Running a business is probably very different from anything else you have ever ever done
in your life so far, and all of the beliefs, the thoughts,
the fears that can come up whenever we do anything new, these can also
stop us from achieving things in our business, even if it's something that we
really want to achieve. We can come up against all sorts of conversations in
our head that put a handbrake on us taking action. Welcome to Imperfect Action.
I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I read all the books, downloaded
all the freebies, and did all the courses, but it wasn't until I
started taking imperfect action that my business had its first million dollar year. Imperfect
action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over perfect action,
and moving forward even when you're not sure you're doing it right. On
this show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and strategies to
build a business that brings you more profit, more freedom, and even more
Are you want the list to get my daily businesses. Every day, I'll
send you a bite sized prompt designed to help you grow your business in a
more intentional way. Sign up at step Taylor dot Co forward slash DBB,
or at the link in your show notes. Hey, welcome back to Perfect
Action. This is episode eight hundred and one, and today marks six years
since I launched this show, and so much has changed. For those of
you who've been listening since day one, you'll know the name of the show
has changed, the content I talk about, the cover art, actually,
the length of the episodes, the format of the episodes, like, there's
very little about the show that is actually the same as it was six years
ago. And I know whenever we're embarking upon any new project in our business,
like starting a podcast, creating a course, adding new offers to our
business, whatever it is, even starting a business full stop, we can
get into this habit of waiting for everything to feel like it's the right decision,
Like I need to make sure it's the right name, the right cover
art, the right topic, the right everything before we do the thing.
And I just want this to be a little reminder that if I were waiting
for all of this to be perfect, if I were waiting to have had
the perfect topic and all of the content ideas and everything before I started this
show, I would never have started it. And we wouldn't have the eight
hundred and now eight hundred and one episodes that this show has. So in
today's episode, I'm sharing part two of the biggest takeaways from eight hundred episodes
of this show. Go back to the last episode to listen to part one
for the first five takeaways, and these are the next five, starting with
number six. You don't always have to launch new offers in your business.
I thought that I always had to launch new courses. I thought that I
had to build out this huge, big library of different offers before I could
build a profitable business. But what changed for me was when I shifted from
just constantly adding new things and instead relaunching the same offers over and over again.
So the podcast launch plan was the one that really shifted this for me.
When I launched it first time, it wasn't a great launch, but
I launched it again, and then I launched it again, and then I
launched it again, And that was when I started to see measurable growth and
when I could start to put fuel on the fire run ads and start to
scale it up. That way, when you double down on one offer and
you launch it over and over again, that allows you to grow your income
and your impact a lot faster than if you're constantly adding new things, because
each time you can improve it, you can make it better, you get
social proof and testimonials from people who've been through that offer, and then you
can use that to also help you sell more of it in the future.
And this is kind of the whole basis underpinning what I teach in launch Magic.
It's a system that you can can repeat over and over again, each
time scaling it up right, each time you are launching your offer, you
can scale it. And it doesn't teach you how to create a course or
how to set up a membership, but it does teach you how to create
your own launch strategy that you can rinse and repeat over and over and over
again so that your course, or your membership or your program it becomes an
income generating asset over the long run in your business, not just something that
brings in income once and then sits on your website and maybe once every three
months somebody buys it. Now. Launch Magic is opening up again in early
June for the final round of twenty twenty four. Weightlist Gets Module one taught
live in a workshop for free. I do this every round now where.
If you're on the waitlist, I will teach you Module one for free,
regardless of whether you sign up or not. And you can jump on the
waitlist for Launch Magic at Steph Taylor dot Co, slash LM, or you
can send me a DM on Instagram send me LM just those two letters and
I will add you to the weightlist so you get an invite to that workshop
in early June. All right, Number seven, The smallest things often make
the biggest difference in building your online business. It's very easy to get caught
in this trap of looking for the one magic pild, the one thing you
don't know, the one missing piece that's been stopping your business from seeing the
kind of growth that you want it to, the one thing that's going to
solve all of the problems in your business, the thing that's going to grow
your audience, free up your time, make you more sales. But most
of the time, it's actually the small, often boring things that have the
biggest impact. Now, back in episode six hundred and thirty, I shared
five small things that can make a massive difference in your business. I'll go
a little bit deeper into each of these five things in that actual episode.
