Do You Love the People Your Business Serves?

When you think about your ideal customers, clients, or followers, do you see them as people or do you see them as a commodity to your next business achievement? It can be so tempting to do the latter, especially if your business is new or struggling for revenue or maybe survival. But the moment people cease to be seen as people and instead become a number to your business, well, that's when you find yourself feeling very alone as an entrepreneur. This episode is dedicated to creating true connection and growing business from a place of service and compassion. You're listening to the Universe has yous Business. It's the podcast for rising entrepreneurs, coaches and change makers who are here to achieve more while letting the universe do the heavy lifting. And I am your host, Andrew Donovan. So this episode is very much a relationships conversation. And the idea came from something that I heard years ago. And I'm going to be honest with you, I don't even remember who said this, but it was at some big leadership training event back when I was in network marketing. And this speaker, I remember they said something that just. It felt like a frying pan smacking me on the head. For context, I was in a space of survival. I was in survival mode with my business. I needed money. I desperately wanted to hit that next landmark milestone in my business. I wanted to feel like I was significant. I didn't want to look bad to my peers or to my mentors. There was a lot of lack going on in my business. And you could say that I was in a space of desperation. And I would get really impatient when people in my business world, like potential business clients, potential business, business partners, I would get really frustrated when people weren't coming along with me the way that I thought was obvious that they should. And this speaker at this event, the one line that struck with me, stuck with me, that struck me, is they said, see people as people, not as a commodity for your next rank advancement. Now, it doesn't matter which industry you're in. The principle is the same. Do you see people as people versus as a commodity for your next business achievement? And what this really means to me is when you see people as people, I mean, you're aware of the emotions of your followers. You're aware of the meaning that they're seeking. You're aware of the connection that you have with them. You're aware of why, what you're saying, what you're offering, what you're selling, what, what your business does. You're aware of why all of that really matters to the human beings on the other side of the transaction on the other side of the computer screen, on the other side of the podcast episode. And for me, as this young entrepreneur who was struggling to make money, to survive financially, to feel like I was significant, like I was making progress, I very much had slipped into a space in my business where I didn't see people as people. I saw people as numbers, as figures. I saw people as objects that I wanted to behave in a certain way in order for my business and for me as the business owner, to be able to advance. What a heavy realization. Do you see anywhere in your business world where this might be something that you could reflect on with yourself? And I'll tell you, for me, I immediately made a list of people that I knew I had been taking for granted. I'm talking about crucial business colleagues, people I worked very closely with. And I immediately, within the next couple of days, went and had some very humbling, humbled conversations with them. And I told them, I am so sorry. I. I know that you joined with me in business because you saw something that mattered to you. You wanted to produce something of value for you, for your family. And I think that I've lost sight of that because I've been so ambitious, so desperate to achieve my next advancements, that I forgot to pause and be mindful of what you care about. And you know, the people that I apologize to, all of them, they all said, what? What are you talking about? And I don't know if they were being, but I think that deep down they felt that something was an energetic mismatch. There was some vibrational discord, disharmony between us. And what happened after I had these conversations is I hit my next achievement in that business within a couple of weeks with, like, basically no extra effort. And I remember for months and months, I reflected on that and thought, wow, what an incredible way to re energize my business. Not by doing anything extra, not by getting a smarter business strategy, but by making sure that I'm being mindful of the people that my business is meant to serve. So this conversation, I really believe, is applicable to anyone that your business touches. So your followers on social media, people that aren't even on your email list, maybe people, people who are your current customers or clients. And then if you have a business where you go into partnership with other people, those partners too, anyone that your business has an impact on, are you seeing these people as people? So one of the things that I really wanted to point out with this episode is the desperation that can happen when you're a new business and you're trying to get off the ground. Or maybe you're an established business and cash is short. Maybe your business has been affected by economic situations or regulation changes, whatever. Sometimes when we're in survival mode, that can be the easiest place to stop seeing people as people. Because your desperation turns your attention from the things that matter, like connection and