When your Biz isn't going to plan...

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Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Welcome to my live. I haven't gone live in a little while. Things didn't go to plan. Hence the topic I'm talking about today when your business isn't going to plan. Can I just say this one thing about setting plans for our businesses? We do it wrong. We do it wrong. I train on this shit, and I still do it wrong. Okay. When we set up a plan, we typically don't plan on the things that we can actually plan on the things that are in our control. What we do emotionally and energetically is we plan on how success is going to happen. We actually set expectations for how this is going to go well. And that is not what creating a plan is. That is how you set yourself up for massive disappointment. That is how you set yourself up to feel like a complete failure. And I don't know about you, but I don't do my best work when I am disappointed or when I feel like a failure. And so I really wanted to have this talk with you all about how we can plan better in our businesses. And I wanted to do it on a Monday morning. Ish. We're almost at afternoon on the East Coast. I know I'm having a late start. Things didn't go to plan this morning, and that's okay. I want to really embody this, that things don't have to go to plan to go well. Now I'm setting this expectation up for myself and my brain that this vibe has to go well. It's. It's so insidious that we do this. I think it's because. And I'm just thinking this right now, so I'm. I think this is because of how our childhoods are set up. This is how school is set up, is that we have to get the A. We have to pass the class. We have to get the good grade. You know, there's. If you're taking an English class in sophomore year of college and hi, Gabriel, welcome. If you're taking an English class in sophomore year of high school and you fail a few papers, that's not okay. You're not left with, oh, wow, that was a learning experience. I'm going to do better next time. I'm going to try something different. I mean, no, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. To get the right paper results and we take that expectation of how that goes into our businesses and into our relationships and into every other area of our life as an adult and it us up immensely. Okay. I don't want that for us anymore. I'm over that. Hi Jensen. Hello from Cambridge. It's 38 degrees Celsius here. Can you believe it? I don't know what that means. I'm in Fahrenheit and I could try to do the math in my brain right now, but if you could do the math for me, Jensen, I'd really appreciate it. But I, I feel you. I'm in like one of the few air conditioned room rooms in my parents cave house. Anyway, so I want to describe how this goes typically and I want to actually show you how this went for me. So I'm going to show you something really embarrassing. So when in 2020, when I realized that my leadership side of my business was crashing and burning because companies weren't putting money towards their employees professional development anymore and I realized I really needed to go whole hog into the other half of my business, which is helping people build their businesses, I planned out exactly how my income would add up. And I'm not lying. This is something I've had on this on the wall of the room here where I spent most of the pandemic since about, I think April, May 2020. And you can see I've planned all of my rate increases. I planned exactly how many clients I was going to carry at any given time. I planned how much money I was going to make from group programs I was going to roll out. By the way, these group programs as I have here, never happened. Never happened. Okay? It just didn't happen. I actually, I did try to roll them out and no one signed up for it. That's just how it goes. Okay? 50% of the group programs people put up, people don't sign up for when they're starting out. Hi Hans, welcome from Washington D.C. oh God, it's really hot and swampy down there. I bet. Anyway, so this is not a plan, by the way. This felt like a plan to me because I was like, I really wanted this to happen. But what this was was me setting expectations for how success would happen for me. And success did not happen for me in any way, shape or form that looked like that. Okay? That is not how planning works. Well, let's talk about starting a business and when you do set that plan up and you start feeling like a failure. So it's so exciting to start A business, it's so exciting. You just have all this energy and enthusiasm and you're so excited to talk about it. It's almost like you're in a new relationship and you want everyone to know about it. And you start setting up these plans and you start, plans dress, you know, expectations dress up as plans. And you start working like frantically to make it happen. And you're working on your website and you're working on getting business cards and you're maybe like paying for an advertisement in a magazine. I don't know, you're doing all these things and you feel like you're, you're making traction and you get a few lower paying clients out of it, okay? And they feel like wins. But you're also kind of doing the math in the back of your head and you're like, e, this is not going to make a full time salary. I really need to figure out what to do. Also, those lower paying clients that you did get, it's not a recreatable process. Maybe you've got some referrals from some friends. Like, referrals are amazing. And also it's hard to create a system out of referrals that you can turn on whenever you want. And so you're doing all this work and you're not getting consistent results from it. So this plan here, it's not happening. And so you start panicking. You start panicking and you start realizing, oh, shit, this is harder than I thought it would be. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. You know, your attitude just goes into the gutter. You start anytime you're on a phone call with someone who might be a client, you can feel that desperation kind of creep in and you're like, I really don't want that. But I can't help it because I really need the money and I really need to show myself that I can be successful here, that I can actually do the plan. And what ultimately ends up happening is you lose all trust in yourself. You lose all trust in yourself that you can do this successfully. You lose all trust in your business that this is the right thing that you should have invested your time, money and energy into. And you start losing trust in the universe. It's like, oh God, the universe probably doesn't want me to do this. And so you start turning to friends and family and you start like telling them either you're vulnerable and you tell them that it's not going well, you start asking for advice, or you lie to them and you tell them it's Going great. But they still try to shove advice and opinions in your face. And their advice is so, so well meaning. It's so well meaning. But it's terrible advice because they've never built a business like yours before. And so they really don't know what they're talking about, okay? They. They start sharing their opinions, their advice, and what happens is you start doubting yourself even worse, because here are all these people who love you, who want the best thing for you, and they're telling you you're doing it wrong. And they're telling you if you want to be successful, you have to do this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing and all of a sudd. This massive mountain pile of things that you're not doing because you don't know how to do them, that people have told you you should be doing. And the bigger that pile grows, the more overwhelmed you become and the more paralyzed you become. And if you know what I'm talking about, you don't have to comment. I understand. I see you. This happens to a lot of people. I don't want you feeling alone in this moment, okay? Now, what happens when you get that overwhelmed and that paralyzed is a moment that is really normal in a lot of businesses that we don't talk about as enough. And I like to call this moment the pause. Okay? The pause. And it is a natural moment in most businesses where the owner, the person who's launching the business realizes that there needs to be. To be a reassessment of what is going on here. Okay? The pandemic had caused this for me. Okay? The pandemic. And there are a couple different pauses I had before this when I was building my dating coaching for men business, and I didn't get any male clients except for one. Okay? And then when I signed up, like, eight female clients for dating and only one of them wanted to talk about dating, there was a pause that had to happen where I had to stop and reassess. Like, am I on the right path or do I need to pivot? Do I need to listen to what the universe is telling me and do I need to actually adjust what I'm doing? This pause, it can feel really gross. I mean, there's no pause in your business that feels good. Let's just. Let's just own that, okay? There's no, like, comfortable way to pause in your business when things aren't going to plan, okay? It feels shitty, okay? So. And one of the things that comes up is this impatience. This Absolute impatience to get this up and running. Okay? Because you've been working at it for how many months or years up to this point, and it hasn't really gotten anywhere. Right? And what's really happening is because of all this overwhelm in this paralysis that you're experiencing based on this pile of. I should be doing this, you're actually delaying everything. It's no one else's fault. It's. You are the number one problem here. And I know this because I'm the number one problem in my business, too. It's not. It's not like a unique you thing. This is a unique to humans thing, okay? Which means it's not unique at all. Okay? We are the number one delay tactic in all of the success and all of the things that we want to do. And so what is really needed in this moment is a reassessment. You need to find a way to not only make movement in your business, but to enjoy the journey as you do it, as you build it. Okay? Because building a business is not something and. Hi, Asher, Welcome. Building a business is not something that's just about the destination. Okay? Buying lotto tickets. You know, you can buy lotto tickets and have it be just about the destination. I don't. I buy lotto tickets because I want to, like, buy that permission to dream just a little bit for like, two minutes of my day. Okay? I love. I love making things about the journey. But here's the thing. If you're building a business and you're making it only about the destination, you're making it only about selling whatever you are signing up to, living years of your life unaligned to who you are. Jason, you need to hear this today. Of course. Always happy to share this. You're signing up to misery if you're not finding a way to make your business work for you in the here and now. Okay? So I'm going to give you two things that you really need to focus on this week to make sure you can get back on track with this, okay? And I have notes. I don't normally have notes, but I haven't gone live in a while. And so I didn't want things to go terribly wrong as they sometimes do when I go live talking about things not going to plan, but anyway, to my notes. So the number one thing is you need to find alignment. And I know that sounds like a really fluffy coaching term, so I'm going to actually go into what this looks like. You need to find alignment to you and what I mean by that is you have to get through real about how you do work, how you do it, that makes it go well, how you do it, that makes you happy. What you like to focus on, what will feel like you're making progress every single day and will actually make progress. I'm not talking about shuffling papers around. I'm not talking about building a website that no one's going to give a about because it's your. Your dressed up resume and it doesn't actually have anything to do with your clients. That's a whole other rant that I will do another time is how people screw up on their websites. You have to get real about who the fuck you are. Okay? Flaws and everything. Okay? All those shoulds that your friends and family are telling you you should be doing in your business to be successful, that's something that they could do. To be successful people, that's something that they would enjoy doing. You have to figure out what you enjoy doing, okay? Your business