If you want the direct link to find that episode, dm me on Instagram
at Steph Taylor dot co. Send me six hundred and thirty just six three
zero and I will send you the direct link to that episode. So the
five small things that make a big difference is Number one, starting to prioritize
long term growth over short term wins in your business. For example, saying
no to one extra client and using the time that you would spend working with
that client to create an online course or a program instead, so that you
can start to work in a more leveraged way and increase some sales in your
business that are not directly tied to the time that you work. Number two,
getting super super crystal clear on why somebody should work with you and being
able to articulate that really well, saying that in a clear way that makes
your ideal client think, yes, I need this. Number Three. Surveying
your audience, having conversations with them, jumping on zoom and talking to people
one on one, because when you find out what they are struggling with,
then you know how you can help them better, and you learn how to
communicate with them in a way that resonates with them, and if you're struggling
to stand out online, chances are you're trying to communicate with them using words
that maybe they don't resonate with, or language that isn't actually explaining what they
are struggling with in their words. Number four reviewing your numbers every single week,
so your income, your expenses, your cash in, your cash out,
but also your conversion rates, your audience numbers, what's working, what's
not working. Often we can look at these things or we can get these
feelings about like oh, I don't think that's working because it doesn't feel like
it's working. But this is about actually looking at the data, not just
based on emotion, deciding what is objectively working, based on the numbers,
not based on how I feel about something. Because often we can think,
oh, that launch didn't convert really well, and then when you go and
look at the conversion rate, it's like, oh, that actually converted at
five percent, which is really good. But in my mind, because only
five people bought, I thought that was a really bad launch. So we
want to be looking at data, not just how we feel about the things
in our business. And number five is creating structure around your marketing and audience
growth, because Hi, if we have that structure, then we can be
consistent, and consistency over time is one of the biggest factors in audience growth.
It's not you don't see the results from the things you do well once
you see them from what you do consistently over time. Number eight, if
you are trying to pursue too many ideas at once in your business, you're
going to end up not seeing any results from any of them. For example,
I see this one all time when you have too many ideas for new
offers. So you go and you try and create all of them at the
same time, and then you never actually finish any of them, or you
maybe you do them all. You create them all, but they're not all
created to a very good standard. You don't put a huge amount of effort
into making the messaging really good or launching them and selling them, so then
you don't make as many sales from them. So the key is to pick
one focus on one idea out a time time. And I know this is
easier said than done. So how do you actually decide which one to do
first? Back in episode six hundred and forty, I answered a listener question
a listener who was struggling with this dilemma where they had so many ideas and
couldn't pick which one to start with first. If you want the full episode,
dm me six forty on Instagram at Stephtaylor dot com and I'll send you
the link. But here are the steps that I would go through if I
were picking which idea to choose to start with. First. Number one,
I would start with the market that I intend to sell to, So who
is the ideal client that I'm trying to sell this particular offer to. Then
I would conduct some research. I'd find out what are they struggling with,
what do they need to help with, how are they explaining it in their
words, how is it showing up in their life? What have they already
tried to solve it. I would really want to get a whole bunch of
context around what they have already done and what they're struggling with. Then next
I would brainstorm some potential solution for the problem that they're struggling with. Now
beer four, I would pick one idea. Then I would test the minimum
viable version of that idea. I wouldn't go and spend six months recording an
entire online course without knowing whether anyone would pay money for it. Instead,
I might outline the first six modules, and then I would launch it to
my audience. I would see if they buy it. If they buy it,
great. I will teach the content that I've outlined live, so I'm
not spending all this time recording all of the lessons and upgrading my camera and
paying professional video editors and all of that. I'm teaching it live via Zoom
each week, and I'm tailoring the content based on where my students get stuck
and based on the questions that they have, so that the offer I'm creating
is actually serving what they need, not what I think that they need.
This is where so many people go wrong, as they'll spend all this time
creating something before they've tested whether anyone will pay for it, and before they
know whether what they are creating is a appropriate solution to the problem that ideal
client is struggling with. And then finally, if that launch works, if
people buy it, if the offer delivers the awesome transformation, all of that
great, how can you improve that and scale that? Otherwise I would look
at why it didn't work, what part of the launch stopped it from converting.
Was it that the messaging wasn't good? Was it that people didn't understand
why they needed this Right now? I would dive deep into that, go
back to the drawing board, make those changes, and then try again.
Okay, take away number nine from eight hundred episodes. You can have the
best strategy in the world and your mindset can still hold you back from getting
the results that you want in your business. Running a business is probably very
different from anything else you have ever ever done in your life so far,
and all of the beliefs, the thoughts, the fears that can come up
whenever we do anything new, these can also stop us from achieving things in
our business. Even if it's something that we really want to achieve. We
can come up against all so of conversations in our head that put a handbrake
on us taking action and working through this requires doing quite a lot of unlearning.
Back in episode six hundred and fifty four, I shared seven things that
I needed to unlearn to grow my business to this level. If you want
the whole episode where I dive deep into it, dm me on Instagram sixty
five four six hundred and fifty four at Stephtaylor dot Co and I will send
you the link the seven things I needed to unlearn. Number one, the
harder I work, the more money I will make. And I had to
unlearn this because if this were true, everyone who was busy, busy,
busy busy would be making millions of dollars. And this just isn't the case.
Because you can fill your time and work really hard, but if you're
working on ineffective things, then that's not going to lead to any kind of
growth in your business. Number two, that is shameful to want to make
money in your business or to talk about it and instead thinking about the fact
that actually the more money your business makes, the more people you can help
with your business. This podcast is only possible for free because the courses and
the programs and my other offerings generate an income that enable me to spend the
time to create all of these episodes. Number Three, I had to unlearn
that I have complete control over the outcome as a control freak. This one
was really hard. I had to learn that trying to control how something turns
out in your business is exhausting because we can't actually control everything, and it
just zaps our creativity. It zaps our imagination, it zaps our energy.
