Flourish and Grow to CEO

Hit the Reset Button, Redirect and Stay Present in the Moment - Ep. 10

Most entrepreneurs are so result-driven that it is easy for them to lose sight of living in the present and enjoy what they have or simply letting go of things that they are not enjoying nor are serving them anymore. In this episode, Pam and Jane share some anecdotes from the 2004 crash and what they learn from those hard times. Jane talks about the importance of seeing life choices as redirecting and Pam brings some mindfulness tips to help you hit that reset button and enjoy your journey to flourish and grow to CEO.In today’s episode we discuss: [01:53] When it is time to hit the reset button? Making peace with your result-oriented personality as an entrepreneur and realizing something is not serving you.[10:07] How to deal with rejection as a business owner. Seeing rejection as redirection.[14:27] Learning to enjoy the journey of becoming a CEO and not just the destination. [18:13] Tips on mindful meditation to start your day and concentrate on staying in the moment.[23:37] Benefits of journaling. Jane shares her favorite method by Julia Cameron[25:49] Why visualizing your day puts you on the right note to go to sleep and start your next day Resources mentioned in this episode:Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way — Jane shares some wisdom from this book, great reading for all creative souls out there. You can also find more about it on her website: https://juliacameronlive.com/the-artists-way/Thank you for listening to this episode of Flourish and Grow to CEO! We hope you’ve gotten some useful tips on mindfulness to hit that reset button and live in the present to actually enjoy this amazing journey that is becoming a CEO. We would love to hear if you’ve tried any of this and how have they worked for you, leave a comment on our website flourish.biz!Don’t forget to subscribe to our show on your favorite platform and follow us on Instagram and Pinterest to get more useful insights and join our Facebook group to share and chat with like-minded people so we can all flourish and grow in our way to being the best CEOs.

Protecting the Most Valuable Asset in Your Business: YOU - Ep. 9

You are the greatest asset of your business and, as such, you must protect yourself. This means not only physically but also mentally. Having the proper mindset is key to managing a business like a CEO (which is something we have discussed over in our previous episodes).That is why Pam Ivey and Jane Garee talk about the importance of separating your business goals from your personal worth and focusing on you as a person. In this episode, Pam talks about personal rhythms and stress managing techniques for business owners, and Jane shares her experience with alignment and how to balance the life you want to live and your business goals.In today’s episode we discuss: [01:29] What is the most important asset you should focus on when growing your business. Quick hint: You[05:45] Finding the perfect balance between a successful business and a business that supports the lifestyle you actually want[13:50] How to create alignment for you and your business. Knowing yourself and your rhythms[18:13] What and why you should start time blocking to boost your productivity and creativity[20:06] Why you should take your mind away from business. How allowing some time to relax and learning to manage stress will ultimately make you a better CEO[29:49] The importance of self-development for leadership and inner game in business. Before leading any team, you must lead yourself.Resources mentioned in this episode:Dreamsinspirereality.com — Useful managing stress tips and techniques you can start applying in your life.Thank you for listening to this episode of Flourish and Grow to CEO. We hope you got some a-ha moments and some food for thoughts this time, and, if you did, leave us a comment telling us what it was about over on our website flourish.biz!Don’t forget to subscribe to our show on your favorite platform and follow us on Instagram and Pinterest to get more useful insights on business and the CEO role, and join our Facebook group to share and chat with like-minded people so we can all flourish and grow in our way to being the best CEOs.

Operations Supports Everything We Do In Business and Allows Us to Continue to Earn Money - ​Ep. 8

Once you’ve got the vision, the strategy, and the team, what’s the next step to grow a profitable and sustainable business? That’s Operations! A business cannot run efficiently without proper systems and processes. It is definitely the backbone of the whole structure. In this episode, Pam Ivey talks about the importance of identifying systems and processes to save time and guarantee your business's efficiency, and Jane Garee talks about Operations from the sales point of view and how it interconnects with the vision and the strategy to hit your goals.In today’s episode, you will hear about – [01:28] What are Operations and what does it mean to you will depend on the stage of your business. [04:44] How to manage Operations in service companies to improve client interaction experiences and internal business processes. [09:12] Understanding client acquisition process and data to set a strategy and accomplish business goals. [14:20] How to create processes that will change your life and your team members' lives. Pam shares her process documentation system. [19:26] The secret to master Operations is making the time to work on your business and not just in it, from the inside to the outside.[22:40] How to keep clients on your business by making good management of their expectationsResources mentioned in this episode:Teamwork — A project management tool in which you and your team can save and edit all of the important information as well as document processes. And this is the one we love and use to create this podcast!Ontraports — An optimization software to create easy and effective marketing and email campaigns. Loom — A program that allows you to make video recordings of your screen and share them with your time to document and establish processes. We hope this episode helps you understand Operations more in-depth for you to evaluate how you have been managing your business. Do you want us to talk about any specific topic? Leave us a comment on our website flourish.biz or join our community of women entrepreneurs over on our Facebook group and share directly with us! Don’t forget to subscribe! Until next week!

Leadership Isn’t Just for Your Team – Leadership of YOU is Just As Important - EP.7

A business is nothing without a strong and committed leader, so how do you know what to do to become the kind of leader other people want to follow?Pam Ivey talks about leading a team and how a team that pulls together and embraces the vision and direction of the leader can create and sustain a business that becomes unstoppable. Jane Garee shares the difference between leaders who are strictly tactical and leaders who inspire others to become better people, which creates a more natural passion for doing business. ​In today’s episode, you will hear about - [1:30] The first step of leadership you have to take if you want others to follow you [6:11] How alignment can be used to motivate you as a leader so you continue in the right direction for you and your company[10:15] When it is the time to bring on some help and build a team to grow your business[14:19] Places to find contractors and virtual assistants to build a successful teamWe want to hear from you! Tell us in the comments if you have tried any of the websites we have mentioned in this episode and how your experience with them. Remember to subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest so you never miss an episode.

