The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster

Hello, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. So happy to be talking to you this Monday. Oh, my gosh, it's the beginning of the week, and if you have been tracking me at all, you know that I got a puppy last week. I got cocky over the weekend. I was sure I had her house broken. House train, not house broken. That sounds mean. Anyway, sure, she has proven me wrong on every occasion this day. So I'm so happy to be here live with you. This is, like, the highlight of my day right now. I got a thumbs up for that. Thank you. Hi, whoever's watching. And for those of you who are watching, I'm talking about, I want to normalize some shit that happens for entrepreneurs if you're an entrepreneur or if you're not an entrepreneur. But if you hear something and you're like, oh, that resonates with me and you have a question or you want to add to this, please do. I try to have this. Be as interactive as possible. I do want to just name. I'm on streamyard. Sometimes the technology doesn't work perfectly, though. So if you're on one of the Facebooks or YouTube or on LinkedIn and I'm not calling you out with your comments, it is not you. I am not angry at you. It is just the technology. Sometimes I don't see all the comments until after the fact. Anyway, let's dive in. Okay. Because if you read my post attached to this video, the entrepreneurial journey is like the craziest roller coaster you've ever been on in your life. And there are. There's a particular type of personality who goes for that. And. Hi, Erin. Welcome. Good to see you. There's a certain type of personality who gravitates towards entrepreneurship. And I don't know if there's, like, insanity there or, you know, desire for risk. Whatever it is, it creates some magic, but it also creates a lot of other things. And I want you to know that if you're in this boat, all these things are totally normal. First and foremost, I want to talk about the unpredictability. Okay. Especially when you are first starting out. And. Hi, Ron, Joseph, welcome. And Hi, Steve. Oh, yeah, I'm getting a. Yeah. Mm. Absolutely. The unpredictability when you just start out as an entrepreneur, it can be jarring because most of us entrepreneurs have come from working for another company. Right. And if. I mean, you guys know this about me. I come from a sales background, and so I worked for a bunch of other companies where they were able to predict with a fairly regular cadence how many sales I would be able to make any given month, any given quarter. And so I had that, that consistency and that regularity kind of built into my role and my job because the business had been in business for so long to create that regularity. Becoming an entrepreneur, that is not the case at all. Especially when you're first starting out. It is impossible when you're first starting out to predict what each month is going to look like. And that can be terrifying. Especially if you have rent to pay, mortgage to pay, dog food to buy, regular human food to buy. It can be a lot. Okay, so here's, here's what happens when you expect your business to be predictable right away. Oh, Steve, thanks. So here's what happens when you expect your business to be predictable right away. You get discouraged super fast. You feel like you're failing. One month you'll have, I don't know, 15, $20,000 worth of sales, that the next month you'll have two. You'll feel like you're winning and then all of a sudden feel like you're falling flat on your face. If you don't acknowledge that this is normal, then you are going to burn yourself out. You're going to get into some unhealthy coping habits like binging on Netflix, binging on food, binging on Instagram, Reels on TikTok. Whatever you're gonna of your business, you're not going to stay consistent with the things that really, really help you move the needle. And when you are expecting your business to be predictable right from go, you actually get really hooked on the things that work in the beginning. I can tell you when you start out those beginning strategies to get your first few clients, your first few customers, they're going to work in the beginning, but you're going to very quickly outgrow them. If you rely on those strategies to continuously get clients and customers, guess what? You're going to hit your glass ceiling real quick. This is one of the things that I work on with my clients is, yeah, there's the strategy to get your first couple clients, but then there's the strategy to get the rest of your clients to create a system that actually generates incoming leads. People who want to inquire about your service because they really want to work with you from go. I can tell you from my experience building my business and my experience working with my clients, I have never in my life sent a cold message asking someone to work with me. Never in my life. Which is why I get kind of snarky and laugh when people direct message me with a cold message asking me if they can help me