198. The Power of Consistency: Achieving Sustainable Revenue in Your Online Business

Freedom and flexibility is one of the main reasons most people want to be an entrepreneur and become their own boss.

I mean, who doesn’t want the freedom to decide what work you do, when you do it, and where you do it?! If you’re thinking you’ll never ever go back to being an employee, you’re my people, because it means you’ve decided this business of yours will be a success.

The honest truth is…wanting it just ain’t enough because it doesn’t happen by default or manifestation alone..Success follows from the efforts behind your intentions.

But with so many moving parts, it can be easy to get swept up in  the shiny, fun parts of building a business, like creating social content and graphics, fancy tactics your favorite business leader used in their last launch, and distracted by trying to make it just so before putting your website and offers out into the world.

Doing too many tasks and trying to make them perfect, takes your time, energy and attention away from what you actually need to be doing if you’re going to have a successful business-focusing on making money.

Your success becomes inevitable when you align your activities to your goals.

That’s why in this episode, I’m going to help you take specific action by digging into the different phases of online business so you can get full clarity on which phase you are currently in and which areas you should be focusing on to make money. 

I hope this episode meets you exactly where you are today and gives you a few golden nuggets that help you show up as the expert you are, be a little bit more bold with your decisions, and unapologetically make money for your expertise.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What does achieving a big ass goal require? 
• Why is consistency and predictability in your revenue so important in your business?
• The 4 Phases of Online Business—and where  you should focus when it comes to revenue generation?
• Shifting your energy and aligning your activities to the level needed to achieve your goals
• How success requires more from us than just a goal or big vision

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇

https://heathersager.com/episode198/

📣 WORK WITH HEATHER  → https://heathersager.com/

📧  Get the Hint of Heather NEWSLETTER → https://heathersager.com/newsletter

Connect on Social:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathermsager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

If this episode hit home, I'd be so grateful if you took a second to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show.  Thanks for tuning in to the Hint of Hustle podcast! See you next week!

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

1:53  

Well, hey, friend, welcome back to another episode of the Hint of Hustle Podcast. Today, we're gonna be digging into the sexy topic that is consistency, and no, I'm not talking about consistency with your habits. I'm talking about consistency with revenue. This is one of those things that in the online space, it's easy to get swept up in how people market their businesses, how consistent people are when they show up, how much they post, how they're always ever present with the stories and it just seems like they're always showing up and they're killing it. But I like to make sure that I keep my eyes on my own paper and ask myself the question, is my business consistent? Meaning, am I making money because we start these businesses, right? 

We have a passion. We have an idea of how we want to help others who we want to help, where our expertise and experience can really add to the experience for other people but it's really easy to get swept up in all the things you could be doing in your business. It's really easy to get swept up in all of the marketing fun and excitement and creativity. But at the end of the day, friend, if you want your business to create more freedom and flexibility, I know those are huge buzzwords, but what does that mean? 

It allows you to do the things that you want to do because you have money, to have the space and time to do what you want to do, to contribute to your family, to contribute to vacations, to buy what you want to buy, to have your own schedule, whatever your goals are. You need consistency and predictability in your revenue so that you aren't freaking out every single month. How are you're going to pay your bills? If you've ever had that stress in your life, I joke but it's really a painful thing but when it happens, then this episode today is for you. 

4:00  

Now this episode is going to be super banging for you if you are newer and still trying to figure out how to make consistency happen with your courses, membership coaching programs. 

However, if you're one of my listeners who have a more established business, more established brand, maybe you're already out there speaking, you're already out there killing it, I think today's episode is also going to help because what I find to be true of most business owners, it doesn't matter if I'm coaching or consulting on brand new businesses or my eight figure business clients, I find that even the most successful large scale businesses can really benefit by thinking simpler and oftentimes just going back to the basics that help us break through to our next level. 