Sales Conversations CAN Be Fun! (Hint: Your goal is NOT to get a close) - EP. 6

A business isn’t a business unless it’s making money and if it’s making money, that means something is getting sold. Selling and sales are the lifeblood of any business, and a business owner is first and foremost, a salesperson, even if they don’t want to be.Pam Ivey introduces the importance of sales in your business and Jane Garee, our sales expert, shares why selling is the best thing you can ever do for you, your business, and your clients and how it can actually be fun. ​In today’s episode, you will hear about: [02:21] What selling really is and why what you’ve learned about it isn’t true [04:57] How to stop going for the close and what to do instead to achieve selling success [07:00] The difference between a goal and an objective and how understanding this one thing will change your sales conversations forever [10:50] Why you should go for the “no” in sales conversations and understanding how to find clients that are a good fit for you and your business. [20:48] How can you become a better closer on sales conversations by becoming a better opener and committing to the process. Resources mentioned in this episode: ​[28:40] Showstopping Sales, Janes amazing sales community: https://showstoppingsales.com/ Did you enjoy this episode? Tell us in the comment section what you think about Jane’s dating analogy for sales conversations. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends and family.EPISODE 6 TRANSCRIPT Pam: (00:00) You're listening to the Flourish and Grow to CEO podcast. This is episode six.Pam: (00:26) Are you a lady boss making 50 to a hundred thousand in your business? And you're ready to break through that six figure barrier.Jane: (00:34) Have you done a great job of creating a nice life as the ultimate gig master, but no, your inner CEO is calling you to greater Heights. You're in the right place. If you want to create and implement solid fundamentals in your business without sacrificing fun.Pam: (00:48) I'm Pam Ivey, I'm certified in small business management and I concentrate in the areas of training and certifying real estate assistance, coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs in online business, marketing growth and profit acceleration. And I take men and women business owners aged 40 plus two bucket list destinations around the world for a month at a time to work, explore, and live in community.Jane: (01:14) And I'm Jane Garee known as the sales strategist for the non sales person. And I work with business owners who want to increase their conversion rate, shorten their sales cycle and have more impact and influence with the work they do. All well having more fun with selling.Pam: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of flourish and grow to CEO. I'm Pam Ivey and we're so delighted that you have come back to listen to us today. We are talking about, well, they're all important topics, but super important topics, because one is a passion of my partner, Jane, we're going to be talking about sales and then we're going to be talking about leadership and team. So without delay, I'm just going to let Jane go. Cause she is definitely the sales expert, sales, all things sales.Jane: I love sales. This is going to be a really fun episode because I'm going to get behind my pulpit here and just school everybody up on sales and sales conversation and selling and why it is one of the most important things that you can do for your business.Jane: (02:21) But while it is really important, it also can be incredibly fun. So my goal and intention here today is really to get everybody, to see how enjoyable a sales conversation can be. And what does selling really mean? What is selling and what is it not? So can I just start there, Pam? Absolutely take it away. All right. So sales has gotten such a bad rep over the years for all the reasons that we know that it has. And a lot of business owners, when they start thinking about having sales conversations, it just, they get everything from butterflies in the stomach to use something stuck in the back of their throat because they're thinking “Oh, this is the last thing that I really want to be. I don't like having sales conversations. I don't want to sell, I don't want to be a salesperson.” And I understand all of that.Jane: (03:06) However, I would really love for you to start thinking in terms of sales, as something that is really just serving people at the highest level, because that's what sales is. It truly is just serving people at a very, very high level. I always like to define sales conversation is changing the world one person at a time. And what I mean by that is a sales conversation is a one-on-one interaction with somebody. And when that person steps into what they were meant to do. And when that person decides to say yes to themselves, through you, they are changed. The work that they do with you is going to create a significant transformation. And when they experienced that transformation, they are now going to go out into the world, doing what they were called to do. And by nature of that, they're going to be serving other people.Jane: (04:00) So make no mistake. A sales conversation really has a very large ripple effect. You're going to serve them. You're going to give them the confidence they need to serve their clients and on and on. So sales, it's a really big deal. And it's a really big deal because it has a positive impact on so many other people than just the one person that becomes your client. So starting with all of that, all right. So if we just work with the premise that sales is serving, there are three things that I want to teach you today that will help you have much more effective sales conversations. You'll be able to serve more people and you'll be able to have a lot more fun when you're actually engaged in a sales conversation. So number one, and this one is a really big myths that a lot of people get tangled up in and therefore it ruins or just makes the sales on a conversation very uncomfortable.Jane: (04:57) So the myth is this. You have to go for the close, you have to sign this person up. You have to get their credit card. So a lot of people are still under the misguided notion that when you get into a selling conversation, got to close, gotta close, gotta close. You got to make sure it has this wrapped up ending where they become your client. And now you put so much pressure on yourself, right? Yeah. You put so much pressure on yourself and unfortunately, or fortunately, really nothing could be further from the truth, your goal isn't to get into a sales conversation with somebody and close them. I'm going to say that again because a lot of you probably just want one, but I want to say this again, because this is 100% true. Your goal. When you get into a sales conversation is not to close that person or enroll that person.Jane: (05:47) I know that's really counterintuitive. And a lot of you have gotten sales training. That's kind of like this hardcore, make them see the value and get them to say yes, and this kind of just really forceful energy. And you can get people to say yes, and you can get people to give you their credit card. But when you come at it with that kind of energy, when you try to convince them, you try to really get them to see your point of view and why they need you and why they should plunk down their money. You will get yeses on the front side. But what happens on the backside is this can lead to not so satisfactory relationships, people ask for chargebacks, they get cranky. They're not going to provide you with referrals. They regret having done it. So, and that's when you feel yucky to, right?Jane: (06:30) Of course. Yeah. So I want to change the narrative on this a little bit. And I want everybody hearing me and listening to us today, Pam, I really want you to understand the purpose of a selling conversation. The purpose of a discovery session is to have a really rich conversation that you facilitate and guide that allows the prospect to get to their truth so they can make an informed and committed decision. At that point, you guide and facilitate a conversation that allows somebody to get to their truth so they can make an informed and committed decision in light of the conversation. Here's the thing people frequently get confused between a goal and an objective. A goal is simply a natural outcome of the objectives being met. So for example, if you wanted to lose 10 pounds, your goal would be to lose 10 pounds, but your objective would be to get up every day to clean up your nutrition, to eat properly and to get some exercise in.Jane: (07:36) So if you met your objective every day for, I don't know, how long does it take time every day for say 30 days, you met your objectives every day for 30 days, you would meet your goal of losing 10 pounds. When you understand this, it's going to take the pressure off of your conversations or your discovery sessions. And when you understand this, you are going to be able to go into a conversation fully equipped and excited about what will happen or what potentially could happen. So again, be very clear on your objective. When you go into a consultation sales conversation, your objective is to have a really rich, rewarding conversation that will allow the other person to get to their truth and then make a committed and firm decision. From that point, when you have enough of those conversations with people, you will meet your goal of the number of enrollees you need in your program or the number of clients you need to hit a certain income level.Jane: (08:41) Really, really key distinction there. People are not paychecks. So please do not treat them like that. People are not paychecks. This goes back to understanding that your objective is to have the conversation so they can make a decision. The goal is what's going to naturally happen or occur as a result of meeting your objectives. So if you're going into a conversation fully committed to the process, fully committed to let me guide and facilitate this conversation so I can help this person get to their truth so they can make a decision from that point. Then you are going in to serve that person. You are going in with an objective to make sure that you are providing service level at the very highest realm for this person. You are going in with an objective that you're going to listen, that you're going to ask really good questions, and you're going to help guide them through a thought process that will allow them to either step into what you're inviting them to step into or not.Jane: (09:44) And as long as you're committed to the process and to the objective, regardless of what happens in the outcome, you will be fine. You're actually going to be better than fine. You're going to be great because when you do that enough times, number one, your goal is naturally going to be met. Number two, you will never again, have a conversation that feels yucky to you or yucky and uncomfortable to them. That is going to get you further referrals that is going to get you people who would say, you know what? This may not be for me. This isn't for me or us working together just doesn't feel like a great fit, but this was an amazing conversation. I will remember this when the time is right when I'm ready, I'll come back. Or I know somebody who would be really interested or who could really use your service. So number one, stop going for the close stop, going for the enrollment. Just stop trying to get people's credit card numbers, go in and meet your objective of having a really rich conversation that will get them to their truth so they can make an informed and impassionate decision from.Pam: (10:50) I love it. So no is okay.Jane: (10:53) No, it's totally okay. In fact, if you're not getting some nos, there's something probably a little out of alignment with your overall business plan. It could be your, it could be, your prices are too low. It could be that you're not stretching yourself enough. That's what's really interesting about it it's a bit counterintuitive, but if you're not encountering some nos, then what I would say as a sales consultant coming in, I'd say, let's look at your entire business because if you're not, if you're really not getting nos something's off, we need to kind of shake things up a little bit. So yeah, go for the, no, you should be getting thosePam: (11:27) That really takes the pressure off. I love it. I love that goal is to have that conversation and get to the truth, as you say, or have that person really sit comfortably in their decisions.Jane: (11:40) Yes. Sit comfortably in their decision. No is okay. And you should be fine with a no, which would bring me to my second point. And this is the, this is another place where people start getting tangled up. You have to work with people who are going to be a really good fit for you. I can not impress this upon people enough. How I usually say it to my clients is they're going to be really great people who are very bad fits. What that means is these are cool people, man, you'd go have a cocktail with them. You'd go shopping with them. If you're like, man, because I love to shop, you know, whatever you would go hang out with them. They're a great person, but they're not a good fit. The problem that they have really isn't something that you can solve. It may just be a little bit off.Jane: (12:24) It doesn't feel like the chemistry is there. It's close. And because it's a really good person, the temptation is always, Hey, let me go ahead and get this person enrolled in working with me because you like them as a human, but it's not enough to like somebody as a human. When you're in business, you need to be 100% certain that the problems they have can be solved by you. And you need to be 100% certain that if you solve those problems, you are going to be the best person to take on that challenge of solving those problems. So great person, not a good fit. There's no offer. Don't offer that person. Anything. This is not somebody you're working with. This is a future referral partner. It's a future colleague. It could be a future JV partner. I mean, you've got the chemistry, you like each other, but the actual business fit for them becoming a client.Jane: (13:12) Not great. So I want everybody to feel fully confident that you can say, no, you can say no. Or they may be saying no to you because you feel it. And that is okay. That's a great person, not a good fit. Now the reverses, you could have somebody who's a really good fit. They clearly need your help. They clearly need your service. The problems that they have, you absolutely could solve. You're the best person to solve them. All of that is lining up. I can help them. This would be an amazing client, good fit. However, that person and I don't mean bad person in a judgmental way. What I mean there is there's something off with the chemistry. Maybe they're just showing up with some energy. You don't really love. I don't like working with people who are pessimistic and are constantly trying to figure out how things are not going to work.Jane: (13:59) That's not a good fit for me. So somebody who shows up in my world in a discovery call, if they can't see the possibility, if they're not fully committed to jumping in, if they kind of feel the fear and do it anyway, they have to have all of that criteria. Otherwise they're not a good fit for me. So people that say, well, I've tried sales before and I hate it. Or I really just don't want to be a sales person. I don't want to be one of those people. I wish I could just outsource this. That's an energy and an attitude that is not a great fit for me. So the service that I could provide, maybe spot on, I can understand and diagnose that. Yes, they need to work with me, but I don't really want to take this person on as a client so that somebody who is a good fit, not such a great person for you.Jane: (14:41) So if I recap that what you're looking for are people who are a good fit and a good person, good client, I should say. So you're going to have great people, not a good fit. Don't work with them, no offer. Then you're going to have a really great fit. Not such a good person. Don't work with them. No offer your criteria for putting an offer out to somebody is this. They're a great person and they are a great fit. Meaning you can see every time they show up in your email inbox or on your phone going, Hey, cool. It's Pam. What are what Pam wants? I love Pam. She's so fun. I really enjoy our sessions. She listens to what I said. She implements what I tell her to do. She, she hears me. We get it. We have fun. You know, what's a good client. The synergies there, that's a great fit. If you feel like that's going to happen for you and the solutions that you come up with for them are on, then you're good. Those people get an offer. Everybody else you say no to.Jane: (15:39) I love it. Absolutely. Because if you just gave us permission to say no to people, really it has to be a good fit because I've worked with clients that literally make me cry. Every time I got off the phone with them and you know, we're at a point in our lives and our businesses that we don't need to be doing. That kind of thing.Jane: (16:00) We do not need to be doing that type of thing. I always liken this to dating. So for those of you who are single, you're really going to recognize this. For those of you who are married, you'll remember this, but women in particular are notorious for doing this. So check this out. You go on a date, you sit down, you're across the table from this guy. And what do we think is women? Oh, I wonder if he likes me. Wonder if he thinks I'm pretty. I wonder if he's wondering, I wonder what he, I wonder what he, I wonder what he, you know, it's all this wondering about what does he think of me? Who does he perceive me to be? And the focus in the date, on the date, that's wrong because the question should actually be, what do I think of him? So your power comes from, what do I think of him not, Oh, I wonder what he thinks of me.Jane: (16:43) Right? We get all, woo. We get all flighty. Like, what does he think? What's he think? What do I think, what do I want? What do I need? That is a very healthy way to go about the dating process so that you don't forget that you are the most important person in that equation. In the moment when you're trying to suss out, is this somebody I want to continue to spend time with. So ladies, first of all, do that. If you're dating, if you're dating, just remember, what do I want? What do I need? What do I think I'm not a relationship and dating coach. However, I have clients who are, and they've trained me up on that. So there you go. So do that. If your day, I've got to remember that, okay, I need, what do I think of him? That's as we got to look at us first in that kind of situation, it's not selfish.Jane: (17:28) It's smart. So do that in dating, and then you do it in a sales conversation. What do I think of working with this client? How do I perceive this relationship that I'm going to get...

Know Your Clients, Attract New People to Your Business, and Foster Relationships to Grow - EP. 5

