How I'm handling disappointment in my business

The hardest part in running an online business is believing everybody else is succeeding while I'm failing. And this is something that I believed, oh my gosh, for years, starting my online business. And it really caused me to go into this cycle of I need to do what they're doing, I need to launch. And then being disappointed about my launch and being depressed about my launch and thinking I need to start right over again and go into that next launch cycle. And so it was this constant cycle of need to do better, need to do better, need to do better, and comparing myself to what I'm seeing other people are saying they're doing on Instagram. These Sunday videos have been all about transparency in business. And one of the topics I asked you all to vote on on my Community tab was this one in particular. And it won by a landslide. And it doesn't surprise me because there is not enough transparency in online business ownership when it comes to failing and when it comes to being resilient, we are almost always seeing business owners Instagram life and nobody's willing to open up and share real stuff that's going on in business. I will tell you truthfully, I have never felt like I have had a successful launch. Now, I am a perfectionist. I am an enneagram3, so maybe that's that in me. But even though they do well and I get new clients and I'm excited, I never feel like it was the best launch that I could ever have because I kept comparing myself to what others were doing. I kept thinking, oh, well, my launch doesn't look as good as theirs. Oh well, they're getting more clients more than I am. And it's a terrible mindset to be in. And it's a reason why I have ended up needing to pause people that I follow on Instagram. It has also led me to staying off Instagram for a while as well. In this video, I want to talk about how I stay resilient and how I do handle those failures. I started my business in 2016 officially, and it wasn't until 2021 where I had a real shock to the system when I went to my first ever mastermin in person, Mastermind. And there were some really big names there. To me, at least there are people that I was already following on Instagram who I looked up to, who I thought were just killing it with business. And what was incredibly amazing about this group is they were willing to talk truthfully about their business and be real. And when I heard some of them get up there and share, you Know, well, this didn't happen well, I didn't hit this sales goal or I'm behind on this revenue goal and share that everything's not the way they're making it look on Instagram. I instantly realize it's not just me. So one of the reasons why I stay resilient and I keep moving forward after a failed launch or after I feel like I didn't accomplish what I wanted to, I realize and remember I'm not the only one going through this. I'm not the only one that feels like I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm confused at why this isn't working. So when you're getting into that spot where you're just questioning everything and why is this happening to you? Guess what? It's not just happening to you. All of us online business owners are trying to figure it out. Even though it may not seem like it on Instagram sometimes because they're not being completely transparent, we are all trying to figure it out. The other thing that has helped me really handle disappointment in my business is understanding my numbers. And I know that sounds so lame, but the first couple of years of my business I was following people that said if I did this path, if I followed this first framework, I would make buttloads of money, right? And I did. And it didn't get buttloads of money and I couldn't understand why. And it kept make me, it kept making me think, oh, I'm the failure, I'm not doing it right. It's all about me. I'm stupid, I'm not good enough for this. And it go in this total imposter tailspin, right? But when I got into this mastermind and I realized those launches were actually pretty successful when you look at the right numbers. What I wasn't realizing is launching is a numbers game. And you need to understand how many eyeballs are actually aware of you. Because you're not going to have a six figure launch if you can't get loads of people to that sales page. If you're only getting a hundred people to your sales page during your launch, if you made five sales, that's above industry standard. And when I looked back on my launches once, somebody truly explained to me how to evaluate if your launch was successful or not. All of the launches that I thought that I had failed at were performing above average. I want you to know this can really help you see that it's not you, that it wasn't a disappointing launch. It was actually really good and then you can start to figure out what you need to work on. And nine times out of 10, it's going to be your audience. It is always going to be traffic most of the time. I still still have this traffic problem to this day even though I'm here on YouTube. Right? YouTube helps me grow my email list. In fact, super amazing statistic. I posted two videos in the last eight days and the total views on those two videos were 888 views. From those 888 views, I growed my email list by 115 people. That's an almost 13% conversion rate from views to email list subscriber. So knowing that audience and views to those sales pages are always going to be what you're chasing, think about how you are growing your email list right now. And if you're thinking about YouTube, I am actually hosting a free workshop to share with you how I do this whole process in two hours a week. That workshop's going to be April 30th totally free at Trina Little.com masterclass if you want to see exactly how I do this. Because when you need that resilience in your business is when you realize, oh, what I'm actually doing is working. I just need to work on the small piece to take it