Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the Solopreneur Sisterhood Podcast. A podcast designed to help heart centered service providers like you build a purposeful, profitable and sustainable business that supports what matters most to you. I'm your host, Becky McCleary, and I am so grateful that you are here.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Solopreneur Sisterhood and our special series of Solopreneur Sisterhood strategy sessions. So in this series we are walking through essential elements that I would talk through with you if we are working together through a strategy session. And my hope is that by listening to these episodes, it's going to help you to get clear on what to focus on next in your business, what priorities to set, what might be holding you back, and just help to make it easier for you to move forward. So today we are talking about building a foundation for your business to thrive. And so the idea of this episode is because I was thinking back to my own journey and when I started out, I had no idea what I needed in order to build this successful business. And so I wasted a lot of time and, if we're honest, a lot of money on things that I thought I needed to succeed and that didn't really help me to build a successful business. And so my hope in this episode is that it's going to help you to get really clear on what you need to have that solid foundation and then other things can come later on. And so I will also say this is that I have seen far too many phenomenal women holding themselves back because they get caught up in things they think they need before they can get out there and work with clients. And in many cases it's just not true. And so my hope is that in listening to this episode, it's going to make your journey easier and it's going to help to free you from some of those things that might be holding you back. So when you think back to starting your business, I'm guessing you didn't start your business because you really wanted to own a business. If you are like most heart centered business owners that I know, you started your business because you wanted to do meaningful work. Maybe there was something you love doing that you knew could help other people, or maybe you really wanted to help other people and so you figured out a way to do that. But in creating your business, you really wanted to, yes, you had to support yourself. So the business ideally brings in money to help do that, but you really wanted to help other people. You wanted to make a difference, you wanted to know that your work mattered. And you wanted to be able to live a life you wanted to live. And so having your own business, the idea was likely that this business would support you in building that life that you loved, that worked for you.
And so the thing is, in building a business, I am guessing that you are amazing at the work that you do.
So doing the work itself is not a problem.
The problem is that for most of us, we didn't go to business school. No one taught us how to be business owners. And so we do what intelligent, independent women do. We set out to learn. We set out to watch different webinars and watch different trainings and learn from different experts online.
And the challenge that we have is that there is an overwhelming amount of information online.
Some of it is better than others. Some of these people have our best interest at heart and some do not. And it can be really easy to get caught up in listening to what everyone else is telling us to do. And we get off track with what's really going to move things forward in our business. There are, I think, in the online space, perhaps any business, but that's been my experiences online.
There are some essential things you need to have in order for your business to work. And there are so many things that are nice to have, but they're kind of bonuses. They're not essential for your business to work. Your business could work with or without.
So today I want us to get really focused on those essential elements that will help our business to work. So if you can relate to any of this, if you have spent hours of your life watching different webinars, if your digital library is bursting with courses that you have enrolled in, if you have found yourself. I have. So I say this with love. If you have found yourself paying for one more program, signing up for another course, hiring a coach that is really outside your budget because you think this is going to be it, this is the missing piece. This is what's going to make my business work, you are not alone. If you find yourself overthinking everything in your business to the point where you feel like you're always spinning in circles, you're always trying to figure things out and you're never, never moving forward, or if you find yourself setting really ambitious goals but feeling disappointed when you just don't hit them, or if you find yourself looking around thinking that everyone around you has it figured out, or if you feel like you are trying all of the things and nothing is working for you, if you're bouncing around from one idea to the next, hoping that Something will finally work.
Or if you are just plain overwhelmed and exhausted and wish that someone would tell you what to focus on to make your business work, you are not alone.
And so the good news is that if we can focus on these essential elements, things will start to flow for us. Things will start to move forward. Now, I want to say this. Even when you have the essential elements in your business, there is a bit of a time delay. It's not like you're going to set this up and then the next day you're going to be fully booked. Maybe that will happen. I've never seen it happen, but maybe it will. But for most of us, it's going to take time. And so we have to be willing to stick things out even when it looks like nothing is working. So what I regularly tell clients, and I try to remind myself is we need to give things time. So with that, if you have the pieces in place and you're consistently focusing on your marketing and outreach and follow up within 90 days, I would expect your business to be in a very different place from where it is right now.