Branding, marketing and messaging can make a business flourish and grow or derail it completely. Although all the foundational pillars are interconnected, branding, marketing and messaging need to be clear and compelling for client attraction and resonance. Pam Ivey talks about the 5 step process of marketing so you have a clear plan for marketing success. She also discusses why creating a message in the language of your clients, rather than in your own, can be the make it or break it when it comes to marketing. Jane Garee talks about the power of storytelling, and how your clients should be taken on a journey that ultimately leads them to you. ​In today’s episode, you will hear about: [01:31] Why strong branding, marketing and messaging provides a feeling of security to your clients and how you can create that [03:43] How clients liking you isn’t enough and why you need to be clear that you are the solution to their problem [07:35] Why getting into the head of your ideal client is more important than getting into yours.[09:25] How can you effectively use marketing to connect with potential clients.[13:36] How to use storytelling to resonate with people and actually get more business. We have collected a list of questions to help you get the right information of what your client really want and align your messaging to reach those ideal clients:What do they say to themselves in this night of vail? What are their problems?What are their challenges? What are they sick and tired of dealing with?What do they no longer want in their lives?What do they wish worked as it were?What do they want the most? What do they dream of? And hope for?Did we miss any? Review this episode in the comments section and tell us what other questions we should add. Subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for more useful tips on how to flourish and grow as CEO.Connect with us: www.instagram.com/flourishandgrowtoceo https://www.facebook.com/groups/flourishandgrowtoceo Determine if you're ready to grow your business and how strong your foundations truly are at: https://flourish.biz/quizEPISODE 5 TRANSCRIPTPam (00:00):You're listening to the flourish and grow to CEO podcast. This is episode five.Are you a lady boss making 50 to a hundred thousand in your business? And you're ready to break through that six figure barrier.Jane (00:35):Have you done a great job of creating a nice life as the ultimate gig master, but no, your inner CEO is calling you to greater Heights. You're in the right place. If you want to create and implement solid fundamentals in your business without sacrificing fun.Pam (00:49):I'm Pam Ivey, I'm certified in small business management and I concentrate in the areas of training and certifying real estate assistance, coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs in online business, marketing growth and profit acceleration. And I take men and women business owners aged 40 plus to bucket list destinations around the world for a month at a time to work, explore, and live in community.Jane (01:15):And I'm Jane, Garee known as the sales strategist for the non sales person. And I work with business owners who want to increase their conversion rate, shorten their sales cycle and have more impact and influence with the work they do all while having more fun with selling,Pam (01:31):Hey everyone, and welcome back to Flourish and Grow to CEO. The podcast today, we're going to talk to you about branding and messaging and marketing. And these are a couple of areas that people groan about, but there's so important that we nail in order to move our business forward and to grow. So I first wanted to talk a little bit about branding because people often mistake branding for the visuals, the logo and the colors, and people want to dive in right, and play with colors and play with different typography or fonts. But we have to really understand and get that branding is really the space that you occupy in your clients and your prospective client's mind. It's what people think about when the name of your company is said. So that's really branding. It's your personality. And it's what you want people to think when people say your company name, does that sound good? Jane, do you think that's nice and clear?Jane (02:44):Yeah, I think that's perfect. I know branding can get so confusing for a lot of, there are a lot of different facets to it, but absolutely branding should just be the feeling this thought of the feelings somebody knows they can experience with when they work with you or your company. Yeah.Pam (03:02):I think you brought up an excellent point too, cause it's definitely the feeling that people have when they think of you too. And when we really are able to develop our personality, our brand personality and, you know, develop the thought that we have, we want to have in our perspective and our clients' minds, we're really able to envelop our messaging.Jane (03:24):Yeah. And the messaging piece is really urgent. So the branding and the messaging, those have to be really on point. And that is what gives people, that feeling of security because they know what they can expect from working with you.Pam (03:39):So can you give us some examples maybe of messaging?Jane (03:43):Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people confuse messaging and they think it's just something you've slapdash put together and shoot out there. And the messaging is really one of the most critical components of your entire business model and particularly of your brand. And here's why when a message is on point, it will very naturally. And by naturally it's the end result, or you have to be strategic to get to the natural. But when a message is on point, it will have recognition and resonance for your ideal clients. So let me jump into that a little bit further. So the recognition means they're able to realize, they're able to recognize that, Hey, where's this person been my whole life. This is what I need their services. That's what I need to get, where I want to be. So there's a point of recognition where they know that they need you and you're going to be a good fit.Jane (04:33):The problem that they have is probably able to be solved by the solution that you're offering. So that's the point of recognition which should show up in your messaging. There's also the point of resonance and resonance is more the feel the resonance is, Oh, I feel like this person gets me. I feel like this person understands the challenges and the struggles that I've had. I really feel like this person would resonate with what I'm doing and what I want to do and where I want to be with my business and my life. So messaging has got to be so dialed in that when your ideal clients read it or hear it or experience it in any medium from you and your company, they recognize and resonate with it. Without those two things happening as a result of your spot on message, it's going to be really challenging to get clients. And that's because you're going to get caught in the noise. You're going to get stuck and sound like everybody else. And it's just not something that's going to be compelling. So messaging, messaging, messaging, you really want to pay a lot of attention and time toPam (05:37):Exactly. And you know, our, we start with our messaging, cause you're saying we want people to say, Oh my God, it's like, she knows me. Or she gets me or you took the words right out of my mouth. We really have to understand our ideal client avatar. And I know that people struggle with this because they say, Oh my goodness done this. I know who my ideal client is. But oftentimes, you know, what we hear is when we say, who's your ideal client, they'll say I work with women who own a business and are stuck,Jane (06:12):Right? Yeah. It's just not clear enough messaging. And you really want to think about what are your ideal clients? What are their problems? What are their challenges? What are they sick and tired of dealing with? What do they no longer want to have in their life? What do they want to let go of? What do they wish worked as it were? And on the flip side, what do they most want? What do they dream of? What do they hope for? I call it the 2:00 AM in the middle of the night problem. When they're in bed at two o'clock in the morning, in the middle of the night and they can't sleep, what are they saying to themselves? And this tripped up because they know from a different level and from a different vantage point, what their ideal clients need and want. But here's the thing, your ideal clients almost never know what they really, really need and what they really really want. It's almost kind of like a surface level. I want more money. I want more time. I want this business to be successful and that's good. That's a start for your messaging. But in the messaging, you need to dig deeper to figure out what is the underlying root problem or desire they have from all of that. So two o'clock in the morning, you want to think in terms of their mind, what are they saying to themselves in the dark when nobody else can hear them? That's okay.Pam (07:35):Important one, what is the self-talk that's going on in their head? What would the ultimate vision be of what they want their life to look like? Because a business as part of your life. So somehow can you help them get there? There's so many questions that you need answers to. And I'm thinking Jane, what we'll do is in our show notes for this episode, we'll include a list of those questions that you should be asking to really hone in on who your ideal client is. I think it'll be most helpful. We've totally done it. Jane and I have done it. So it's very detailed and Oh, what are the best ways I want to let people in on this secret is to interview your ideal client or the clients that you love to work with. Let's start there. So your current clients or past clients that you absolutely adored working with, talk to them, ask them these questions that we're going to give to you in the show notes and what you'll get. Not only you'll get a clearer view of who your ideal client is, but you'll get their language, how they describe what their problems and their hopes and their dreams are. When you use that in your marketing. That's how you seriously resonate with your ideal client.Jane (08:52):Yeah. Their language is that's the ticket there. It's not your language, it's their language.Pam (08:59):So of course, we're going to delve much further into the branding and messaging side of our businesses with amazing experts that we have come on to the show in upcoming episodes. How about we talk about marketing and I know Jane is rolling her eyes, cause it's not her favorite topic, but it's one that's mine. So I'm so excited to talk about it.Jane (09:25):Well, as you know, over the years, I haven't embraced marketing. So for some of you, if you're listening right now and you're thinking, woo, let's get into marketing and I love it. And you're like, Pam, that's great. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to all the other people right now, like me who go marketing. And it's just the bane of my existence. I know it has to be done, but I don't really love doing it. So hopefully we are going to give you some clarity today on what marketing actually is and how you can turn it from something you just can't stand the thought of doing to something that actuallyPam (09:55):Pretty fun. And it can be fun. And I think why a lot of people don't like marketing quote unquote, or it overwhelms them so much is because there's always a new marketing flavor of the day. I like to call it. There's a new tactic. Remember we were talking about strategy and tactics. We need to have our overall strategy first. And part of that is knowing who your ideal client is, where they hang out, where they get their information from who else they listen to. And it can really hone in on what tactics you use to achieve the overall vision, you know, with your strategy. So going back to fundamentals, then we're gonna really concentrate on what's called the AIDAS model. That's A I D A S and that's for attract like attracting attention to your business, maintaining interest, creating desire for what you have to sell people, taking action.Jane (10:58):So they're actually buying what you're selling and afterwards to satisfy customers because that results in repeat business and recommendations and testimonials. So we can have more business. Here's an example. Let's put it into something that you can relate to. Let's say you've structured your website around the AIDAS model. And you're going to use, let's say content marketing to drive people to your site in your content. You can drag their attention and deeply engaged with them. Your target audience will start to become curious about what your company actually does. So in this stage, the attract attention, the customer is asking, what is it in order to get to this stage? You've got to first get your content in front of them. And this comes with increased brand awareness and effective messaging. What we were talking about before. So for example, effective content marketing is one method of attracting visitors to your website.Pam (11:59):If you create content that solves their problems and focuses on their passions, you'll be able to draw them in and provide a solution. When executed effectively, your target audience should be able to discover your content through Google, social media and other channels that you decide that you want to use. Because, you know, as a side note, doing your homework on your ideal client, avatar, where they hang out. So our next step in ADAS is to generate interest. Once your target audience is interested in your product or service, they'll want to learn more about your brand, the benefits of your solution and your potential fit with them in this stage. The goal is to get them to think I like it in order to get to this stage, your content has got to be persuasive and engaging. Well, the first stage of ADA is capturing their attention. This stage is about holding it. So you can do this with a hook. For example, let's say your content marketing was effective and drawing them into your website to learn about a pain, a problem, or a need. They have, you might then quote unquote, hook them with engaging storytelling that demonstrates the why behind your solution. Stories really resonate with humans. And it's a simple way to convey information in a way that stimulates empathy and curiosity. Jane is a masterful storyteller, and you really use this well to draw people into your brand.Jane (13:36):Yeah. Storytelling is actually, we were wired to tell stories back in the, okay, can I history geek out for a little minute here? Oh yeah, absolutely. James loves history. So back in the day, since the Dawn of time, we really have been storytellers because there was no such thing as the internet. There wasn't even any such thing as pen and paper. And so the story tellers of old, they were one of the valued members of the community. They had the reverence as an elder, a tribe elder because the storyteller was the person that would bring you the news. The storyteller was the person that could tell you what was going on out in the world. And the storyteller was the one that would, of course create a sense of community and curiosity for just life and the rest of your tribe. And it's a bonding technique. So while it has become very fashionable as a bonding technique in a, an a natural way, but definitely through the way of being strategic about it originally storytelling, that's just what we did. It's just what we did at humans as humans. So we, as people, we, as the human race, we're always going to naturally connect to somebody telling a story. It's how we absorb information. It's how we start really lighting our souls on fire so that we want to go do something or be something it's. Yeah,Pam (14:59):Absolutely let you out and really interest people. And it's a wonderful way to learn about your brand too, is through story.Jane (15:07):Yeah, definitely. That's awesome.Pam (15:09):So the next step in AIDAS is to stimulate desire. So they want what you got. So people do business. Of course, we know we've heard this before with people they know like and trust, and it's something I've called forever. The K L T factor that's know like, and trust the first two stages of the AIDAS model establishes the know-how and the, like the goal of this desire stage is to change it from, I like it too.Pam (15:37):I want what she's got, and that's done by cementing in the final piece of the puzzle, which is trust to do this, keep serving them content, make sure they subscribe to your blog, follow you on social media and download your offers. The more prospects interact with your brand, the more they'll trust you boosting the chances they'll eventually buy your products or services and becoming your customer. So for example, the prospects you're most likely to close are the customers who envision a future with you. They already enjoy consuming your content and think your product and service will be even better for this reason. You've got to Institute a gap between where they are now and where they could be, with your solution. At the same time, you've got to establish social proof with case studies and testimonials before and after style content is a great example of how to stimulate desire while gaining trust with people. The next step in ADAS is to spur into action. So after you generate enough desire for your products or services, give your prospects that chance to act on it after all, what's the point of creating content and building deep relationships with prospects. If there isn't a clear next step, so don't be coy about it. Ask them to buy the goal in this step is to get them to decide from, you know, I want it to I'm getting it no matter what the next step is, you should compel them to respond with low friction, but high incentive calls to action. And by low friction, we mean make it as easy as possible to buy for you. Don't put any obstacles in the way or hoops that they have to jump through because nothing's more frustrating. For example, whether they're far away or close to a purchasing decision, the next step that you present should be high value. In other words, it's got to help them in some way, if they understand what the outcome of your offer is and find it valuable, they'll be more likely to act since they aren't simply committing to a sales call or sales content consider exactly how you can provide that value while motivating them to engage with you.Pam (18:05):The calls to action or CTA pays for this next step or offer should be prominent clear. And as I said, uncomplicated, perhaps it's a button or a banner that spells out what action they...