to that next level. It's not my entire business. It's not everything that I've done in my business that's failing. It's just this one piece and this is all I need to work on. And you can also check out a playlist that I will link on the screen right now that goes into all the marketing metrics and numbers that I didn't realize were so important as a non numbers person, I didn't want to look at. But once I understood what I needed to look at to realize again I wasn't a failure and see what actually was working and what wasn't working. It allowed me to eliminate so much in my business to know if I just focused on this one thing, I would get the results that I wanted. And that has been a game changer in my mindset and in handling disappointment. Because if I host a live workshop and I wanted a thousand people to sign up and I back into my numbers later and I realized I didn't get enough people to that registration page. That was the problem. It wasn't me, it wasn't anything that I did. And then I can see what my conversion rates were and realize, hey, it actually converted pretty well. It was just I didn't get enough eyeballs to that page, I want to share some tactical ways maybe to handle this as well. Because I'm going to tell you, you're never going to have a time in your business where you don't feel disappointed or you look back and say, am I doing this right? I still have that to this day. And I still have disappointments. In fact, a video a few Sundays ago, I talked about why I closed my agency. And a big goal for my agency was building it to this level that I could sell it and make boatloads of money. And accepting because I hung onto this dang agency way longer than I should have. But accepting I had to let it go. It just wasn't for me. That is fine. My business needs to go into a different direction. And I talk more about that in that video, which I'll link on your screen right now. But you need to realize there are some things that you just need to let go. If it's not working, if it's not feeling right, if it's giving you anxiety, if it's making you feel overwhelmed, if it's making you feel less. Every time you try to make something work in it and it's not working, it may be time to just let it go and say that lived its life for this time. I need to move on to the next thing. I also did that with my course, Video Strategy Academy as well. I worked on that course for five years, but it wasn't at a place where I could truly serve my clients how I needed to for them to get the best results. And even though I tried to fit that course like a square peg into a round hole, and it just was time, I had to move on to something else. What has also really allowed me to deal with disappointment better and be more resilient is having a community of other people doing the same thing that I'm doing. And I know this isn't always easy to find. I was against coaches and masterminds for a very long time until I did find one with people who were openly willing to be transparent and share the bad with the good. Because business isn't always rainbows and butterflies. Going to have those tough days, we're going to have those disappointing launches. We're going to have those programs that we thought were going to be more successful and they just weren't. And this is something that I've been thinking about more and more. A community of entrepreneurs like this because these Sunday videos have had so much engagement and so many of you are connecting with this. So I'm really Trying to figure out what this community would look like, how to host a community with entrepreneurs who are willing to be open and honest about their journey. I know when I speak with my clients in my YouTube coaching experience, they just are so appreciative that I share behind the scenes stuff, what I'm working on, what didn't work, how I'm truly feeling about this launch style, or what I'm seeing about this particular strategy on YouTube or Instagram or in email. And so if that is something you are thinking about wanting to be a part of, share in the comments. Like, what do you envision that being? What would you want that to look at? Because that's the one thing that I wish I would have had in my first five years of my business because it would have saved me so much anxiety, so much disappointment, so much imposter syndrome, because again, I assumed I was always doing it wrong because I wasn't as successful as these people that I was watching on Instagram. So I'm trying to figure out a way to make a safe space for me to share more, more transparency behind the scenes and to be able to build this community that's been watching these videos, have a safe space to share the good, the bad and the ugly as well. So I'd love to hear any thoughts that you have down in the comments. And I want you to know that there is going to be failures in your business. There is going to be times where you feel like you have no idea what you're doing. Why are you doing this? You're going to have times where you feel like you're not good enough, you're not smart enough. Know that every other person you're watching online has those exact same feelings as well. But what keeps you moving is figuring out what your next step is. Not freezing up, not being afraid to take that next step. That next step may be messy, that next step may not be the right next step. But as long as you're taking a step, you're not stuck. And as long as you're taking a step forward, you're going to learn from it. You're going to figure out what's the next step going to be or what should you do next? You're going to learn from it is what I'm trying to say here. I'm open to having conversations in the comments. If you want to see that video as well, where I talked about why I burnt my agency down and the other transparency videos I've done, I will link all of them on your screen right now. And I just want you to know you're doing great. You've got this. And you're not alone in this entrepreneur journey.