So. So we need these elements, but we also need to give it time and we need to be committed to showing up and doing the work, even when we're not yet seeing those results. The five essential elements that your business needs to work, you need to have a really clear ideal client. So what I want to say is this is not your typical ideal client exercise where you make up a person and you fill in all the details about their lives.
This is more having a real sense of who your people are and what their lives are like. What are they going through? What do they really want?
What is on their mind at all hours? What do they wish they had support with? How can you help them? So it's knowing your ideal client on a deeper level. So, couple of thoughts with this. We could go on a whole nother episode just with Ideal Client. What I have found for myself is that that ideal client got more clear along the journey. So do not let the idea that I don't know my ideal client hold you back from moving forward. What I'm going to invite you to do is if you are feeling like I don't know my ideal client, it could be this person, it could be that person. Just allow yourself to make a choice for now. This has really helped me is I don't need to commit to this for the rest of my life. I will say when I started out my business, I think that held me back because I thought I had to figure out everything and stick with it forever.
This is just for now. So wherever you are right now, what does your ideal client look like? The other thing I will say is that for my business, I never focused on having a specific niche or only working with people doing a certain type of work. Most of my clients have ended up being coaches, but there were a variety of different types of coaches.
I've worked with service providers, so I don't think you have to be super specific because I have worked with some people who provide a service, but they're not coaching. And so I never had specific niche, but I did focus more on a type of person. And so that has evolved now that I'm not doing the operations work. But with your ideal client knowing, is there a type of industry that they're in? And that could be as simple as they're a service provider or they have products, they have a physical store, or they're entirely online. And then what mattered more to me was getting clear on that person. And so for me, my ideal client was more of a values what things matter to them, what were their priorities? Also how would they treat me, how would they think about me as a person, think about me as a partner, and how would that come across and how they treated me? And so what I found is like my ideal clients had certain qualities that were similar, but their lives looked very different. And so we go into this more in the solopreneur Sisterhood society with getting really clear on your ideal client. But for right now, but I will just say as to get a clear enough picture that you're able to move forward. But also know that can evolve over time.
So this second essential element is once you have an idea of your ideal client, you need to create solutions that your ideal client actually wants, needs and is willing to pay for. And so where I see some early business owners getting stuck is that they have an idea for an offer, but they don't know if it's really what their ideal client wants or is willing to pay for. I know there have been times where even I have had ideas for my business. And then I think about it more and I realized like, yes, this is a great idea, but it's way out of the budget of my ideal client or, and I will say that can go both ways sometimes, sometimes you will have. I've worked with clients where their clients value high end and so when they had a lower price point, that was something they weren't even willing to pay for. And so getting clear on your ideal client and the second essential element is creating solutions that your ideal client wants and needs. And so if this is something that you're thinking, I don't know what they want, I don't know what they need, I don't know what they would be willing to pay for. This is where market research comes in and I do have a template for that. Both the posts that I use to get people to sign up for market research calls and then some of the questions that I, I ask in order to learn more about my ideal clients. And that is a free bonus when you apply for the quarterly planning retreat. And I will share more about that at the end of this episode. Okay, so the third essential element is after you are clear on your ideal client, you have a solution or multiple solutions that match what they need. You need to have a solid strategy to reach these ideal clients where they already are. And so this is marketing. You need to have a clear system in place to be able to regularly connect with these people, help them to discover you, discover your work, discover how you can help them. And so you need to have that strategy in place. This is a gap that I see a lot of businesses have, is that they're great at the work they do, they know who their people are, they know that they need them. And I just don't know how to find them or how to, to, to reach them and connect and move forward. And so again, those are things that I work on with clients one on one or in the solopreneur sisterhood society. But when you're looking at your business and you're thinking, yeah, I have offers, I know who I serve, I'm really good at serving my clients.
And where I'm struggling is finding those leads and connecting with my ideal clients. That's where you need that solid marketing strategy.