Hard Work Alone Is Not Enough. Check Your Inner Game and Vision - EP. 4

Nothing is more important than your mindset and what you tell yourself about who you are and what you are capable of doing. Without a strong and well-developed inner game, believing you can have a successful business and actually achieving it are going to be challenging. Pam Ivey talks about the importance of your inner game and how being prepared to handle your limiting beliefs is the most important skill you can master as a business owner. Jane Garee teaches on the necessity of a vision, what the difference is between a vision and a strategy and why creating both become the beginnings of a blueprint of a strong foundation.​In today’s episode, you will hear about - [02:33] Why limiting beliefs are the number one killer of your business and what you need to do to change them.[10:08] How your negative stories are providing a pay-off and how to change that [17:14] Why understanding the difference between vision and strategy is so important and how to not confuse the two [25:42] How does your vision becomes the core of your business.[34:05] Differences between strategy and tactics to assure a successful business. Did you like this episode? What else would you like to know about inner game? You can tell us in the comment section below or you can join our Facebook group and participate in a great community of lady bosses like you! Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast to know more about how to flourish and grow as a CEO.Connect with us: www.instagram.com/flourishandgrowtoceo https://www.facebook.com/groups/flourishandgrowtoceo Determine if you're ready to grow your business and how strong your foundations truly are at: https://flourish.biz/quizEPISODE 4 TRANSCRIPTPam (00:00): You're listening to the flourish and grow to CEO podcast, episode four.Are you a lady boss making 50 to a hundred thousand in your business? And you're ready to break through that six figure barrier.Jane (00:35): Have you done a great job of creating a nice life as the ultimate gig master, but no, your inner CEO is calling you to greater Heights. You're in the right place. If you want to create and implement solid fundamentals in your business without sacrificing fun.Pam (00:49): I'm Pam Ivey, I'm certified in small business management and I concentrate in the areas of training and certifying real estate assistance, coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs in online business, marketing growth and profit acceleration. And I take men and women business owners aged 40 plus two bucket list destinations around the world for a month at a time to work, explore, and live in community.Jane (01:15): And I'm Jane Garee known as the sales strategist for the non-sales person and I work with business owners who want to increase their conversion rate, shorten their sales cycle and have more impact and influence with the work they do all while having more fun with selling.Pam (01:30): Hey everyone. And welcome back. We're so glad you joined us again for flourish and grow to CEO today. We're going to talk about two of the foundational pillars that are super important. Not that any of the others aren't, but we're going to be concentrating today on inner game and vision and strategy and what inner game or mindset, if you will, might be another way that you've heard of it. But we really like the term inner game. What we say to ourselves is super powerful, so they can be positive thoughts. They can be negative thoughts. And there are a number of things that stand in our way to our positive thoughts. You've probably heard of some or all of these. So what's involved with inner game. It's limiting beliefs, money, mindset, scarcity, mindset, compare and despair, imposter syndrome, fear of failure. And yes, this is a thing.Pam (02:33): Fear of success and fear of judgment. But today we're going to focus on limiting beliefs. We absolutely all of us have them, but there are ways to change them. So we're going to go over that in a little bit, but just know that there are good and there are bad limiting beliefs. Each one affects our lives in one way or another. For example, your good beliefs are created to assist you throughout your life while your bad beliefs can hinder you from being successful and they can stop you from moving forward. A limiting belief restricts you to what you believe you can do. You can have, or you can experience. So you can, as I said, eliminate these beliefs permanently, but you need to understand that they're protecting you for some reason, they're not inherited at birth. So you didn't come into this life thinking it was difficult to make money or make friends.Pam (03:31): You didn't think you're fat, or you're not very bright. You never thought that you were a terrible person, right? I mean, this just didn't happen when you were a baby. So many of our beliefs were instilled in us during childhood. They were all due to experiences that we had and things that we heard when we were kids, the majority of our beliefs, which is really interesting come about before you turn six years old. So it's really possible to learn what led you to the belief. If you think back on the experiences you had or the statements you heard, when you're a kid, for example, you may have heard that money doesn't grow on trees. Most of us heard that from our parents. And you know, that actually makes us think negatively about money. So when your beliefs are being formed, it caused the subconscious mind to create an internal image of who you are because of those beliefs.Pam (04:28): Every time a belief formed, the subconscious mind included it into your blueprint. And this blueprint affects every part of your life actions, your experiences and your thoughts. The only part of you that knows the blueprint is the subconscious. It's going to work really hard to keep up that image. So unless you change the blueprint, it'll stop you from getting what you want in your life. And that's not what we want for you. So just know that these limiting beliefs, they really control your actions and your thoughts. So when you want or desire something, you need to think beyond that blueprint that we have, or else your limiting beliefs will rear their ugly head and keep you from attaining what you want. So think of these limiting beliefs as scripts that play over and over in our head. And it's automatic. We really don't think about them.Pam (05:19): They're made up of what you believe about yourself and your potential for success. So let's see Jane, I bet you'll identify with some of these. So let's have a listen and see how many we identify with I'm ready. Let's do it. All right. Anything you think of saying has already been said and much better than you can say it. Yeah. If people really knew you, they wouldn't like you, those people saying nice things about you are so sweet, but they just don't know you well enough to see how crummy really are. She has more experience than you do. She writes better than you do. How come you can't be more like her? You have to do it the right way.Jane (06:03): Yeah. The right way. And anything short of perfection is just an abomination. You can not do that. Right?Pam (06:12):No wonder she's more successful. Look at all she's done have so been there myself. You're never going to be able to do everything that you're aiming for. You just want too much. You're not pretty enough thin enough. Young enough to be on camera. Hello? I'm sure. Every each and every one of us has heard that one inside her head.Jane (06:33): Yeah. Everyone, nobody gets on. Camera goes, Oh, I look fantastic.Pam (06:38): Isn't that the truth. It's not good enough. And I can totally relate to that with what I'm putting together, courses that I want to sell. Oh, it's not good enough. It's not perfect yet. I can't put this out there, but you know, when I do good is good enough. I have to tell you because you can always be revising and upgrading,Jane (06:58): Right? Absolutely.Pam (07:01): You're not worthy of being paid money.Jane (07:04): Yeah. That's a big one for a lot of people.Pam (07:06): Here's another big one: It's too late for you to try and make it big.Pam (07:13): To the women that we really work with are 50 and above. So we hear this a lot, but it's never too late to start something. That's for sure your success is not sustainable. You suck at business. You're kidding yourself that people will pay for your services. Isn't that ridiculous? But these are all the kinds of thoughts that all of us have had at one time or another, or that continue to play in our heads. So, there are ways that you can beat these things up and beat them right out of your head. One of them is to pick a new script. So let me see for an example, let's just stick with my courses. There's no way I can create a course as good or as better as my last one. And you know, that's actually an underlying fear of expectations and fulfilment kind of interesting, but replace it with I'm a creative professional, good ideas are abundant in me and I'm always improving. So these are things that you say in your head and reinforce and maintain that new script. So take a post-it note and write that down, post it on your mirror, on your fridge, on your car rear view mirror, or something that you see a number of times throughout the day. And just repeat that over and over again, because what we hear in our subconscious mind becomes a belief. And if we can erased those old beliefs with our new script, we'll start to really believe it and erase that old.Jane (08:51): That's true. And Pam, I don't know about you, but one of the things that I really have come to embrace is not taking a band-aid approach to the reframing meaning. So if I say something like nobody really needs the work that I do as an example, just to kind of take a deep breath and reframe it and go, everybody needs the work that I do, or my ideal clients need the work that I do. I always liken it to just kind of slapping a band-aid over a really deep wound. So when I think about inner game and reframing and changing things up, I really like to sink into what's the root of that feeling? Why would I tell myself something like that? Where did it come from? How long has it been that way? And I've really discovered this has been pretty profound for me.Jane (09:32): Actually, once I started digging down and asking myself, what am I feeling and why am I feeling it? And then that would cause something to pop up and then I'd ask the same questions. What am I feeling? And why am I feeling it? And all of a sudden what I was really starting to find out is that it had nothing to do with whatever limiting belief I was telling myself. It was really deep. It was really deep and it doesn't have anything to do with the current moment, the current reality. So really giving yourself the space and the time and the permission to just go there, just go there rather than reframe really quickly and come up with some new language.Pam (10:08): That's very true. You know, I have a great example because when I was younger, I would go for jobs, like apply for jobs that were beyond my experience level or my education. I just always went for them. And my mom would always say to me, you'll never get that. You're not qualified for that. You know, you're just not right for that job. And that kind of put in me that instilled in me kind of, I would put my back up and I would say, watch me. So that's kind of interesting because that kind of led me to be extremely competitive. I have to tell you that every time she said that to me, I got the job or I got the job offer!Yeah. But it's things like that. And people don't say that to be mean to you. It's people that love us and they actually want to save us from hurt or disappointment. So my mom didn't want me to go into these job interviews with my hopes that way up high. And then they say, you're not qualified. We're not hiring you. So that's a really interesting one. But the other way that you can really help yourself along with this is really recognize a relapse. Just like you were saying, if it happens again to you, it is going to happen again. I mean, these are deep seated. And as I mentioned, a lot of these happen by the age of six, by the time we're six years old. So they're pretty deep seated. So you might have a relapse. So on those days, when you recognize that relapse, make your affirmations, if you will even stronger, like I am creative, and I have excellent ideas that people need to be exposed to. I mean, I can really help people or I take the steps to make powerful improvements to myself and my work. So really affirming with your affirmations will really help to dig that into your subconscious and change your story. Right?Jane (12:15): It's just a story. And I think what happens for a lot of us is the story always serves to some extent, there's always some kind of payoff in that story. So the story of I'll never be good enough that serves in a way, because if you think you're never going to be good enough, then you won't have to go do the work. Well, if you don't have to do the work and the payoff is you can go do something else with your time. And the justification is I can go do this thing with my time because I'm certainly not going to go do the work. Why? Because I'm not going to be good enough for the work that I'm doing. Nobody's going to want it fix it.Pam (12:47): Exactly. And if I don't do the work, then it can't be proven to me that I'm not good enough.Jane (12:52): Right? So there's this justification. That's very powerful. And that is the payoff. So going back to sitting down, when I really got serious about this, and I would sit down and say, why am I feeling this? Or what am I feeling? And why am I feeling this way? The other thing I started to ask myself is what is the payoff? What is the payoff of not doing this work? What is the payoff of me not getting on a stage? I mean, that doesn't happen to be one for me because I love getting on the stage. But whatever your thing is, people will tend to say, well, there's no payoff for being unhealthy or not working my business or pursuing my dreams. There's, there's no payoff because that's what I really want. And what I discovered is that there always is a payoff, because if there isn't a payoff, you'd have no reason to stay in that situation. You would go pursue your dreams. You would get more healthy. You would go do the work that you feel you're called to do,Pam (13:46): Right? The payoff, or what are you avoiding? I think that a big one too, but I just want people to think about it when you're saying those things to yourself, like I'm fat, I'm not smart. Those kinds of things. If a friend could hear your thoughts, what would you want her to hear you saying to yourself instead that can really help you to turn things around?Jane (14:09): I have a really good friend who, anytime she hears me talking in terms about myself, that's less than flattering. She will always say, Oh, be nice to my friend Jane. And yes, that's such a great thing to say to somebody.Pam (14:24): It is absolutely. But I just want to sum up inner game by saying to you that you're not alone. Absolutely. All of us have these feelings. And I have a couple of really famous quotes from people that you'll know to know that these people believe it or not have limiting beliefs to even the amazing Maya Angelou had negative thoughts. And these thoughts revolved around, believe it or not imposter syndrome. So here's one of our quotes around that. I've written 11 books, but each time I think, Oh, they're going to find out. Now I've run a game on everybody. And they're going to find me out. That's our Maya. Hello from Emma Watson. It's almost like the better I do. The more my feelings of inadequacy actually increases because I'm just going any moment someone's going to find out I'm a total fraud and that I didn't deserve any of what I achieved.Pam (15:24): Yeah. From Penelope Cruz. I feel every time I'm making a movie, I feel like it's my first movie. Every time I have the same fear that I'm going to be fired and I'm not joking every movie the first week, I always feel they could fire me. And from one of my personal heroes, because she just seems to be able to do everything to me, Jennifer Lopez, I'm very insecure about my voice after being told for so many years that you're not as good as this person or that person, it beats away on your insecurities. I always wanted to be a singer and a dancer, but when they start dissecting you like that, it does work away on your insecurities. You know, I'm like, wow. I thought it was good at this. It does get to you. I'm only human.Jane (16:12): There you go. She's only human. Jennifer Lopez. Only human intervene. Only human. Certainly the rest of us could have to be only human and not so much in admittance really, as rather an acknowledgement. I am only human.Pam (16:29): Absolutely. So we're going to be diving into inner game a lot more in upcoming episodes. And we're even going to be interviewing some mindset experts around this subject because this is something we really got to nail in order to really have success in our business. The success that we reallyJane (16:48): Or looking for it is so incredibly important because without this piece, you're going to do some tactics and then you're gonna get in your own head and then you're going to create a strategy. And then you're going to fall into your limiting belief patterns. So I'm really excited for the upcoming experts that we'll be interviewing later in later podcasts, because they're all amazing. And they've just got some incredible stuff to say about this topic. Do they everPam (17:14): Awesome. So you're talking to us now about vision and strategy,Jane (17:18): Vision and strategy. Let's tee this up, cause this is some good stuff here too. So inner game, you always want to start there without your inner game. It's going to be really challenging to implement any of the other foundational pillars and remember all of the pillars. They're not in succession. It's not a linear path that you're following. They're all interconnected. So we're going to continue to remind you of the interconnectedness of these eight pillars. At times they tend to be more linear and it's kind of necessary to follow them any more linear, but the fact remains. They're always going to be interconnected and they're all up in each other's business without understanding that it's a challenge really to get that business pulled together. So you can scale. You can leverage, you can build the business that you really have always wanted to build and create the vision.Jane (18:07): Here we go. So let's talk about vision first. You know, there's actually, people have probably heard this. It happens to come out of the Bible, but it says where there is no vision, the people perish. And to me, that's just straight up common sense. So every morning when you get up, it's you have a vision. You have a vision of what you want to look like when you walk out the door. So...