is not going to function otherwise. If you build your business with like 30 tasks each week that you hate doing, are you going to do them consistently? No, that's not how that works. You have to build your business out of things that you enjoy doing. Carrie Dobson. Great point. With your own business, you absolutely need to enjoy the journey. Yeah, we can't do it anyway other way. I'm, you know, I'm agnostic. I don't know if I believe in an afterlife or anything, but I want to play it on the safe side. I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that we only have this one life, okay? And if we only have this one life, I want to enjoy it. I don't want to sacrifice years of my life doing stuff that I'm miserable doing just for some destination that I may or may not get to. Okay? There's a reason why my number one nightmare that I've had two nights in a row, by the way, that I end up in one of my previous jobs back at a desk doing sales. Like, I just can't do it. I can't do that anymore. You have to get real about what works for you. All right? So that's number one with alignment. Number two, alignment is you have to get realistic about what works in your life. Okay? I say this because you see this plan, this plan right here. So if at one point I'm setting myself up to enroll, I think the math was these were five. So I'm setting myself up to have to do like 75 to 100 sales calls per month sales calls per month, 75 to 100. Okay. Just for my group programs that wouldn't actually deliver that much money. I'm also setting myself up. Well, this one was more realistic for my one on one coaching to do anywhere from like 9 to 12 sales calls a month. Okay? You have to figure out something that's realistic for your life. Now. My life, I have a dog, I have friends. I, you know, have to figure out how to like do laundry a couple times a month. You may have children. You may have a spouse that needs help with something. You may have parents who are elderly and rely on you. You may be involved in your town. You have to be very realistic about what your life looks like and how much time you actually have to devote to this business. Okay? Because I can tell you even right now, I work like 25 hours a week intentionally because I want to make sure that when I'm working, I'm actually working. It's not like I'm just kind of like talking to people and you know, it's like, it's like the water cooler talk that we count as work when we have a job. You have to make sure that what you've planned for your business actually works for your life. Because if it doesn't work for your life, it's never going to happen and you're never going to get the results that you want. So you have to get really realistic about what your life looks like and how much time you can spend on this. Now finally, this is something that I know is going to kick some of you in the. You know what's. And it's going to be uncomfortable. Let me just take a deep breath. I know that it's going to be okay because we're going to figure this out and it's going to be fine. Okay? You have to get real about what your clients are willing to buy from you. Okay? There is this disease that is pandemic is endemic with. And I'm. Oh my God, I hate using that word after what we just all went through in the last year. So forgive me. It's very common with new business owners. And it's called can do Itis. Can do Itis. And let me tell you, it is fatal to beginning businesses. It will cause your business to crash and burn and die before you even get it off the ground. And what can do itis is, is that you say, okay, well this is my lane. This is what the thing that I do. Maybe you're an HR consultant. And then someone's like, oh, well, you're an HR consultant and you focus on benefits packages, but could you also do some contracts for us? And could you also do some, like, some paycheck stuff? And could you also do this and could you also also do that? Because you have a background in hr, you're like, well, it's not really what I do and not really what I want to do, but I can do that. Sure. Let me just add it to my list. Let me add that to my list. And let me add that to my list. And before you know it, you're doing a shit ton of work that you hate doing, that you never wanted to do in your business. So you're dragging your feet on actually doing it. You've also, because you're now offering all these things, all these clients. You're like, well, great, I should add this to my marketing. I should be telling people that this is what. What I do crap. So then your marketing gets really, really washed up and messy and people don't know what you're talking about. Right. And then because you become a generalist, because you've kind of washed out, like all the things that made you special in that one thing that you are focusing on, your clients stop signing up because you're a generalist. You're not a specialist. You're not the brain surgeon that they want to sign up for to do brain surgery on them. You're an internist. You're a general family doctor. Do you want a general family doctor doing brain surgery on you? Probably not. You want someone who is the best of the best of the best, who knows how to drill properly into a skull without ruining your brain as you only have one. That's an extreme example. But I want to really talk about how important it is to pick a niche and pick a niche that is going to work for your clients. Because if it doesn't work for your clients, you're not going to have a business. I'll use myself as an example here. I talk about this a lot. When I started my business, I started as a dating coach for men. I was convinced that that is how I would have success. I was dead sure that I would be. Oh, and hi, Steven. Nice to see you. I was dead sure that there would be just like men falling over themselves to get better at dating through me. Okay. I was going to be the transformation. I was going to make dating better for all the women in San Francisco Bay Area. Okay. I was going to be honored as a saint. I'm exaggerating here, but you know what? I Mean, Asher? Yes. Is so valuable specialized. Too many people have thousands of skills listed, and it's killing them 100%. Yep. So what happened when I named myself as a dating coach? I, like, went whole hog. I went networking. I. Any