So the fourth essential element is to have a clear process that helps ideal clients learn about you and easily move forward in working with you. And so what I've seen a lot of business owners struggle with is that they do the marketing, but they are so focused on value that through their emails or through their freebies, or through their social media posts, they're offering a lot of value, but they get uncomfortable when it comes to promoting themselves. And so they can have great followers who love their content but have no idea what they do or how to work with them. And so that is something I would also encourage you to take a look at is wherever you're marketing your business. Is it clear for people if someone is reading your blog or listening to your Podcast or watching your videos, seeing your posts on social media, Is there an easy path for them to say, you know what, I really love their content. I wonder if they could support me more. Is there a path for them to figure out how you can support them and then to be able to take that next step? So ideally that looks like a link to your website, if you have a website, or to a one page document if you have that, to talk about what you offer. And then ideally on that place, there's going to be a way for them to learn about what you offer. And after they learn about what you offer, there's a way for them to either purchase that or book a call with you. Let's make this journey as easy as possible for people. Another part of that process would be following up with potential leads. I see far too many business owners holding themselves back because they have a potential lead, but it doesn't work out at that point in time and they let it go forever. And I have seen from my own experience that it's quite possible for someone to be a no right now and then come back to you weeks or months, or in one case I did have over a year later and say, okay, I'm ready now. And so part of your process needs to be helping people learn how to work with you and take those steps, and then also continuing to follow up with people who are interested and could be a good fit. But we're a no for now. And one thing I want to add on to that point is to keep talking about what you're offering about how people can work with you. Because I know just as we get uncomfortable promoting ourselves anywhere, a lot of us don't want to like bother our audience. And so if you are launching a new program, you might feel like you are sending too many emails. I've worked with clients who have sent a ton of emails, so my guess is you are not sending too many emails. I know, I've been on this too, where I'm getting three or four emails a day, that feels like a bit much. But if you are sending out a sequence of seven to 10 emails over a couple of weeks during a launch period, that's okay.
We think that everyone knows what we are doing, but the truth is people are busy, they have a lot on their plates and they do not see everything we put out there. And so it's quite possible that you're sending out emails and people love the work that you're doing, but they're busy, they didn't see the email and if you send out one email, two emails, it's quite possible that someone who needs what you are offering won't see it and they'll totally miss out on that solution. So my reminder there is to make sure that in your process, you are making a significant effort to let people know how you can help them. Okay. And the fifth essential element is creating systems for seamless onboarding and offering an exceptional client experience. And so when that client decides to work with you, you want to make sure that you have systems in place so that they can work with you as quickly and as easily as possible. So in some cases, that looks like having a button and a cart and they purchase through there and make sure that they get a welcome email and the information they need to move forward. We want to make sure that as soon as someone has purchased, they feel taken care of and that they've made a really good choice. And so sometimes that might be a case of you have a call, they decide they want to work with you, and you have an invoice and an agreement, you can send them right away. And then once they have signed the agreement and paid the invoice, you have a welcome sequence that you can walk them through. So again, they feel really taken care of and they feel like they've made a really good choice along with that, beyond the onboarding, we want to make sure that we have things set up so that we can meet and exceed client expectations with us. And this is where I see a lot of business owners struggling, because when we're starting out, our whole focus is on getting those clients. And then we start to get clients, and we're trying to do the client work and do our marketing so we can bring in more clients. And then we get busier. And as we get busier, if we don't have those systems in place, things start to slip through the cracks. And if that is with our client work, that's where the business starts to falter, because clients aren't happy, Things have been forgotten, things have been dropped, there are delays, things aren't. Expectations aren't being met. And so we want to make sure that we support ourselves with systems so that we can better support our clients.
So when these five elements are all in place, that's where I think the magic starts to happen in our business, because we have all of these different pieces together and business starts to flow. You know what you need to focus on, and you know what you need to do in order to get the results that you're working for. And again, I want to stress that it does take time. It's not like we have all these pieces in place and everything comes together overnight. But when we have these pieces in place, it becomes easier for us to know what to focus on each day, to keep moving forward. And then over time, we start to see those results and we start to get kind of that reward for sticking with it and doing the work, and things start to flow. And as we see results, we also learn more. This is working. This isn't working. This is what I need to focus on next. So again, those five essential elements, that's what I recommend focusing on at first. Or if your business is feeling like it's not working, go back to the basics. Focus on making sure you're clear on your ideal client. You have a solution or solutions that meet your ideal client's wants and needs and what they're willing to pay for.