So instead shifting your focus to what you can control, what is within your
circle of control, that those are the things that you can focus on,
rather than trying to control the outcome over which you have zero control. Number
four, that failure should be avoided at all costs. Now, I have
learned through many, many, many failures in my business, and what I've
realized is that failure is actually the shortcut to business success. And it's not
about oh, you have to fail to be successful, but trying to avoid
failure by overplanning, overthinking, being a perfectionist, all of that. It's
going to take you a long time to get anything done, and it doesn't
actually guarantee that whatever you're doing isn't going to fail. The quicker way is
to do it imperfectly. And if you fail, great, that's a lesson
and then you can improve from that. And if you don't fail, then
yeay, great, what can we learn from that too? Number five.
I had to unlearn that success needs to feel hard for you to be worthy
of success. And you know it can be easy too, and we can
often we can often make things harder than they need to be because we need
to feel where this need of feeling like we have worked really hard for it
and in business. In business, there's not as much of a correlation between
having to work really hard for something and with the results as there might be
in other areas of life. Number six that you always need to know the
answer and know the right way to do something, otherwise it's going to fail.
If you're constantly looking for the right answer or the right way to do
something in your business, it's a sign that you don't fully trust yourself to
deal with uncertainty. So instead reminding yourself that there's no right way to do
anything. There's no one way of doing anything in business, and entrepreneurship is
really about looking for new ways and doing things differently, And it's okay to
not know what's going to happen when you try something new. You've just got
to trust that you can figure it out when things don't go to plant.
And then the last thing that I had to unlearn was that there's a right
vision that I'm supposed to be working towards. I figured I learned this one
the hard way because for so long I thought that my business had to be
a particular way I thought it had to look like a particular business, it
had to be a particular business model. I had to want the same things
that other people in my industry wanted. But I've learned that the only right
vision is the vision that feels most aligned with what I want out of my
business. So the takeaway from that is do what you want to do.
There's no right or wrong way of doing it. If if you want your
business to make five thousand dollars a month and you want to work forty hours
a week, even though everyone around you is telling you that you should be
aiming for one hundred thousand dollars a month and ten hours a week, you
do what you want to do. You don't have to do what anybody else
is telling you. And then the final takeaway from eight hundred episodes, well
not the final takeaway, but the final big takeaway is that your habits decide
where your business ends up. So when I talk about your habits, I
mean not just the things that you do once, but it's the small things
that you are doing day in and day out that determine the direction your business
is going and the speed at which you will get there. Back in episode
six hundred and eighty six, I shared seven simple habits that can transform your
business. If you want the full episode, along with the steps the how
tos for each of these habits, dm me six eight six on Instagram at
Steph Taylor Doc and I'll share the link with you so you can go and
find that episode without having to scroll back through all of the past episode.
So the seven simple habits are Number one, tracking your numbers weekly, and
I've already talked about that in this episode. It really does make a huge
difference when you're looking at the data rather than just your emotions. Number two
is adopting a curiosity mindset, this mindset of I wonder what will happen if
I try this thing, rather than oh, this has to succeed otherwise it's
a failure. Number Three saying no to the things that you don't want to
do. So the coffee catchups you don't want to go to, the podcast
interviews you don't want to do, the collaborations that you're not excited about.
Saying no to those things because the more that you say yes to everything,
the more that you are giving your energy elsewhere, and the less energy that
you then have to spend on the things that you want to do. Number
four is adopting a long term focus rather than just looking at the short term.
So I talked about this earlier in this episode as well, you know,
saying no to that one extra client so that you can put together the
foundations that are going to support your business in the longer term rather than just
generate revenue in the short term. Number five regularly celebrating how far you have
come, not just focusing on how far you still have to go. In
this really hard for overachievers. I get this. I struggle with this one
as well. But sometimes when we stop and we look at like all of
the things that we have done, that's when you realize, oh, actually,
I'm a lot further ahead than I thought I was, and this is
a great thing. Number six is catching yourself when you are overthinking and instead
asking yourself what action can I take? What action can I take right now
that's going to help me to gather some information that's going to help me to
come to the solution quicker than if I'm just sitting here spinning around in my
head trying to solve the problem when we don't have all of the facts.
And number seven is releasing your need for it to be a certain way.
You know, the way that my business is right now, how it grew,
the things that I've done, the things that I do on a daily
basis, all of that is so different to what I thought it would look
like six years ago when I started this show and eight years ago when I
quit my job, right, So we've got to be open to it looking
differently. And if we're so attached to it going one certain way, then
we can accidentally close ourselves off to opportunities. We can close ourselves to deviations
from the plan that might actually end up being better than what we had originally
planned. So you've got to release that need for it to go a certain
way, all right. So there we have it. Those are ten ten
massive takeaways from eight hundred episodes of this show. And if you have learned
anything from any of the eight hundred episodes, and you've not left a review
for the show yet, all I ask is please take thirty seconds to do
so. I read every single one of them. A lot of work goes
into this show, and it does mean a lot to me and to my
team when you take the time to do that, So please go and do
that, and if you're not already subscribed to the show, hit the little
plus button or the follow in Spotify and you'll get each new episode straight to
your podcast app every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks so much for
listening, Catch you next time.