generate new leads for my business. Like no, honey, you need my help anyway. But here's the thing. Predictability happens over time, okay? Predictability happens over time and it comes from you doing consistent work on the strategy that works to generate leads. Okay? So for me, this is posting to LinkedIn, it is going live to find folks every weeknight, it is speaking at engagements, it's running workshops occasionally. Those are the things that I know generate amazing clients for myself. Okay? For you it's going to be different. It's going to be your secret sauce. This is one of the things that I help my clients with all the time because what works for me isn't necessarily going to work for everyone else. So you have to find what works for you and don't get sucked into the rabbit hole of everyone's nine point plan, how to get clients and how it's going to work. It worked for me, so it's going to work for and follow it exactly, step by step. No, no good for them that it worked for them. But you need to find your way and you need to make it consistent. You need to put the work in every single day and then that predictability will happen. Okay? But from the beginning you can't think that it's going to be predictable. Ron Joseph, I can tell you were very good at sales. Just a hunch. Oh, thank you. I was, I was really good at sales. I actually won awards. I broke records at some of the companies that I worked at. So thank you, Ron Joseph. It is very nice to be recognized that way. Okay, so that's number one. It's unpredictable. Just lean into the unpredictability. Try everything. Throw spaghetti at the walls, but track which spaghetti works. Track which things work. If you don't track it, then you're going to get clients and customers and have no idea where they came from. Not cool. Okay? The next thing is you're constantly. I want to normalize this. If you're an entrepreneur, this is so normal. You're constantly going to think you're doing it wrong. Okay? This is the normal state for most entrepreneurs. Okay? We do something even if it's consistently gotten us clients and customers in the past. We can nitpick ourselves to death thinking that we did something that is somehow going to make us crash and burn. Okay? We watch other people and I'm going to be talking about comparison later, but we watch other people doing similar things. And we, we think, oh my God, they're doing it so much better than we are. No, they're doing it their own way, okay? You're not doing it wrong. You're doing it your way. You're finding your way. I love, I love that it's overdone, it's over talked about, but the whole story about Edison and the light bulb, okay, Edison, what was it? He, he had to make a thousand prototypes before he found a working light bulb. Okay. Oh my God. Could you imagine if he quit? There's a lot of failure built into being an entrepreneur. And here's, here's what I want you to remember. I want you to remember why you're doing this, what your mission is, what impact you want to have on the world, okay? Just making a ton of money is not enough for most of us. This is why I work with mission driven entrepreneurs, okay? Mission driven meaning they have a higher purpose that they want to feed into. They want to have impact on the world, they want to have legacy, okay? They want to save some corner of the world. If you don't have that, it's really hard to keep going. The first few failures, you're just going to think, oh my God, I'm doing it wrong. Is this really worth it? And then you're going to quit. You have to make it about something higher than yourself, something bigger, you know, make. And it doesn't matter if what you do is boring and not really relevant to anything else. I mean you, you could be an entrepreneur who like rolls out really weird, wind up toys, okay? But a portion of your business, a portion of the profits that you make, you could donate to an all girls school in Uganda. Okay? If that's what matters to you. You know, you are going to have the passion, you're going to have the energy, even though you think you're doing it wrong all the time to go out and sell these ridiculous wind up toys because you know the impact that money's going to have for those girls in Uganda and. Hi. Marie Santos, welcome. Thanks for joining me this evening. Okay, so that's doing it wrong. If you think you're doing it wrong, welcome to the club. Okay. I've been in this 3ish years now. Yeah, I think so. Over three years now. It is just part of your daily life. It is that voice of doubt if you are in the coaching world, that saboteur voice of doubt that is constantly telling you everything you are doing wrong and all the reasons people are going to reject you. It's fine, it's just part of you. That voice is meant to protect you and to save you from getting kicked out of the tribe. But the beautiful thing about our modern day is that we have the Internet and our tribe is everywhere and they can find us so easily if we put ourselves out there. So don't stop putting yourself out there. Okay. Oh, this