The 7 Essential Business Growth Foundational Pillars - EP. 3

Building a successful business requires a strong foundation but more importantly, you have to understand how the different parts of the foundation interconnect. Pam Ivey shares how she struggled to create a solid foundation that would provide ongoing success while implementing multiple tactics without a clear strategy to support the different things she was doing. Jane Garee talks about becoming a great Gig Master and then realizing going from gig to gig wasn’t a business that was foundationally sound. Although both of them made good money, true growth and leverage from the business were difficult to achieve.​In today’s episode, you will hear about: [1:29] Why business foundations are the key to running your business like a CEO.[6:35] Why being great at getting and serving clients will keep you busy but not successful. [10:57] Why being brave and having a clear vision is necessary for business success.[20:25] What is the difference between a solid strategy based on a clear vision and one that isn’t.[23:22] How to craft an effective message for a target audience following a marketing strategy.[27:38] What selling really is: serving people at the highest level possible.[29:39] How to build a successful operational team to reach business goals.What are the eight foundational pillars to build a successful business?1) Inner GameWhat you think about on the inside is what shows up for you on the outside. Your mindset is everything in your success.2-3) Branding + MessagingThe message communicated to your target audience through your products and your verbal and non-verbal communication messages that describe what you do and how you’re different from others.4) MarketingBuilding deeper, more meaningful relationships with people that want to buy your products and services. The ultimate goal is to create leads for sales conversations.5) SalesSelling is about discovering the prospect’s needs by asking them and actively listening, and then having a joint plan to help them achieve their needs better, faster and more cost-effectively than anyone else could help them.6) Leadership + TeamTo set and achieve challenging goals, take fast and decisive action when needed, and inspire others to perform at their highest level they can achieve.7) OperationsEverything that happens within a company to keep it running and earning income. This includes things such as finance, systems and processes, and supply management.Connect with us: www.instagram.com/flourishandgrowtoceo https://www.facebook.com/groups/flourishandgrowtoceo Determine if you're ready to grow your business and how strong your foundations truly are at: https://flourish.biz/quizEPISODE 3 TRANSCRIPTIONPam: (00:00) You're listening to episode three of the Flourish and Grow to CEO podcast.Pam: (00:26) Are you a lady boss making 50 to a hundred thousand in your business, and you're ready to break through that six figure barrier.Jane: (00:34) Have you done a great job of creating a nice life as the ultimate gig master, but no, your inner CEO is calling you to greater Heights. You're in the right place. If you want to create and implement solid fundamentals in your business without sacrificing fun.Pam: (00:48) I'm Pam Ivey, I'm certified in small business management and I concentrate in the areas of training and certifying real estate assistance, coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs in online business, marketing growth and profit acceleration. And I take men and women business owners aged 40 plus two bucket list destinations around the world for a month at a time to work, explore, and live in community.Jane: (01:14) And I'm Jane, Garee known as the sales strategist for the non sales person. And I work with business owners who want to increase their conversion rate, shorten their sales cycle and have more impact and influence with the work they do all while having more fun with selling.Pam: (01:29) Hey, welcome back everyone to Flourish and Grow to CEO. We're really glad that you've joined us today for this episode, because it's really important. What we're going to talk about really forms the basis of everything we do here at flourish. We're going to be taking a look at the eight essential business foundations that will allow you to build a successful and sustainable business that forms the basis for you to scale and grow, you know, become a CEO.Jane: (01:58) So Pam, I am so excited to talk about this today because this really is it, this was kind of the genesis of you and I creating Flourish and Grow to CEO because what we're really going to talk about is interestingly enough, something that most other business owners don't talk about that much. And that's about the interaction and the integration of these eight foundational pillars. So a lot of people talk about each one of them or a mix of them, but it's really the interconnectedness that takes you from being a gig master to a CEO. So I can't wait to dive into thisPam: (02:38) Exactly the gig master thing. So going from project to project and client to client, instead of really having an overall vision for your company and knowing where you want to go and how you're going to get there.Jane: (02:51) Yeah. And you know, I've been 10 years in this industry and I used to do contract sales for some of the biggest names in the coaching industry. Everybody would know them if I said them. So we're kind of talking like eight, 10 years of strategy sessions for other people sitting in the seat and hearing the same things over and over from prospective clients. And it really amazed me how people would come in and want to invest in a certain thing. Usually something that was tactical without being able to see the bigger picture or without, and this is really key without realizing that they really were not ready for that particular thing or that particular program. And it was so funny to me because I started having these conversations where instead of selling something, I would give them kind of the lay of the land of listen, you don't need this right now.Jane: (03:43) What you need is you need to figure this out, let me give this to you on a diagram. It just was so enlightening to them. And that's when I thought, you know what? This is a key problem in this industry is people rush out and they engage or they purchase something. And it's not that that thing is bad because usually the programs are really good. And it's not that the coach who’s selling it is doing them a disservice by wanting them to get involved in it because that's not the case either. The problem is everybody's investing out of order. That's actually a term I just created several years ago when I was having these conversations. So investing out of order and what that means is you go in and you're like, let me build a Facebook group. But when you're asked to articulate who your ideal client is, you don't really have the language for that.Jane: (04:26) Or, Oh, I just bought a program on how to write a book, but you don't have any traction or a following. And you're not really even certain who your ideal client is or how they would come to find you or what your messaging is. So it was so frustrating for them and it really became a passion of mine to help people understand there's sort of an order to everything, but interconnectedness is what's really important. So not that I ended up selling some programs because some people were absolutely ready for it. And then that's a beautiful thing, but I just really started to think, you know, people need to know and have a better understanding of how to grow their business instead of random tactics here and random tactics there, we got to look at this as a whole game plan.Pam: (05:13) Well, that's what we tend to do as business owners, especially in the beginning, you know, not even, especially in the beginning, I shouldn't really say that, but we just see that something isn't working or we're not getting enough clients. We're not getting enough traction with our marketing. So we keep jumping in with different tactics. I'm going to go try Facebook ads. I'm going to do webinars and try to do a launch strategy. I'm going to do this, that, and the other thing. But without looking at the whole picture, all of the different foundational pillars, as we're going to outline in a few minutes, as you talked about you invest at order or you're jumping in, and you're not having the ideal conversation with a potential client that you'd actually like to work with. You're kind of just what I call taking a shotgun approach to your marketing in particular, you're just spewing out a message and like a shotgun, they splay out in all different directions. You're just hoping that something catches. You're hoping that somebody hears it, that's going to want your services or products. So we have to really start looking at each of the individual pillars before we jump in with those tactics to know how they're going to push us forward to our actual goals.Jane: (06:35) Yeah, absolutely. And if you're listening to this right now and you're thinking, Oh no, that's so me, of course, it's you it's me. It's Pam, it's you. Right. All of us. This is what happens. So it's not about, I don't want anybody to think you've done it incorrectly, or you have screwed it up. Or, you know what, none of that is what we're talking about, because let's face it. You got to get up and do something every day. When you're a business owner, when you're an entrepreneur, you just, you have to so big ops and high fives. If you've been getting up and pounding it out every day, whether you have a plan or not, your desire is there, you're trying to do something. And probably most of you have actually made a lot of headway with everything. So we're just here to kind of help tighten up the process at this point.Jane: (07:17) So it isn't the rushing from gig to gig, to gig from paycheck to paycheck. And it's more of a strategy and it's more of you walking into the vision and the dream that you have for your business and then therefore your life. So, and like you said, Pam, this is completely ongoing. We're not sitting here going, Oh, we've totally messed with this. We get up every day and we look at our foundational pillars and they go, and I know we're not saying any of that at all. We're reviewing the foundational pillars because we know that the interaction and the interconnectedness is really, really important. Yeah.Pam: (07:49) Exactly. I know a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included that would get up and I would think I have a mortgage and I need to put food on the table. So what I have to do today to make money, but I didn't really take a good look at where I wanted to take the business. It was kind of short-sighted at the same point necessary to just keep going day to day, right?Jane: (08:13) It is completely necessary. It is completely necessary. And I always think of one of those jigsaw puzzles. And I think that's really what we do as business owners. We get up every day and we dumped the box out Monday morning and we've got all the pieces there on the table and we just start putting the pieces together. So what if we actually dumped the pieces out on the table and then turn the box lid over and said, here's the final vision? Here's the picture. This is what I'm trying to put together with the pieces. Now let me do the border first. Okay. Now let me focus over here, where there are blues or the ocean, or versus the sky or whatever. There's the box top there in front. And it's a guide so that you really have some kind of plan. And there's a little bit of order to things rather than just a mad scramble to put the pieces together.Pam: (09:04) There she goes using your superpower again with analogies. I just love it. I think that really paints a picture.Jane: (09:12) Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. We're just here to metaphor super power. We're here to give you the box top so that if it were a race, let's say not that it is, but the person next to you dumped it out and goes desert, trying to put the pieces together and you dump yours out and we go, here's the box top. This is what you're aiming for. Here you go. You're probably going to come together without as much effort.Pam: (09:34) Exactly. Well, you know, where we really, really start with our foundational pillars is between our ears really does all start between our ears. And what you think about on the inside is really what shows up for you on the outside. So your mindset is absolutely critical for success. You have to think you can do it, right?Jane: (09:59) Yeah. That is some slime real estate going on there, right. Between the ears. And I, I really wish somebody would have pounded this into me when I was starting my business. I've always really, and I know Pam you too were students of self-development. We like that. However, there's a difference between the discipline of doing it and doing it on the weekend, or when you have a few moments in the evening or something, something that's just a bit more random. And I really wish somebody would have said to me, listen, you need to every day on a schedule, sit down and do self development work every single day, because that really is the difference between having a successful business and not, it's still not the tactics and the vision. And the, I mean, all of that is really important, but without what's going on in your head, being the lighthouse, being the guide, you're just going to be in a whole world of hurt.Pam: (10:57) The author is unknown, but there's a couple of sentences here that really sums it all up. For me, having an optimistic mindset increases likelihood of formulating a winning perspective and achieving long-term success. People with a success mindset always seem to figure out how to make things happen, despite seemingly impossible odds. And I think that really sums things up.Jane: (11:24) Okay. It does. Yes. A hundred percent. I love that. And I just got that vision of you and I on the beach in Australia, trying to figure out, tell this story. It's a little embarrassing. I think I'm going to tell it.Pam: (11:37) It's fun.Jane: (11:40) We set this up for everybody. So Pam and I, you know, we traveled together and we stayed for a month at a time that's Pam's company and veteran's life. And we were in Sydney. We were based in Sydney, but we took a weekend and we went with a few, the other women, we went up to the great barrier reef in the Outback and it was, it was so great. A couple of the women opted to go do this open water, kind of dive. And Pam and I were no way we're not doing that. We want to go sit on the beach and do some snorkelling and have some drinks or whatever. So off Pam and I go, we went, we went to the Island and we got to the beach part. And I said, Oh, after all that running around, first of all, Australia, so stinking hot.Jane: (12:17) And whenever it is like a thousand degrees in Australia, I guess we were there in November and we're hot. We're sweaty. We've been running around this Island all day. We'd had a few passionfruit cocktails and it's just, I just want to go sit on the beach and chill out. I just want to relax. So we pay him, you and I walked over to the beach. We sat down. And first of all, there's no sand on those beaches. It's all these shells. So we're crunching, crunching, crunching on these shells. And we're already kind of starting to laugh because the shelter inside our shoes and it's not super silky sand. So we're hot, we're sweaty. We're crunching on these shelves. There's a lot of work just trying to get this to sit down and chill out and look at the waves. So we finally make it over there.Jane: (13:03) We plopped down on the beach. I've got all my snorkelling gear, but Pam, I know you're going to remember this. We were fully clothed. We were an appropriate Island attire, but we had our clothes on, right? Like the undergone our bathing yards. We did not have our bathing suits on. And I just remember looking at you and say, I really want a snorkel, but I just turned my head and I saw her. The bathroom is to change and I don't want to get up and walk all the way over there and all the way back. It's just, I can't even, I mean, it was really hard to walk on all those shelves and the thought of crunching on those shells and, and the heat and everything. It just, no, so here's what we did. And this is to your point, Pam, about an optimistic mindset figures out how to make things work.Jane: (13:50) And I'm going to add another bullet point on there for business owners, which is, and you also got to be brave. So there's a combination of figuring out how to make something work when plan a isn't, isn't an option, or it's not maybe your best option, or maybe it's just not the option that you want. That would be hauling it back to the bathroom changing and then doing another round down to the beach. It just was, no, it was going to take too long. So optimistic mindset to figure out how to make things happen. And then the other thing is being brave enough to take the road not traveled, right? Plan B. We're going to go with plan a. So this piece is important because I remember looking at you and saying, I'm so tired and worn out at this point. If I'm not going to go back to the bathroom and change into my bathing suit, I'm not going to be able to snorkel.Jane: (14:36) Maybe I really will be okay with just sitting here on the beach at the great barrier reef in Australia, knowing that I was here without the snorkelling. And then you and I had that moment where we looked at each other and it was kind of like we had a mind-meld or something. And it was, why would we do that? We were there. That's really what we were going to, we needed to just figure out how to make this work. So we had really big towels, beach towels, and we were also kind of, I think we were wearing clothes that obviously were loose fitting because we were at a beach. And so what did we end up doing? We ended, okay, plug your ears. If this is like TMI, it's not going to get graphic or raunchy or anything, but PG version, we just, we shimmied out of our clothes with holding towels for each other and kind of changing underneath our clothes without, you know, nobody saw anything.Jane: (15:28) Here's the point that actually took quite a bit of bravery because we're standing in the middle of a beach where everybody else is. And yeah, we did quarter kind of scooch over to some trees or whatever, but people could've seen us, people were milling about it. Wasn't private. And here we are now shimmying out of our clothes and putting on our bathing suits in the middle of the beach. And yeah, nobody saw anything PG version. That's great. But that was actually a really heroic effort, I think, because just, you know, for two women to stand on the middle of the beach, we're not 18 year old, gorgeous, you know, new bile...

