Regular maintenance on your car costs less than a mechanic when your itbreaks- can we begin by agreeing on that?
I SWEAR to you right now that I’m going to bring this back around to your business before the end of this article.
But stay with me here: Unless you’re one of those super handy women who actually took an auto class and learned how to fix your own car, having something go wrong with your car can be a terrifying thing.
If you depend on your car and it’s out of service, it can make life REALLY difficult. (Our dog walker takes some of our dogs on 2-hour, off-leash pack runs every week lost half a week of income when her car heater blew. SO frustrating.)
If you don’t have a huge savings and aren’t intending to drop a few hundred or so on your car, it can be a scary unforeseen expense. (Like when I took my car in for a $30 inspection sticker and they told me my breaks were gone- all of a sudden I was looking at $1500 JUST to pass my inspection!!! Didn’t see THAT coming. OUCH.)
SO…two lessons here:
1. It REALLY pays to take care of your car and keep it running at peak performance, because it’s SO costly when it breaks (and regular maintenance, even though it can sometimes feel costly and hard to schedule in) will REALLY save you time, money, and grief.
2. Be SO GRATEFUL that when something DOES go wrong, there’s this handy-dandy computer that your mechanic (I have to be honest- I think mechanics are SO sexy, in general. Something about that uniform, the dirty hands, the fixing things…) has that allows him (or her) to understand EXACTLY what’s going on with your car so they can go STRAIGHT to it, work ONLY on that, and have it up and running again as quickly as possibly (I can’t even say “as cheaply as possible,” because we all know that’s not always true, and I want to keep it real, here). Right- when there’s a noise, a broken thing, whatever, they don’t START by pulling EVERYTHING out from under the hood to find the one thing that doesn’t work, right? They don’t fix and tune up and examine EVERY part of your car- that’s where the diagnostic tool comes in, thank goodness.
So they can get you back to business as quickly, efficiently, and HOPEFULLY as inexpensively as possible.
‘Cause you got THINGS TO DO.
How does this apply to your biz?
When you’re not getting the desired effect…
{think: less income than you want. Less impact than you vision. Misaligned clients. Working too hard/long/much. Feeling miserable/stressed/overwhelmed. Watching wheels spin in your biz without feeling like you have traction. Not growing your community consistently. Feeling afraid of visibility, rejection, success, failure…}
You have a few options:
- Quit. (uh-uh.)
- Ignore it and hope it STOPS not working (let me know how that one works for you- I’ve tried it myself. It wound up costing me WAY more time, money, and tears than just FIXING the damn problem in the first place).
- Pick a different bright, shiny, well -written ad on FB every week, but a bunch of different e-courses, and try new, spoon-fed content …weekly. Without any tangible results. Switch frequently and feel burned out, resentful (“the ad says this worked for THEM!!!”) and STILL have the same problem.
- Take everything apart and sit in the mess of your business, because you’re not sure WHAT isn’t working, so you try and fix everything (this is often marked by the “I need to go back to square one” thought/fear).
- GET support directly for where you need it, in specifically the way that works for you, and work AHEAD of the issue to PREVENT snarls and biz die-off…BEFORE it happens. Hint: although you might have to OUTLAY a little investment before the PAYOFF comes back, this is how your biz will work BEST, most effectively, create success, and not bring you much misery and stress.It will also, in the long run, COST you less than doing damage control, missing client opportunities, and throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. (Notice: I made the BEST option boldface, just to help you understand that this is REALLY the winning, most effective option that will lead to the most happiness for you. You’re welcome. I’m a helper.)
Which do you tend to do? When’s the last time you tried that approach? How did it work? What did it cost you?
I’ll give you a great example here.
A woman came to me with a new business that she was having a hard time growing a community for. As a result, she wasn’t finding clients, wasn’t growing her list, offerings were falling flat, and money wasn’t coming in. She had been talking to a virtual marketing specialist who offered her a marketing package to grow her biz via advertising, at a considerable investment. It didn’t feel right, but this woman (I’ll call her Claire) didn’t know what else to do- she WANTED her biz to grow, and wasn’t sure what else to do to grow it.
After taking a workshop with me she signed up for one of my programs. I talked to her about how paying for advertising for a business without being CRYSTAL clear about idea client, benefits of working with her, her message, unique hook, the problems her work solves, and her branding would be like throwing money out the window (word on the street is, you can buy a boat and do the same thing in regards to throwing money out the window :-)).
Additionally, the work of a new biz is to grow AUTHENTICALLY, through connections with your community- NOT through paid advertising (which can be great- don’t get me wrong, but to PAY to grow your community before you are taking a profit or paycheck is wasteful and unnecessary). I’ve been teaching Claire to grow her community in an aligned, non-douchey way, with community building tactics and guerilla marketing (read: FREE or SUPER low-cost), and here are some of her celebrations:
“I wanted to share my success as well as how I celebrated after my class last night…
I was prepared for no one to show up at my class. I kind of wanted no one to show up so I could go home and relax…One person showed up, along with another who is at all the events to help out, running events and attended my last class. I still prepared myself mentally to teach the class (that I winged at the last minute). This all taught me so much about myself, my business and gave me confidence that damn right, I can do this!!
The class was wonderful! I’ve always been told intimate classes can be the best and this showed me they are! I catered the class to his needs and answered all his questions. He was so grateful and ended up buying great and perfect products for him! So I made over $100.
Then to boot, the guy who helps run the space, hands me $14 at the end as they both paid $10 to attend. It was such a nice surprise!
Another great thing that I learned is who my perfect client is! This helps give me motivation and fuel to know who I’m looking for! Yay me!
I celebrated by going home, eating a meal made for me, watching a movie and throughly enjoying a glass of wine!”
“Meeting with an amazing woman who will help me create a website and be able to advertise and sell through there!
Adding 3 new clients!
Following up with a link from First Friday to participate in an event at ____!”
SO: to recap, if Claire had JUST identified the problem (community not growing, clients not coming in) and then RUN with a solution she was proposed instead of getting support, seeing the issue clearly, and coming at it from a grass-roots level (starting with the foundation building of her biz, instead of throwing money at advertising from the beginning), she would have MISSED the opportunity to REALLY connect with and grow an aligned community which will be the base for clients, referrals, speaking opportunities, etc.
Want to work with me on this DIRECTLY for less than the price of a fancy cuppa coffee for an entire week? Invitation: Spend a whole week looking under the hood of your biz so we can figure out, TOGETHER, what’s working, what’s not, and how to meet your income, impact, and sheer joy goals for this year- coming up in July: 5 Day Biz Fix-find out more here!