one is so hard. And I just kind of referred to it a little bit. So critical. Loved ones both inside and out. Okay. Oh, my gosh. If you're an entrepreneur, you're doing something that is scary AF you're doing something that requires bravery, then not everyone is willing to do. And you know that. That saboteur, that voice of doubt that I was just talking about. Well, the people that love you, the loved ones on the outside, we're going to start with that. Your friends, your family members, your parents, your siblings, the people who are closest to you. Oh, my gosh. They're going to see you doing something scary and their saboteurs are going to start piping up for you because they love you so much. They don't want you getting kicked out of the tribe. They don't want you failing. They don't want you defaulting on a loan. They don't want you doing any of that stuff. They want you to stay in the safe little box that you've been in your entire life and they don't want you challenging the status quo. And they're going to tell you about it because they love you so much. This is a really hard one to deal with. It requires creating boundaries. One of the things that I work with my clients on is how to create really healthy boundaries between you and your spouse, between your loved ones, your friends. A big one is when you're starting your own company, starting your own business, and you're investing money in it and the money, the income isn't quite coming inconsistently yet. A spouse can be so well meaning and ask you at random moments throughout the week, throughout the month, throughout the year, hey, how's business going? What, like, what's money like? You know, because it's. They're sharing a household with you. They need. They kind of do need to know the financial situation. But if they catch you in the wrong moment, guess what happens. You have a big presentation coming up later that afternoon. They've asked you about finances. You just, you know, didn't get that one client. You're really riding on this. And then all of a sudden that I need this client, I'm gross and like, I need them that needy Energy, you know that, that scares people away. That gets activated right away. The beautiful thing here to do is to design a time to check in with them on the finances. If you don't do this, they are not going to know what their impact is. They're not going to know that they are completely blowing you sideways from where you need in that moment. The other thing is that your loved ones don't actually have to know what you're up to, okay? What you're up to is all your business and none of theirs, okay? Unless they're investing in you. The one. Okay, so that's the loved ones on the outside. I want to talk also about the loved ones on the inside. Okay? We're getting a little woo woo. We all have those voices of doubt. I just referred to them when I was talking about doing it wrong. Our voices of doubt chime in to protect us, okay? They protect us though, in a real shitty way. They protect us by putting us down. By putting us down, telling us that we're stupid, that we don't know what we're doing, that people are gonna reject us, that people are gonna think that, you know, like, who the hell are you to be offering this thing? It is real. Hi, Guy Graves. Nice to see you. By the way, I always think it's funny that you have the coffins after your name. Guy Graves. Get it? I love it. I love a good pun. Anyway, anyway, so when you're, when you're dealing with your inner saboteurs, here's an activity. I want everyone to write down this activity, okay? So if you have that voice of doubt that tells you all the things that you're doing wrong, that puts you down and really tries to like keep you in your box and keep you from going out and doing the exciting thing that you want to do that you're brave enough to do, here's a really simple activity. I want you to literally write down every single thing it's saying to you. From your hair is too long to your hair is too short to you're too young, you're too old to you kind of smell to you don't know how to do that to you don't have the money for that to blah, blah, blah, blah, all the things you're just going to word vomit this onto a piece of paper, okay? And you're just got a thumbs up from that. Thank you. Anyway, you know, it's so funny, I can't see all of the activity from you guys, but like sometimes when there is a thumbs up or A heart, like it just kind of bounces out at me. This interface is so funny. But anyway, so you're gonna write down this list and you're gonna go through and there are going to be things on this list that are just obviously bullshit. They are just completely crazy ideas why you can't go and do the thing. Okay, Your hair being too long. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Unless you're a short hair model, then, yeah, yeah, your hair is too long, but you're gonna go through and you are just gonna black out. Cross out all of those ones that are just out of this world nuts. Okay? There are going to be things on this list that are legit things that you need to do. There are going to be things on this list that are legit things that you need to get. Okay, maybe you need to get funding. Maybe you need to learn how to put together an eventbrite event. Great. This is now your to do list and your to buy list. Okay. Your shopping list. Just because it's on the list doesn't mean it's impossible. It just means you don't have it right now. Okay? But the beautiful thing about letting this voice of doubt get all this stuff out onto a piece of paper is you have your to do list of things that you need to cover in the coming weeks. It's really helpful. Also, you know, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna say this because I know it to be true from my experience building my business. It is super helpful to have a coach who has done this before you to take a gander at that list and tell you some stuff, because there's gonna be stuff on that list that you think you need to do that you do not need to spend your time on. It's really helpful to have someone who is several steps ahead of you who can look at that list and say, yes, this is what you need to spend your time on. Go do that. Okay. And here's how to do it best. This is one of the things I love doing with my clients. It is not simply like, oh, we're gonna coach you on your fulfillment and your life and blah, blah, blah, and send you on your way. And you're gon to figure it out like, no. Do you know how to do this thing? No. Okay, great. Here's exactly how I would do it. What comes up for you? In what way would you want to alter it to fit your personality, to make it feel more on par with who you are? It's super fun to make things your own and let yourself do it. There are a million ways to drive to San Francisco. A million times ad nauseam. Okay. I don't even know if that's something I can say anyway. There are a ton of ways you could drive to San Francisco. I have my way. You have your way. I'm sure if we were to work together and I were to give you some. My advice, because I've done it before, you would take some of my advice and make it your own. And that is totally allowed when you're building your business. Okay? There's no one right way to do anything. Okay. The overwhelm. The overwhelm. Oh, my God. I just. Anyone who's feeling overwhelmed in their business right now, I am just sending you a virtual hug right now. I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that you are not alone. Okay? You are not alone. The overwhelm is just ever present. It is. It is there for all of us. The only people who aren't overwhelmed and who don't have that voice of doubt are sociopaths and psychopaths. So congratulations. You're neither one of those. Good news. Also, the bad news is that the overwhelm never goes away. It never goes away. As your business grows, more things open up to you, and so you have more things that you could potentially be doing. Things that I work on with my clients to make sure that they can handle. Overwhelm is how to outsource, how to bring on help, how to hire a va, how to hire partners, how to. How to outsource all the things that you could possibly outsource so that you can focus on the work that matters, the work that makes you money. Also, overwhelm isn't always a bad thing. It gives a bad rap because of how it makes you feel. It gives you a lot of stress, right? But I noticed when I am my most overwhelmed, it's because I have so many creative ideas that are floating around just around my mind. I don't even think they're in my head at that point. It's just like, all around me. It's like Nargles from Harry Potter, but overwhelmed. There's just so many creative ideas that are trying to come through you at one time. You have a hard time picking which one you're going to dance with first. I mean, oh, my God. And especially for entrepreneurs, you are a creative thinker. Okay. Bhakti. Me. Me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Overwhelm. There's just so many creative ideas trying to come through you at one time, and it's hard. It's really hard to know which one you should dance with. But if you're an entrepreneur, you just gotta dance with one, okay? Do one. Because I know, because I do this too. And I work with a lot of entrepreneurs in my business, helping them deal and navigate this. It's very tempting to get overwhelmed and then go and do busy work. You ignore all those creative ideas and you just go and, like, shuffle papers around. No, you have to cut that out. If you keep doing that, if you keep distracting yourself from the actual work that matters, that will bring in clients and customers and money into your business. Babes, you're not going to make any money. You're not going to make any money. And you know what happens when you don't make any money in your business. Your business can't stay open unless you're independently wealthy. And if you are, good for you. I'm very happy for you. I wish I were amongst you. Most of us have to make a living, okay? And I'm a firm believer that everyone