, guy for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. All right, have a good night.