You're sabotaging yourself if...

Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Happy Tuesday. It is late, so I'm going to keep this one short and I hope it's useful to you. And I am going live through Streamyard, to the Facebooks, to not Instagram, to LinkedIn and to YouTube. I'm very tired. I have been on call since 10am It's 10pm so here we are. But I committed to doing five lives this week, so here I am. Anyway, I wanted to talk about something that I see become a roadblock for so many new business owners. And let's be real, it's not just new business owners. It is anyone who's doing something new, scary, outside their comfort zone for the first time. And this is that you use this excuse to prevent yourself from moving forward. And this excuse is, I don't know how to do blank, I don't know how to do blank, or I don't know what's important here. It is super easy to let this get in your way. I was literally in a mastermind today with my coach and. And that whole world, and I was put into a breakout room. And there were two separate people in this group of eight. Okay? So one quarter of the room had not ever even asked a person to become their client because they did not know how to set up credit card processing for their business. Okay? So in their minds, they're like, oh, shit, I don't know how to take this person's money, even if they want to give it to me, so I better not ask them to be my client in case they want to be my client and I might have to take their money. Okay? So I just want to pause on that for a second, okay? Because this is not. This is not rare people. I hear this kind of stuff most days in my work, okay? People start businesses on idea level. We're talking idea level people. They want to become a coach, they want to become a consultant, they want to start a photography business, what have you. And they're really excited about it. But when it comes to creating these structures within their business, they hold off on doing it because they just don't know how. Okay? So they may not put together a client agreement. They may not put together how their clients pay them. They may not put together a scheduling function so their clients can book them. They may not put together any. Any number of things in their business that are not complicated at this point. Okay? So I just want to speak to you if you're this person and you don't know how to do a credit card processing system. Square. Square. Let's just keep it simple, okay? I had a roommate who worked for Square. It's the reason I use them. You know, I like the brand. They treat their people well, or at least they did, like, 13 years ago. But it's so simple. You can go on, you can set it up, you can create products in there, or you can just invoice people. And this is not. I'm not sponsored by Square, by the way. This is just me. Stripe is another one. I don't recommend PayPal, but if you really don't know how to do anything else, PayPal is an option. Venmo has even come up with a way for businesses to charge. Okay, do not. Do not. Of all things. What, I don't know how to be paid the money that people want to give me. Be the thing that keeps you from starting your business. For fuck's sake. People. If you have something that people want to buy from you, you will figure something out, okay? And here's. Here's the ultimate problem here. Oh, Philip. Hi. Welcome. Payment was the most challenging aspect of my business launch for sure. I was stuck between a few different providers, but finally selected one that would be best for. For my offerings. Yes. Okay, cool. And Philip, I love that you brought this up because you. You selected one that would be best for your offerings. Oftentimes, people try out a few different services before they find the one that's perfect. Okay? So you don't have to worry about making the exact perfect decision right here and right now. You can make that down the line. You can try something out, have it work, have it not work the best way for your business, and then start asking around. Or you can just start asking around. Philip, I'd be so curious to hear what kind of business you're in and what kind of. Oh, you're Stripe. Okay. And what kind of business are you in? That's. I'm really curious about, because I don't know what PHR stands for, but there are so many experts out there. People. I mean, if you don't know how to start a business, okay, there are people like me out there, okay, who can do bumper to bumper, show you how to do it. If you don't know how to put up a website, there are website designers out there. If you don't know how to write compelling copy, there are amazing copywriters out there. If you don't know how to change the oil in your car, thank God there are people who change the oil in your car. Or else my poor car, I would have just had to buy a new car every 10,000 miles because there's no way I'm going to learn how to do that. There was even in the conversation after the breakout sessions. Oh, career coaching, recruiting consultancy. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, you found Stripe is a great one for, for that field. Absolutely. I recommend Stripe and Square all the time because they're so great for that. So someone even said, you know, like, well, there's a YouTube video for everything. And someone's like, well, what if you don't know how to use YouTube? And then we were all joking. Like, I'm sure there's a YouTube video for that. For those of you who are older, I work with a lot of clients who are 40, 50 plus. You know, social media is confusing. Let's just own it. It changes. The buttons change colors, they. They reorganize everything. Um, it is confusing. So don't feel like you're being left in the dust, okay? Just don't. And also, don't be embarrassed to ask your fellow millennial friends in the world, you know, how do I post something on Instagram? How do I go live on Facebook? It's asking me for a status update. What. What does that mean? I understand. I understand. If you're not in there all the time and you're not using it, of course you don't know how to use it, okay? I don't use QuickBooks. My accountant does. Okay, if you set me up in QuickBooks, it would probably take me a little while to figure out. And by the way, Snapchat I cannot figure out for the life of me. And I'm only 33, okay? I feel like I'm in the young crowd and I also can't work that out. So what I want to just leave you with today. And we're going to keep this short because I'm tired. I've been working a 12 hour day, which is not my norm, and I have my ring light on, which I am convinced mess is convinced messes with my circadian rhythms because I can never sleep well after. So I don't want to get too much light here, but I just want to leave you with this, okay? I don't want you having any shame around asking for help, okay? There's no such thing as shame in asking for help when it has to do with you going for your dreams, okay? There's no such thing as a dumb question if it helps you get to your dreams, okay? I don't care if you have to Ask which shoe goes on which foot if it helps you get to your dreams. It's not a dumb question, okay? The only dumb thing that you can do in starting a business is the choice to stall action, to pause yourself, to stop yourself, to not move forward because you're letting yourself off the hook believing, I don't know how to do this. So, oh well, oh well, I just don't know how to do this. I'm just going to stop here. I don't know how to do this. I'm on this amazing enrollment call with this potential client who lights me up and they're saying they would love to work with me and I'm just not going to ask them to be my client and to pay me money for my service because I don't know how to take their money and collect money for my service. Not. Okay, that is the only dumb thing you can do in your business. Okay? So if you need someone to tell you which shoe to put on which foot and it's going to get you forward in your business, if you need someone to show you how to run a sales call, an enrollment call to get those clients, if you need to figure out the technical stack that you need, which social media platforms, how to use them, how to collect payments, what you should be doing for your websites, guests. But I focus on all of that in my one on one work and in my group BYOB program. That's byob, not bring your own booze. It is build your own business. Okay? It's a great program. It's great. I mean, I built it obvious, it's great. But it's a program that is designed around the concept that each business should be built around your ideal life and the way that you want to be in your business. Okay? It's not one of those video courses that just shows you their one way to do X, Y and Z bs. But anyway, if you're curious about those, send me a dm. I'd love to give you more information. In the meantime, if you have a dumb question, go and ask it. And if you're too afraid to ask it of a human, go to the Google machine. The Google machine has a lot of answers and I guarantee you that there are no original dumb questions. Okay? So if you have a dumb question, I guarantee you like 3,000 and a half other people have asked that dumb question of the Google machine before. Okay? So there's gonna be at least a thread where a bunch of people try to figure out what the answer to this dumb question is. Okay? So don't let that stop you, please. Because the world needs your work. Because I know you. And I know you don't just want to make money. I know you don't just want to be in the business, in business for the hell of it. You want to do this so that you can make a difference in the world. You want to have a positive impact. And you holding yourself up here is not just fucking you over. It's screwing over everyone who could be impacted positively by the work that you have to offer. Okay? So you're not just robbing yourself of this amazing business and this amazing life. You're robbing them of the transformation that you offer. And that's just shitty. Don't do that. Anyway, I am going to leave it there, short and sweet. Philip, thank you so much for joining me and for anyone else who joined but just didn't chime in. Thank you for watching. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Thanks for joining. Tune in tomorrow. I'm going to be diving into more fun topics about building your business. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you. Bye.