deserves to do work that they love and make a living from it. A good living. A living that allows for you to plan for retirement and vacations and nice gifts for yourself and your loved ones. You have to dance with these creative ideas. You have to take on that overwhelm. If you don't do it, you're not going to stay in business. You're going to have to go and work for a company again. You're going to have to get a job. And you quit that to do this exciting thing. And you're brave. A weenie would not have done that in the beginning. Okay? A brave person takes the plunge to start this business, okay? So you're already halfway there. But you have to settle down and do the work, okay? No more busy work. No more shuffling papers. No more worrying about inbox zero. What a stupid concept. Okay, whatever. You are the CEO of your life, okay? CEOs don't tend to everything they let fall through the cracks all the time, okay? That's why they have so many people around them. Okay? Just. You have to be. You have to act like you are the CEO of your life. Because guess what? You are. And I'm sorry, Bhakti, let me see. I came across your profile and got so many ideas in the starting out phase. Now I'm overwhelmed with what to do first. Building a website or build content or form connections. Huff, thanks for your advice. Oh, Bhakti, I'm so glad you said this. Okay? The number one thing that new entrepreneurs do is they build out like a special website that talks about the thing, blah, blah, don't waste your time yet. Go and get some clients, go and get some customers. If you don't know how and you don't know how to build a content strategy to bring them in, DM me back to you, I'll give you a free 30 minute consultation and we'll point you in the right direction, okay? But please don't invest a lot of money or time or energy in building a website when you first start out. Okay. It is often the first thing you scrap when you realize how you're going to speak to your ideal client and what your strategy is going to be to bring them in. Okay? Just please, please, please, please, if you take one thing away from that, this call or this, this live, I want you to take that. Okay? So that is overwhelm Guy Gray's great advice tonight, especially about stopping the busy, unimportant stuff. Yeah. And this, this isn't just for entrepreneurs. I hope you non entrepreneurs don't feel super left out if this applies to you as well. Like, welcome to the club, you have an entrepreneurial spirit. And this is, this is how we live every day. Even if you have a job, I'm not going to hold that against you. And finally, oh my gosh, this one, it is so alluring to compare yourself to everyone else in your space who's doing a similar thing. And it also, when you're just starting out, I know this, let me just say this, and you're going to think, oh my God, yes. So that's what it is. So if you're on Facebook, if you're on Google, which we all are, I mean, come on, if you're on LinkedIn, YouTube, as soon as you start this business, you're going to start seeing all these ads for your competitors and competitors who are a few steps ahead of you, okay? Because they have Facebook ads, because they have Google Ads, because they have LinkedIn ads. Okay? Now your automatic responses to think, oh crap, the whole industry is, is huge already. You know, it's, you know, there's already a ton of people doing what I'm doing. They're doing it better than I am, blah, blah, blah, blah. I should just quit now. Now let me tell you a little something about how these ad works. Ads work. You are going on and using all the keywords all the time because you're writing your, your website, you're writing content for social media. Say you're a coach, you're going to start writing Stuff that says life purpose, you're going to start writing stuff that says coaching, coaching, business, life coaching, executive coaching, all this stuff. Now, if someone is targeting coaches or is in a similar space, guess what? They're using those words. So if you are searching for those words and writing with those words, then guess what? Their ads are just going to be honed in on you, okay? It is not that the market is saturated with all these people, okay? You are just raising your hand in your digital footprint and saying, I'm in this world. You should market to me. Even if it's unintentional. Okay? So take a deep breath. Okay? Yes. And the beautiful thing, I want you to remember this. There's not just one dentist out there. There's not just one dentist. One dentist would not be able to see everyone and clean everyone's teeth and deal with cavities. No, that person would have to be a super person. Okay? Even two dentists. Two dentists would not be able to serve all of the people in the United States, much less the world, okay? There needs to be thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dentists. And guess what? People are going to dental school all the time and they're getting their, you know, their dental license. I don't know. I don't actually that's a