party I was at, I announced, I'm a dating coach for men. When people ask me what I did and what happened was really, really funny, is like, the men would kind of, like, lean back and be like, okay. The women in the circle would lean in with their hands on their hips, and they'd be like, well, what about me? I want a dating coach. Work with me. And I'd be like, okay. Like, really wasn't the point. But sure, I'll take you on. You know, that was a little bit of can do itis, you know, showing its face. But we also remember, go back to number one, alignment with what clients will buy from you. So I shifted my business to be for women. Not officially, but that's just kind of how it went. You know, realistically, only one of my female clients stuck with the dating topic. Everyone else, we ended up talking about executive coaching. Okay. We started talking about how they're showing up at work and how he's actually screwed screwing up their life. And so I got trained as a leadership coach, built that up. My coaching friends started asking me, wait a minute, how did you start a business so fast? How are you landing these clients? How are you charging that much? I started showing them because I had kind of subconsciously taken this background in sales and marketing that I'd had for almost a decade, and I had applied it here, and they started being successful, and they started saying, you know, Katie, you really should start charging for this. And I listened. And so what you need to do in your business, you have to get real about what people are willing to buy from you. You may be really excited about the service that you offer, but if no one's as excited about you, that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is and invest, that's not an idea that you want to stick with, okay? It's just not going to work. So remember, we're getting aligned with who we are and how we work. We're getting aligned with our lives and being super fucking realistic about how they work. And we're being aligned with our clients and finding something that they will actually buy from us. Okay? We cannot build a business any other way. I mean, you can build a business other ways, but this is the best way if you want to enjoy the journey. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to stop fucking hiding. You're going to stop hiding if things are not going to plan in your business. You're going to stop hiding from me. You're going to out yourself to me. You're going to shoot me a dm. You're going to say, hey, I'm hiding. I need to stop hiding. Can we hop on a call and talk through this? Through? Okay? I'm either going to give you some resources that you can get through me or some resources that you can get from the world at large, okay? I'm going to point you in the right direction. You are going to stop hiding from yourself. This is a really important one. You're going to stop hiding from yourself and how you are getting in the way of yourself, of you being successful, okay? Because there's no one else that's stopping you from being successful but you. Okay? And lastly, you're going to stop hiding from your clients. You know, this is. This is business 101. Your clients cannot give you money for your services if they don't know that you exist. Okay? If I don't know that you exist, I can't know about your service. I can't know who it helps and what problems it solves. I can't know any of that stuff, which means I can't give you my money. You have to stop hiding yourself. You have to stop hiding what it is that you do for clothes clients. You have to stop hiding the transformation that your clients get from working with you. Stop hiding that. You know, I have a firm belief that as small businesses, we do not have a marketing problem, okay? We have a memorability problem. Okay? I don't know about you. You know, I'm pretty successful in my business. I'm not sitting around with a team of marketers wondering how I'm going to spend a billion dollars on a. On a Super bowl ad, okay? It's just not happening. I'm not. I don't have a marketing problem. I have a memorability problem. I need to show up consistently, day after day after day in my. In my audience's world so they can remember who I am and who I help and what I'm up to. Because they don't remember me. They can't hire me. It's one of the reasons I go live, like, now. Those of you who are watching, you're probably going to remember, at least for the rest of today, that there's a woman out there named Katie McManus. Almost got my own name wrong. And she exists and she's a business coach and she talks about this shit. Okay, I've just solved my memorability problem for today with you all. Thank you for joining. It's one of the things that I have my clients make a non negotiable in their business is visibility. Every day. It's one of the three. You have to be visible in your business every single day if you want your business to be successful. Because if people don't know about you, they cannot hire you. So you're going to stop hiding if, if you are in this frustrated, impatient pause, if things have not been going to plan, you're going to stop hiding from me. You're going to out yourself in the dms. And what we're going to do is we're going to set up a time to talk and we're just going to talk about where you're getting stuck and what is the thing that you're actually wanting to create. If I'm the right resource for you, then I will tell you. If I'm not, I have a huge network of humans that I can send you to to help you along your way. You're going to stop hiding from yourself. You're going to stop hiding. You're going to stop hiding the realistic version of yourself from yourself, okay? You're going to get real about how you work best so you can be truly and sincerely aligned. And you're gonna stop hiding from your audience. Okay? Because they can't pay you if they don't know who you are. Okay with that. I wish you an amazing week. And please thank you so much for joining Asher and Steven and Carrie and Jason and Asher again. And Hans and Jensen. And Jensen. I still haven't gotten the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit. I'm a little disappointed. Disappointed, dude. And Gabriel, thank you all for joining and I wish you all an amazing week and I will see you all soon. Bye.