Who Are You As a Business Owner? Know Yourself to Grow a Better Business - EP. 2

Having a deep knowledge of who you are, how you are naturally wired and understanding what your core values are, all are essential to obtaining success as a business owner. Your best chance at having a thriving business is when you embrace your core strengths, work in your zone of genius and honor what matters most to you.Pam Ivey talks about learning to understand productivity rhythm and unique skills so you don’t mimic other people and instead, create and run a business that works for you. Jane Garee discusses how people are uniquely wired as visionaries or implementers and why both are necessary for a successful business. In today’s episode, we will talk about: [00:28] - Identifying your productivity rhythm and skills to maximize results: Pam and Jane share their thoughts on the importance of understanding your personal rhythms and skills to improve productivity and get better results without sacrificing your sleep. [03:35] - Are you more visionary or implementer: both are very much needed in a business and you should know how to use the advantages of one and the other to achieve your business’ goals. [12:30] - Find your avoidance mechanism and work around it: default stress or avoidance mechanisms can get you into some tricky rabbit-holes so it is key to identify what they look like to you and how to get out of them. [16:53] - The importance of finding who you are as a business woman and how to build a successful business around that. Any doubts or comments on these topics? We would love to chat with you over our Facebook group! We are grateful to listen to your perspectives over on Instagram too, so make sure you subscribe to this podcast for upcoming episodes next week!Connect with us: www.instagram.com/flourishandgrowtoceo https://www.facebook.com/groups/flourishandgrowtoceo Determine if you're ready to grow your business and how strong your foundations truly are at: https://flourish.biz/quizEPISODE 2 TRANSCRIPTIONPam: (00:01) This is episode two of the Flourish and Grow to CEO podcast.Pam: (00:28) In today's episode, we're going to talk about knowing yourself to grow a better business, understanding who you are as a business owner. So let us ask you this. Who are you as a business owner? No, there's no need to sit in a darkened room with incense chanting. Ohm. You know, trying to get in touch with your inner self instead, keep it practical and start with the basics. Are you an early bird or a night owl? Do you naturally function better in the evenings or the mornings? I know for me like ipso, facto, I get my best ideas at midnight. What about you, Jane?Jane: (01:11) Yeah, I'm definitely geared more towards being a night owl. These people who get up at five and six in the morning, I think they're amazing. I'm really impressed by them. But if I'm up at five or six in the morning, it's probably because I haven't been to bed since the night before. So evenings are much more of a sweet spot for me. Well, one of my really close friends, she gets up between four and five in the morning. And I tell her, I am going to call her to say good night to her when she gets up, I'm on the same page with you there. But you know, something as simple as really recognizing and honoring your particular rhythms can be the difference between having a business that is starting to pick up momentum or is starting to grow from previous momentum and enjoying it and feeling like you're just dragging yourself to make everything in your business, move forward with any kind of momentum.Pam: (02:02) So for me, it took me years before I stopped beating myself up for not being one of the people who gets up at 6:00 AM and accomplishes more by 9:00 AM than what most people do all day. And I just always felt so terrible about it. And I would, I would say, well, maybe I'm not cut out to run a business and maybe I just can't do it because maybe I'm inherently lazy because I really don't like getting up until at least eight 30 sometimes honestly nine. But what I realized is one of the beauties of self-employment is I really can run my schedule and I really can work the hours that are best suited to me being productive and happy. Exactly. You don't have to conform to quote unquote norms. So think about what your key skills are too. So be honest with yourself here. Are you strong in math? Maybe. Can you manipulate language? Are you good at persuasion? Do you function better? When everything around you is ordered and tidy or with everything at your fingertips, even if it's a bit messy, do you make business decisions based on gut feelings? Now just know that none of these are right and wrong right or wrong, but really this self knowledge will help you better understand urinate skills. So let's talk about some other things that can help us better understand who we are and how we can best run our business. One of the things that Jane and I have been talking about lately is understanding if you are part-to-whole or whole-to-part. And I wonder Jane, if you could explain.Jane: (03:35) Yeah, absolutely. This was one of those key concepts that when I truly grasp it and began to implement it into not just my business, but my life, it created a whole lot of really positive change. So here's the definition of hold apart in park, the whole, uh, hold apart person. So we're saying whole W-H-O-L-E to part P-A-R-T three words, whole-to-parts, a whole-two-part person is someone who very quickly and easily is able to see the big vision of something. The picture, the 30,000 foot view, if you will, this is somebody who, if we use the analogy of a house, they're able to say, Oh, I to see my little mini French cottage or my French shot toe, and it's in a wooded area and it's on a Lake and it's X amount of stories and it's in this kind of driveway and these kinds of colors and the whole entire picture is there the next piece though, to be able to make any vision a reality is you've got to break it down into manageable and implementable steps, and those would be the parts.Jane: (04:40) So in general, when people are more geared to see the whole of something, it can be a bit more challenging for them to break anything down into implementable actions, steps in some kind of sequential order that would actually complete what is needed to be completed to achieve the vision or the hole. So that's a whole-to-part person. These are your visionaries. These are people who can describe to you in amazingly great detail, an idea, a concept. And when I say detail, the detail of the imagery, the detail, and the ability to evoke emotional responses, these are motivational types of speakers. Usually they inspire others to do things. That's a whole-to-part person on the flip side, when you have a part that's a whole personality, that's more predominantly part to whole. You are very, very good at seeing what needs to happen now and then next and then next, and then next in order to get to the vision.Jane: 05:41 So the strength for someone who is a part-to-whole person is these are your implementers. They can listen to an idea and go get out of my way. I know what needs to happen next. And they can come up with an entire action plan that is implementable, that they could actually show someone else how to do. These are the people who get the stuff done. So that is their strength. What can sometimes be challenging for them is they get so involved in the next step. Next step, next step, that they can lose sight of the end division, the end game. What are we actually headed towards? And are we going to achieve those results? So whole-to-part quick starts usually have the big picture and can struggle to get anything completed, hard to hold people, masters at getting stuff done, but sometimes it can get a little wonky or out of alignment with what the original vision was.Jane: (06:31) The reason why this is so important is when you understand how you predominantly operate, you can surround yourself and, or hire others to pick up the part that no pun intended to pick up the other, the opposite of who you are now. I want it. I want to say something really important about this Pam, because when I have explained this before or taught this really interesting, the people who are part of the whole tend to get a little defensive and say, well, I'm a visionary, but I am a visionary. And I say, of course, you're a visionary. Of course you are. Otherwise you wouldn't have a business. And the people who are more, more whole-to-part tend to get a little defensive and say, well, I do finish stuff I do implement. And I say, of course you do. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a business. So all of us have an element of both in here. However, you need to be able to clearly identify what you are naturally geared to do and how you're predominantly going to operate, because really all of us are more one than the other. So once you can identify that you can get the support that you need for the other part of it.Pam: (07:37) Exactly. I know I'm definitely that 30,000 foot view gal, a big picture gal. And I really have a hard time. I can do it, but I do have a hard time breaking it down into each step that needs to happen in order to create that big vision.Jane: (07:54) Right? I'm the exact same way. I see stuff all the time. I start stuff all the time and it can be really challenging for me to reach completion. Same thing. Yes, I can do it. And it was a real relief for me to realize I can do it and I can make myself do it. And when it's really important to me and I'm, I want to do it. And I'm kind of in flow because there are some things that are in flow, then yes, I can do it. But for the most part, it would better serve me. And it would better serve my business. If I got the idea sketched out for somebody else to then start to implement example, JanePam: (08:34) And I in this podcast, because we're such, you know, we're both visionaries. We both see the big picture. We never would have gotten this off the ground without our teams.Jane: (08:45) So, yeah. And in fact, let's spill a little dirty laundry here really for several months. And by several, I mean, nearly a year, we tossed idea after idea, right? You and I did, we're going to do this. We're going to do that. We'll make it look this way. We'll make it look that way. And we really weren't getting anything off the ground. And then it was really at the moment that you said, you know what, why don't we do podcasts? Because it's more vision focused. It's more kind of in the moment if you will. And what if we hired people to do behind the scenes stuff. And then of course, that's exactly what we did. And just everything kind of took on a life of its own. So that is the very real Testament of identify what you're most geared to do, what you're most likely to do and get the support that you need from the opposite strengths.Pam: (09:35) Yeah. Or you wouldn't be listening to this right now. I'm just saying...Jane: (09:39) Totally covered up with all our great ideas and say, meet next week. What else are we going to create?Pam: (09:44) We met religiously. We were really dedicated, but we weren't seeing anything through to completion. And it's so interesting because I learned that one of my heroes, Richard Branson of Virgin. He’s a complete visionary. He's the big idea guy, but he never could follow through. So that's why he's the one that comes up with the ideas. And he has what he calls quote unquote, finishers, come in and implement and see his vision through.Jane: (10:17) Yes, yes. Finishers, I think, are just angels on earth. They actually, without them, nothing would get done. And it, to be fair, if finishers didn't have a vision to break down into parts so they could implement, then nothing would get done. So that's really why both types of people are necessary. And why, regardless of which one you are, you're going to need the other piece. So I've got a very dear friend who is a heart to hole. He is amazing. It's amazing what he can come up with. He creates gorgeous architecture and sets and arts, and it's unbelievable what he can actually create and what he will get finished. And then sometimes it's just a little bit challenging because it will be, but we were gonna head here with this. This was the original vision. Oh yeah. I got to go back and look at that again and tighten it up. So we're all needed and we're all necessary.Pam: (11:07) And it's not to say that one is better than the other either. I really want to stress that. Absolutely not. We have a mutual friend who we both really admire and she's super successful doing nearly some figures if she hasn't hit it yet, she is definitely an implementation check. Yeah. Yeah. So there is no right or wrong, really take that away from this. But understanding what strength you have, which side do you tend to, will really help you to get a partner or admin support, maybe a virtual assistant or a team to help you where you're not as strong. That's all. Yep. You got it. Cool. You know, another thing that's really, really important in understanding who you are to grow your, to really make that business sustainable is understanding your default stress. And this is something you and I, again, figured out while we've been working on flourish over all these months.Jane: (12:05) Yeah. This is also telling you about the value of getting into business with somebody you trust somebody you genuinely enjoy as a person and the ability for both people to have these grownup conversations when things are going well, or there's a different definition from each person about what should be happening or what has already happened. So absolutely. So the whole understanding of your default stress. So you want to share with them what yours is. Yeah.Pam: (12:34) My avoidance mechanism as we call it as well, the understanding or default stress is definitely, I get busy if I can get into busy-ness. I feel like I'm getting somewhere, even though oftentimes it's taking me nowhere, I'll tell you, I love to research. Oh my God. But those rabbit holes, I could be there all day. I blink and it's dinner time and I haven't got anything.Jane: (13:00) Yeah. I remember when we were going through this because mine is the other one, which is planning. Your default stress is usually they're going to get busy doing or get busy planning and mine's planning. So I was having a ball over here with my different highlighters and my multi-colored pens and color coordinated, everything and mapping it all out. But really that is an avoidance mechanism of doing anything, just like getting busy for the sake of being busy. So that you're feeling a sense of accomplishment is an avoidance mechanism for needing the strategy in place. First. It definitely created an interesting situation where I'm thinking, but I'm really busy planning. I think you were thinking, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm really busy doing. And the reality was there just nothing was kind of happening. Although both of us felt like we were working on something. Exactly.Pam: (13:49) And then we both came to each other. Like, I feel like I'm working harder than you.Jane: (13:56) That was the grownup conversation though. Really? We didn't certainly didn't say it in those words, but we did have that conversation and that's how we figured out, Oh my God, I get into busy work and you get into planning. So I thought that was, I mean, that was a big light bulb moment for me,Jane: (14:13) Huge for me too, because the person that gets busy doing they're naturally going to feel, which I know is what you felt. You shared it with me is I'm working harder than you. And really you could make an argument that in fact you were cause you were doing work. And I really wasn't doing work per se. It was more the strategy, but that was moving us forward. Your work wasn't really moving us forward. And neither really was all my strategizing because there was no implementation. So it's this delicate dance for some of you, you're probably thinking, yeah, I get busy taking action and I start doing, and then it kind of all blows up. Cause I'm not really sure where I'm headed or I changed my mind. And then for those of you who get busy with the strategy and planning, you think, wow, I spent a lot of time coming up with a lot of plans that never see the delight today.Jane: (14:58) So revising what's your default stress. If you're a true solopreneur and you don't have a team yet, or you don't have a business partner, it's going to be easier to course correct. As long as you become very vigilant about making sure you're noticing if you're in your default stress, if you already have a team, then you're going to need to have a conversation about this is what I need. And then certainly if you have a business partner you're going to have to have those grown up conversations, come to Jesus. I think you really have to look at it now. Hopefully, you know, some people are going, Oh my God. Yeah, I do busy work or I do planning. What are you avoiding? What are you using? This stuff that you're doing, the planning or the busy work to procrastinate from. So what did it feel like for you, Pam, when you were busy doing it now in hindsight, what do you think you were trying to avoid and why? Oh, good question. Thank you to this round of stump, your business partner.Pam: (16:01) There was a little bit of a fear of failure in there. Yeah. Yeah. So if I'm really being honest, I was fearful that we weren't going to get enough of an audience around. We took a big how to launch your program course together. And I don't know, I was really nervous about it. So I wonder if that's what I was kind of avoiding. Yeah. Yeah. I know for me, mine usually stems back to, it's not going to be good enough. The work isn't going to be good enough, which ultimately same thing, because we were wanting to be really transparent with everything it turns into. I'm not good enough. So when I'm defaulting to let me create the plan, let me create the strategy and it's code for. Cause I don't want to do the work is that if the work is finished and they have to get put out there and if it gets out there and people can look at it and judge me, which is too, Ooh, it's not good enough. Therefore I'm not good enough. Well thatPam: (16:53) A topic for a whole other episode, man. That's inner game and we're totally going to be covering that in great detail in upcoming episodes. For sure. That's going to be some good stuff there. That's for sure. You know, something else that you should look about, you know, understanding who you are is really understanding what lights you up and then what drains you to, yeah, that's a really big deal. And again, we've, we've mentioned a few unintentional key phrases today, but grown up having the grownup conversations, sometimes the grownup conversation is with yourself, understanding who you are and the delicate dance of lots of stuff, the delicate dance of the conversations you have with yourself, the delicate dance of...