meaning and service and guiding people toward transformation and value exchange. The desperation takes you from that kind of stuff to wanting outside things to fill your business up, to fill your need up, to compensate for your lack. And that doesn't. It doesn't feel good, right? And the reason why it doesn't feel good is because it is totally out of alignment. It is out of harmony with how abundance really flows. It's out of harmony with how conscious creation and law of attraction are meant to work for you. So one thing that I like to remind myself often is that my good, my wellbeing, comes from an unlimited source, not my customers. And this is something that I had to remind myself a number of times during the COVID 19 pandemic because my businesses, of course, were impacted like a lot of businesses were. And we had to revamp our strategies, our sales, our marketing machines. We had to make a lot of shifts. And there were a number of moments where I found myself in a state of panic because revenue was not what it should have been if we weren't. If we hadn't been in a pandemic. And I had to pause every time I caught myself in this space of feeling panic. And anytime I caught myself thinking, why aren't our customers buying like they normally do? And I had to pause and say, Andrew, your good does not come from your customers. It does not come from people. It comes from an unlimited source. And I know, I hear you, some of you might be hearing this statement and your red alerts might be going off and you might be thinking, what the heck? Of course you're good. The money comes from people. They have to whip out their credit card, they have to buy your shit, right? Well, technically, yes. On the most surface level, that is what we can observe. Revenue happens when somebody pulls out their credit card and buys something from you in your business. That is true. However, your ultimate good, your ultimate prosperity, your ultimate well being, it is not contingent upon the activity, the observable activity of the people who interact with your business. And if you can grasp that, you can liberate yourself, my friend, because, geez, observing people's behavior, observing how many people are interacting with your social media, how many people are Entering your email list, observing how many people are buying your stuff hour to hour, day to day, that can be a very fast way to get caught in the weeds of circumstance. And then you're immediately cut off from your inner inspiration, from your guidance. You're cut off from your source of well being. And that's not. And the problem isn't that there's not enough money. The problem isn't that there's not enough sales, there's not enough interest. The problem isn't that there's a pandemic. The problem isn't that there's an economic shift. The only actual problem is that core issue. Are you in alignment or are you out of alignment? Are you connected to your unlimited source or are you disconnected because of how you're observing observable things that aren't actually your source of well being or prosperity? Okay, do you resonate with that a little bit? So your good comes from an unlimited source, not from your customers. Now, sometimes I think about how much love I get to invest in the people in my business, Ecospheres. So I'm talking about anybody like your followers, your potential customers, your existing customers and clients. Okay. And I wanted to point out that if you're a smaller business, you can usually afford to invest more individual time in into followers. For example, let's say that you're smaller on social media. You don't have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, yet you might be able to afford responding to every comment that pops up on your YouTube videos, on your Instagram posts, things like that, your DMs exactly right. Your direct messages. So that can be a really significant way to start learning what kind of connection your audience wants. And if you're practicing seeing people as people in your business, well, for me, I want to know what kind of connection my people want with me and with my brand, with my business. So when you get bigger and bigger, obviously then it becomes more difficult to respond to every message. And you might hire a team of social media handlers or a handler, maybe a virtual assistant to start with, to help you out with some of that load. But I love that method though, of making sure that I'm really seeking true connection with my audience. And I'll confess here, I will confess here, when I started out as an entrepreneur, I was so desperate to be seen as significant, to be seen as someone who is a high achiever, someone who's important, that I. This sounds awful. I refused to respond to people's comments on social media because I thought it was Beneath me. So sad, right? That was when I didn't see people as people. And I'm not gonna say shame on me because that's just where I was. But now I've learned differently. And I'm so grateful that I have, because now if I have an opportunity to connect with somebody, I mean, that's really cool. And for my personal coaching brand, I still, I mean, I love, I love the. To observe what kinds of connections, to learn what kind of connections are really meaningful for the people who are with me in this business experience. So what I encourage you to do is to spend a little bit of time determining three things. Determine what kind of meaning, what kind of relationship, and what kind of journey you want to create with and for your followers. And I'll repeat that in case you're taking some notes, the meaning you want to create with them. So what I mean by