bad example because I don't really know what's required to become, like a practicing dentist. But anyway, they're getting their doctorate, they're becoming dentists, and they're starting their own practices or they're joining others, okay? There is plenty of business out there for everyone, okay? And the fact this person is a couple steps ahead of you is actually good, because where you're starting in your business, you're probably not going to be charging as much as they are, okay? So you're going to be more approachable, more affordable to your ideal client. In that stage of your business. You're obviously going to grow, okay? If you hold yourself back from playing the compare game and getting yourself all freaked out, you're going to do just perfect with those clients that are within arm's reach who can't afford your competition but can afford you and are actually your perfect clients. David Fryman. Oh, my God. When I see the inbox zero people, I think, you know, those bitcoin sales guys aren't so bad. Well, don't say that, David, because then the bitcoin guys are going to call you. Hi, Jamal. Welcome this evening. And here's. Here's another thing that has to go with playing the compare game with Other people is you may have a strategy. That strategy may be getting traction. You may be getting your first few clients or at least inquiries. There's indication, there's an indication happening that what you're doing is working. If you start playing the compare game and start questioning that strategy and what you're doing, it's going to take you completely off track. Okay? And what happens when you go off track is hopefully you find your way back. But how long is going to take you off track for? A month, two months, three months? Like, I hope you have money in savings. If you're not sticking to that strategy that works and you're getting distracted by trying to do what other people are doing that they seem to be very successful at. Good for them. No, you have to stick to the strategy in front of you that works, that you've proven to work, okay? If you don't do that, it's never going to happen. Okay? You are just going to have Shiny Object syndrome. And I know Shiny Object syndrome. Guys, I have add. It is how I live my life, okay? I need blinders on when I get to work. I need blinders so that I'm not trying to do what everyone else is doing. Because guess what? I'm one person. I can only do a certain amount of work in a day. I also want to enjoy my life. I don't want to spend my life working. I'm not one of those, like, hustle people. I'm not here for the hustle. I'm here to serve my clients, to have an impact on the world and to enjoy my life and my new puppy, whatever that is for you. Design your life, have your strategy, and just keep working at it. Now, for those of you who have listened to this and you're like, oh my God, I'm totally in this place and I have no idea what I need to do next. Also, I don't even know where to go to figure out what to do next. I'm offering. I have five one on one calls available next week. Actually, no, this week. This week it is Monday. I keep thinking it's Friday. How sad is that? This week, if you want to book a call with me, 30 minutes, we'll talk about where you want to go, what you've been trying so far, where you're getting stuck, and what you should be doing next. Okay, if you want to book one of these, I need you to DM me wherever you see this. If you're on the Facebooks, DM me. If you're on LinkedIn, DM me YouTube. I'm not actually sure how YouTube works in that I just like have it go live to YouTube. But if you're on YouTube, find me on Facebook or LinkedIn and DM me. Okay, what we'll do is we'll set up a 30 minute time to chat and we'll lay out a light strategy for you to go forward. And also, if you're interested in looking at what it looks like to work with me, then we can talk about that as well. But for those of you who are doing your business, who are being brave ass entrepreneurs, oh my God. I'm over here. I'm cheering you on. I'm so excited for what you're creating. Don't give up. Don't give up because this is part of your soul. This, this need to birth a business is just a part of who you are. And if you don't do it, if you don't stick with it, it's going to be your biggest regret. I can tell you. I've seen it. I've seen it so often talking to people who kind of tried it before and then went back to their job. It's one of the biggest regrets of someone's life is not taking that pen. Not taking that pen. We're playing with metaphors now, taking that pen and becoming the narrator of your own life. Because if you're not going to be the narrator of your life, who is? I don't want to trust anyone else with that anyway. Wow. I've been going for over a half hour now. I hope this is useful. Thank you so much for tuning in this evening. I'm going to be signing out now. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Have a great night. And I will be going live the rest of this week, so tune in then. All right, talk to you soon. Bye.