Develop a strategy to reach your ideal clients where they currently are. That's another thing we could talk more about at some point is just sometimes that changes over time. You know, platforms change, different ways that we connect with people change. And so we might have to change our strategy over time. So if you are thinking, I have these elements in place, it's still not working. That might be an area to look at also. Making sure that you have a clear process that helps your ideal clients learn about you and easily work with you, and then making sure that you have those systems for that seamless onboarding experience and for offering your clients an exceptional experience in working with you. Okay, so if you are listening to all of this and you are thinking, okay, this sounds great, and I need support with this. I want to extend a special invitation. So I regularly host quarterly planning retreats, and I would love to have you join us. So these are normally an event that is only open to members of the Solopreneur Sisterhood Society, but I'm opening it up to more women because I really want to help more women succeed in business. And so I want to make sure that if you're joining us, you're ready to take action on it. And so for this, I have an application process. So the application process is designed to help me learn more about you and your business, make sure that the retreat feels like a good fit for where you are and what you need. If for any reason it isn't, I will still send you the bonus resources, which I'll talk about in a minute, and I'll give you other recommendations if I can think of something else that might be a better fit for where you are right now. I'm happy to send you those resources. Our time is valuable and I don't want you to waste your time if I don't feel like the retreat can help. And so during this retreat, we will work together to get really clear on your vision and align with your values. We're going to map out what true freedom looks like for you in your business.
And then we're going to work together to help you set aligned 90 day goals that support your top priorities. And we're going to create a doable action plan that will help you to reach these goals, make them come to life without the hustle and the burnout.
So implementation is what this workshop is all about. I will guide you through the processes that I use and that I have used with clients, but then you're also going to have time to actually do the work while we are together. Plus, if you can join us live, I'll be there for support. And we have a small group format, so that way you get to know some other business owners and you can all support each other in this planning process. When you apply, I will personally review your application if I think that you're a good fit. I will send you an invitation to the retreat if you can join us live. Wonderful. If it doesn't work for your schedule, or even if it does and you want the replays, everyone who's approved for the retreat will get copies of the replays and templates that we use, so that way you can come back to them again and again anytime you want to do some intentional planning for your business. And again, if you apply, I'm guessing you're going to be approved. But if for any reason I'm reading over your information and I think, oh, I don't think the retreat is actually going to be helpful right now, I'll let you know that. And you'll still get the bonus resources. So everyone who completes the application will receive four extra bonuses as kind of a thank you for taking action. So when you apply, you'll receive a copy of the Business Clarity Blueprint to help you identify gaps and opportunities in your business. And so this blueprint uses some of the questions that I ask members of the Solopreneur Sisterhood Society when we are doing our initial business assessment. And so my hope is that it will help you with more clarity in your business as well. The second bonus you'll receive for applying is a revenue roadmap spreadsheet that is going to help you to set clear, achievable financial goals in your business.
You'll also receive a template for market research, which will walk you through a sample template that I have for a post inviting people to join me for market research calls. And then it also includes questions that I ask to help me learn more about my ideal clients and clarify ideas that I have for my business.
And the final bonus you'll receive for applying is a database template for leads and for partners. And so a big part of building my business has been all about building relationships. And as you connect with more and more people, it's harder to remember everyone. So I have a database that I use that helps me to keep track of potential leads, but also partners who I want to make sure to follow up with. And so this will help you to track and nurture your relationships with greater ease. So if you are ready to take action and would like to join us for the quarterly planning retreat, visit the Solopreneur Sisterhood.com apply and you'll find the application right there. Complete the application and submit it. I will personally review your application and then I will either send you extra resources and your bonuses or. Or I'll send you an invitation to the retreat and your bonuses.
So again, if you want to join us for the retreat, that's just visit the Solopreneur Sisterhood.com apply and that's where you'll find the application.
As we wrap up today, I just want to remind you, you didn't start this business just to have a business. You started it because you wanted to create a life you loved that worked for you. You saw this business as a way of supporting that vision and that life. And in creating this business, you weren't just creating a business to meet your financial needs. You had an idea or a way that would make a difference and help more people. And your business is a way to bring that to life. And so I just want to remind you that right now, in this moment, there are people who need you and the work that you do. And so if you are willing to put in the time and do the work and build these essential elements into your business so you have a solid foundation, you can absolutely build a business you love that works for you. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I am cheering you on and I will catch you in the next episode.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining us and listening to the solopreneur Sisterhood podcast. I hope this episode has offered you some encouragement, some insight and some new ideas to support you in building a business that works for you. Remember that our world needs you, your gifts, your vision and your work. And I'm cheering you on as you bring your vision to life and build a purposeful, profitable and sustainable business that supports what matters most to.