that is they're listening to your content, they're interacting with you online, they're following you for a reason. There's something that's meaningful to them. What is it? Okay, the relationship. What kind of relationship are they seeking with you? Is your brand a quirky, funny one? Is it an emotional, raw, vulnerable one? Is it one that is ambitious and hardcore and like fun, full of excitement and maybe some intense motivation? What kind of relationship is your audience seeking with you? And then the third thing was what kind of journey are they looking? And that's actually pretty close to the first thing because there's some kind of journey they're looking for. Maybe they're seeking to go from lack of wellness to wellness or lack of financial well being, to financial well being or lack of self concept, to lots of self love. What is the journey that they're looking to go on with you? And when you're tuned into those three things, for me, I mean, if you're aware of those three things, I would say you're definitely seeing your people as people. Because now whenever you craft an email, whenever you're making a sales page, whenever you're figuring out a new offer, how to pitch the offer, when you come up with a new product you want to launch, all of those things are now affected by the fundamental understanding that you're working with real human beings whose feelings, whose wants, whose aspirations, whose desires, whose fears all matter. And your business is a powerful vehicle to be able to guide them in the journey that's meaningful to them, to be able to connect with them in the way that is meaningful to them. And, and that's why they stick with you. So so powerful. Now, when you're looking at this idea of serving people, connecting with people, seeing people as people, sometimes that might feel like you're forgetting business strategy or maybe you're not really invested in revenue. And I'm gonna tell you right now, you're gonna have to learn how to be aware of both, because revenue is the lifeblood of a business. If there's no revenue, you go out of business and then your business can't serve anybody. Right? And so what I have found to be really helpful for me is one, first and foremost, be aware of the things we're talking about in this episode. Be aware of how you see your people as people. After that, I would say add on another layer, have a strategy for revenue. Where are your sales going to come from? What is your business doing activity wise to generate revenue? But most importantly, remember what's at the core of how I started this episode. That idea of seeing your people as people, not as a commodity for your next achievement, and remembering that your good comes from an unlimited source, not from your customers. At the core of all of that is this one truth. At any moment, you can tune into a feeling of prosperity within yourself. And when you do that consistently, the people and the dollars will follow. And this is very encouraging for us as entrepreneurs who are aware, who are conscious of how the universe and how creation really work, isn't it? Because we can observe the business world and find a lot of businesses, a lot of entrepreneurs that are out there implementing strategy, hard work, hustle, sometimes schemes, sometimes tactics, ethical tactics, unethical tactics. We can observe a lot of activity happening in the entrepreneurial world. And some of it is in alignment with the whole of who that entrepreneur is. And some of it is activity and designed to compensate for their lack of being plugged into their source of well being. And you get to ask yourself, what do you want? Which of those is your choice? And of course, we know the answer for ourselves, because we know about Law of Attraction, we know that we believe, and we can tell people that we know our source comes, our good comes from an unlimited source. The practice of that looks like learning how to tune into the inner feeling of prosperity, the inner feeling of well being. And the more you do that, the more the rich relationships, the more the ideal followers find you, the more you connect with your perfect audience and the more you rendezvous with the revenue, with the dollars. And what you end up with is this beautiful business that is synergistic between all its components, all its inner workings. You end up with a business that has revenue and has longevity and was built on ideals and values that you can really sign off on at the end of the day. And that is what I really hope for you, friend. So a short and sweet message today, and I really, I really hope that this has been an opportunity for you to reflect on your business. Okay. And for you to tune in to what you're really here to bring to your people, why it matters to you, why it matters to them, and then remembering that you being tuned in to your inner feeling of prosperity, and I mean, that's always going to include seeing people as people, and it's also going to include building the business, achieving the sales, achieving the revenue. Okay, friends, thank you for joining me in this episode. Thank you. Do me a favor. If you loved something from this episode, write about it in a review for the show, okay? And if you don't mind sharing this episode with colleagues or anybody who you think could use this message, well, that's how we spread the message here. That's how we spread the word. That's how we make sure that this gets to the people who need it. So hit that share button and hit the subscribe button if you haven't already so that you don't miss another episode. And thank you for being here, signing off, and I'll see you next time. Sam.