Inaugural Episode: Gigmasters, Solopreneurs and CEOs - EP. 1

Welcome to the Flourish & Grow to CEO Podcast! We’re so glad that you’ve joined us in our journey to create this show, a long-time dream for us both.In this, our inaugural episode, we focus on a problem women entrepreneurs often face when trying to build a scalable business. That is the step of going from solopreneur to a CEO with a business growth mindset that allows them to grow their business. SHOW NOTESWe met in 2018 Lisbon, Portugal on a month-long coworking trip through my company, Adventurous Life, and hit it off instantly. The next year, Jane joined Adventurous Life on another trip, this time to Australia, and we knew we had to work together.Having had personal experience with the challenges that arise when a business doesn’t have strong foundations, we knew that we had to share what we had learned, both our successes and our failures so that other business owners could create sustainability and ultimately, scale and leverage for maximum profitability and impact.Most small business owners simply don’t have comprehensive foundations created for their business, and more importantly, they don’t understand how these foundations must interconnect and work cohesively together. This supportive structure is imperative if you want to run your business like a CEO, instead of what we call a “GigMaster”, meaning you work from gig to gig- and this is the difference between you running your business or having a business that runs you.Over the last year, we’ve been working on a program for women entrepreneurs, aged 50+ (because we are), who are currently making in the $50-100k range in their business and are finding the break-through to the six-figure mark elusive.After spending much of 2020 collaborating on how we wanted to serve the coaching and consulting community, we realized we were in our own start and stop pattern because we were doing the very thing that causes a business to stall – we were trying to create a business by executing in fragmented tactics, rather than looking at our business as a whole with interconnected strategies. It was then that we decided to be more deliberate in defining the vision for our company, create the strategy and then outline the tactics that needed to be implemented that would drive us toward our vision. Our vision is ensuring that no business owner should have to live with the chaos and unpredictable income like a gig master when there is an opportunity to step into the leadership position of the CEO who runs a predictable and profitable company!This is how the podcast was born. We both love rich conversations that offer something of value, and we are passionate about sharing useful information. We also both love to entertain and hope that by offering some levity and light-heartedness, people will realize that although building a business can be tough, it’s important to have a sense of humor and resilience about it all.We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions as you listen to episodes of the show and we hope you take away helpful nuggets you can use in your own business to scale and grow to CEO.In this, our inaugural episode, we talk about:A common recurrent business problem: why being a Business Owner is so challenging and the one thing that no one really teaches you but is fundamental to business success.The gig-master trap: why just getting clients isn’t enough and how to set yourself up as the CEO of your business so you have more time and make more money. Pam shares her personal experience with this.Starting a business is like building a home: you can’t think about the details before building its foundations. Understanding the 8 pillars and how without those in place, your business is always going to struggle.Today we discuss: [02:19] The gig-master trap: why just getting clients isn’t enough, and how to set yourself up as the CEO of your business, so you have more time and make more money. Pam shares her personal experience with this.[05:55] What does it take to start a business with solid foundations?: from the reasons behind starting your own business to the questions you need to ask yourself before you even start. [09:49] Starting a business is like starting a house: you can’t think about the details before building its foundations. It’s important to understand the 8 pillars of this foundation and how without those in place, your business is always going to struggle. [11:54] The struggle of not having order in your business: by starting to line the details before building any foundations, everything we do will lack vision and, therefore, be a hopeless effort to sustain an inefficient system.[16:25] The benefits of being CEO of your own business: there are many, but the greatest is getting the satisfaction that we are providing good to other people with the job we do by creating jobs and offering solutions people need.Connect with us: www.instagram.com/flourishandgrowtoceo https://www.facebook.com/groups/flourishandgrowtoceo Determine if you're ready to grow your business and how strong your foundations truly are at: https://flourish.biz/quizEPISODE 1 TRANSCRIPTIONPam (00:20): Are you a lady boss making 50 to a hundred thousand in your business, and you're ready to break through that six figure barrier.Jane (00:27): Have you done a great job of creating a nice life as the ultimate gig masker, but your inner CEO is calling you to greater Heights. Well, you're in the right place if you want to create and implement solid fundamentals in your business without sacrificing fun.Pam (00:42): I'm Pam Ivey. I'm certified in small business management and I concentrate in the areas of online courses, training, and marketing.Jane (00:52): And I am Jane Garee, known as the sales strategist for the non-salesperson. I work with successful growth oriented business owners, so they can hear slightly less “I can't afford it” or “I'll have to think about it” in their strategy sessions and consultations, and start hearing more “How do we get started?” Hey Pam.Pam (01:11): Hey Jane, how are you doing?Jane (01:13): I'm doing great. How about you?Pam (01:15): Excellent. I'm so excited that this is our inaugural episode, so we're totally going to be making mistakes and that's okay. I think the really cool thing is we got started.Jane (01:27): It is the really cool thing that we got started. And yes, I loved our little preamble there where we were kind of ingest going unique, New York, the rain in spade, you know, warming up our voices. I've got the coffee, which you're never supposed to drink because it's got cream. And then I also have water, but it's sparkling, which you never really should drink when you're speaking because of the fizz, you know, it might go up your nose and...Pam (01:54): Well, that's it for me. Cause you know, I'm like totally addicted to diet Coke, but you know, I really wanted to let the listeners know why we've created Flourish and Grow to CEO. So we see so many women struggling to create consistent income in their business, and many are running it like a hobby. And I know you like to say gig masters, and I wonder if you could just explain that to our listeners gig master.Jane (02:19): So, this really hit me a while ago when it came to my own business, because what I had discovered is that I had done an amazingly great job of creating a business that was really back to back to back to back to back gigs. What I mean by that is I have, and I've had for a while, I have income, I have consistent income. I have really nice, consistent income. And I've created this for myself that I happen to adore. It allows me to go do the things that I want to do and have the things that I want to have and serve the people that I want to serve and et cetera, et cetera. However, what I really noticed when I started working with one of my mentors and new coach was that my business was this back to back to back to back to back gig.So, I would get business. I would serve those clients. I would get that income and I would rinse and repeat. When I started looking at things more strategically, specifically through a lens of financial strategy, I realized, Holy guacamole, I am not running my business like a CEO. I am not making financial decisions through a big picture or to support the bigger vision. Really what I've done. A great job of doing is getting clients, serving them really well, delivering excellence. So they have the results they want. They pay me. And I go do that again. So a good master does not make a business. So I kind of defined gig master as you're in a great position, you've got money coming in. You're not worried about paying the bills. You've created a nice life and you have clients and you know how to get clients, but there's really, it's like a quilt.There's no central theme. There's no overarching premise there where I do this business for this reason, with these projections, with this concept for, so I get these results. The results were actually just to continue to make money, not a bad thing, but that's actually not a complex and comprehensive strategy. So gig master is for anyone. If you're hearing, if you're listening to us right now, you might feel like you're a gig master sort of, you know, you're a gig master right? Remember that old Jeff Foxworthy thing. Master, if you get up and hustle with heart every day, you go figure out how to get clients. You do a great job. You land them, you serve them, you get paid and then that's your formula. And you go do that. You also are probably a gig master. If you're wondering, do I have reserves in my business bank account? Can I use those reserves? Why? And when do I want to use those reserves? That would be a tell that you're a gig master. Another way to tell if you're a gig master is when you look at a one year, two year or certainly anything further out plan. There's really no plan other than let me make sure I keep getting clients, let me make sure I keep making money.Pam (05:08): So it's definitely a time for money thing, right? Trading your time for money. And you're continually having to get new clients continually.Jane (05:19): Yeah. So any business is going to have to continually get new clients, but there's a big difference, but the strategy of a business and how we're going to get clients, retain clients, create sustainable growth. And what are we going to do today for, for income.Pam (05:35): Exactly. It's just, it definitely can lead to the feast and famine thing because if you don't have your next client, then the money isn't coming in. Right. So that's really,Jane (05:47): And if you don't have systems and processes put in place, that's also another big sign that you're a gig master. Yeah.Pam (05:55): And we are huge on the fundamentals. We mentioned, you know, in the intro there that we're big on the foundations of business because oftentimes we start up a business and money is the end goal. We're trying to get away from a boss. I mean, there's a million reasons why we start a business, but money's the end goal. So we're busy working in the business to create that money. And we're not setting up any structure in order for us to get past that feast or famine gate master kind of scenario.Jane (06:32): Right. And that's what happens. And I know you and I have talked about this before, where people become a business owner sometimes out of necessity. Certainly this year in 2020, I lost my job. What am I going to do? Sometimes it's out of desire. I really want to be my own boss. Let me go ahead and get this thing started. So the natural inclination is to put a hundred percent of the focus on revenue generation, otherwise known as the income, the money coming into paying the bills. So there's a heavy focus on how do I make money or how do I generate revenue rather than implementing foundations that will create a business and create a system that you can rely on. And that will last. And then of course allow for scalability and growth.Pam (07:16): So, something that's really interesting, Jane that you talked about with me that I thought, Oh my God, other people really need to hear this. When we talked about sustainability and growth, you talked about decorating a house or something like that. Could you explain that? Because that was like light bulbs went off for me.Jane (07:33): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I've been 10 years in the code 25 in sales, like through bonafide sales, I've really never had a job that didn't have sales production in it. So the context of that is this. When I would go contractually to work for some of my clients, one of my jobs was to enroll people into a program that was a good fit for them, where they would get the results that they wanted. And we had pre strategy sessions where the people would come up and they would ask questions and look for answers over the course of the next three days. They were attending this live event. So they were in a live event for two or three days. They were allowed to come and have a strategy session with me. The purpose of the strategy session was for them to ask a specific question so I could give them guidance and support around that question.And then of course let them know that that would probably be addressed, which it almost always was in that event and wanted them to be in the room at this time to listen to this specific thing. So what I noticed and what I encountered over and over again is that the questions were not good. And in sales, I always train the salespeople that the quality of the answers of any question is dependent upon the quality of the question. So what was happening is I had business owners come up to me and they had 20 minutes with me and I'd say, okay, what is your most pressing challenge? And let's see what we can do to make sure that we get some kind of strategy and plan, or I can give you advice around that. And I was getting questions like this. Should I post on Tuesdays or Thursdays?How many people should my Facebook group be? Should I enroll people into a six week or two, a six month program? Those aren't bad questions in and of themselves, but they're not the best question. And here's why when I would then ask back, well, who is your ideal client? I would get something like women over 40, who are stuck or working women who need childcare. That's not enough of a description of an ideal client, or I would say, what, what kind of annual revenue are you wanting to create and how do you want to deliver it? And they would just kind of be there during the headlights look. So I started using the analogy of a house. If you think about building a house, what's the fun part for most people, the decorations I'm going to get in there. Do I want, what floors do I want?Tile? What kind of paint? They really start going in visually before the house is completed. And in their mind, they're spending money or money either literally or not quite yet, but they're spending money. And they're thinking about the decorations and they spend a lot of time thinking about how the interior of the home is going to look, but what has to happen, or you will not have an interior of any home is the plan for the exterior. And it's not just the plan for the exterior. You want to call it back even further. Where do you want to live? Do you want to live in the mountains? Do you wanna live on the beach? Do you want a 10,000 square foot home? Do you want a thousand square foot home? What kind of lifestyle do you want? What kind of material do you want?What is this house supposed to be so that it supports you in your vision of living. And so the analogy there is, don't worry about what color your toilets are going to be or what floor material you're going to have when you don't have the architectural plan. When you don't even know where you're going to live. And when you certainly don't have anything that's truly nuts and bolts in that instance materials, that's going to support you. That is the foundation. It's building the home with an architect. The interior decorating comes later. If you flip it and you do the interior decorating first, you're in a whole heap of trouble. And so that's what I see people do over and over in business is they ask questions. That really don't matter in the moment because it doesn't matter if you're posting on a Tuesday or Thursday, if you can't clearly define your ideal client and the problem in the language that they would use and a solution that's compelling and has resonance with your language. So post whatever, cause you don't really have anything to post. So the quality of the answers, which will determine the sustainability of your business is always dependent upon the quality of the questions you ask. Well, that's really interesting because as gig masters or, you know,Pam (11:54): And we work from project to project client to client, when we're trying to grab those new clients or attract those new clients, we're jumping into tactics right away. So that's exactly what you're talking about. And you and I have kind of defined it as we have a dream like you were talking about, where would you like to live on the beach or in New York city or something like that. Then you create your vision around it. Then you create the strategy, then comes the tactics. So see how we're jumping into the tactics right away. If I go on social media, maybe I'll attract clients. If I do send out emails, if I do a podcast and you're scattered all over the place without any kind of vision and strategy of what you're trying to achieve. So after the tactics, then we implement. And then of course we measure to see if what we're doing is actually bearing fruit. If it's being successful for us. And then we can course correct. So I love that analogy of decorating the house before you've really got your foundation built. It's all out of order. It's upside down.Jane (13:14): Yeah. It's out of order. It's upside down and out of order, we can talk about this on a future podcast, actually out of order, it wreaks a lot of havoc and people can't tell until they're well past it. But when the dream has to come first, the vision supports the dream. The strategy supports the vision, the tactics support the strategy and then the implementation and measurement are applied to the tactics. So it's not just a good intention of, I need to make money, but it actually creates a plan that you can implement and measure because that's, that's really how results happen and you can tweak from there. And when all of that is out of whack and out of order, you spend unnecessary money, you spend unnecessary time, you get unnecessarily frustrated. So the strategy is so key. And of course the strategy has to support your vision, which should ultimately really support the dream. And I wish somebody would have laid all of this out for me 10 years ago when I went into the coaching industry and into my own business, I've been on a hundred percent commission for...