So I hope this meets you exactly where you are today and you take a few little golden nuggets that help you go out into the world and make some mother freakin money, so let's jump in it and do it. 

5:01  

Okay, it's probably no surprise that I am a fan of the word consistency. If you've been a listener of the show for a while, you know, in my personal life, I am a little intense, and I laugh because you've probably been with me in the journey where I have completed 75 Hard multiple times and talked about it on the podcast. And a big part of 75 Hard, if you don't know what that is, I will link to the last episode that I did talking about it. It is a mental resilience and strength program, but it's done through physical activity. So it's super intense, but it's all around building mental strength and mental resiliency, and a huge part of that is consistency and self discipline. 

5:45  

So I know that achieving any big ass goal is going to require sacrifice, it's going to require discipline, it's going to require me hustling my ass a bit, and no, it doesn't mean that I have to say goodbye to everything else in my life. But I think you know this to be true that you know to reach really big ass goals, it is going to take effort and sacrifice and anyone who is telling you that it can be easy, it can be light, you can have everything you want, I'm going to call bullshit friend because there are going to be seasons and phases of your life and especially in your business, where you are going to be an epic lean in intensity mode. 

And in my personal opinion, if you're unwilling to do that, you need to have a tough, long conversation with yourself around really what is possible for you and your business. And I say that not to deflate your goals but the reality is when we sit here and have these huge goals, but we're not aligning our activities in a really effective way towards those goals, aka, we are not like working on the goals every single day, we're distracted by other things. 

Sidenote, there's this really incredible clip that I saw on Instagram reels or Tiktok within the last few months and it's Kerry Washington, who is the badass actress of Scandal. Think about that for a second forget, I freaking love that show. 

7:16  

Anyways, Kerry Washington, she's in an interview and the clip is of her saying something along the lines of look, if you're down the street and you see the bus coming and you need to catch the bus, you can say a little prayer and say please let me make the bus, please let me make the bus, please make me the bus. I need to make the bus. 

You can pray but if you're also not running towards that bus, you cannot be pissed if you don't make it because it's one thing to pray over it or to hope for it or to express it into the world that you want it, but if you're not running toward that bus, you're gonna frickin miss it. 

7:53  

So you have to put the effort behind your intentions and then that's just super, super critical. So I really want to frame this episode, lighting a little bit of fire on your ass where you do a little quick gut check in with yourself. Where are you out with your goals right now in your business? Where are you all in? Where are you just in it to frickin win it? 

And also, if you were being real honest with yourself, where have you slacked off? Where are you just sitting kind of, you know, laid back right now where you're hoping the results come but you're not really going full out on it? Maybe you don't even really have a game plan. You've been like, maybe at one point you wrote down everything but it's been maybe six weeks since you've looked at a damn goal, or really worked on your launch project plan, or actually asked people to pay you money. Let's be real here. And I'm saying this with all the love in the world because let me share with you my true confession right now. 

9:00  

I have been in a phase this year, I've talked about it multiple times in the podcast that this been a year and an incredible year, but a year of so much change. So to give the quick recap, last year, at this time last year, I made the bold decision with my business bestie. We were so in alignment around what we wanted to create. 

We're like, oh my gosh, we should combined our businesses. So we spent the spring and early summer getting all kind of the back end, what it would look like. We both burned up our existing businesses and launched a new company in August. 

Now I say a new company essentially was the same business models that we both had, but just under a new name and we were so excited. Y'all who followed along were so supportive. We had a big ass launch in the fall. We had a wonderful epic retreat in Arizona. Also in the fall, we were headed into the end of the year on a high and we were dialed into our goals, and we were exhausted AF. 

10:04  

What we realized that I've shared before and I'll link to the episode where we talk about the start of the relationship and the end of the relationship, what we realized is we had created so much complexity in the business. It was like, strategery all the time and no margin for anything else. 

So for me, I mentioned this before, if you're into human design. I got into this this last year, actually, through that business partnership. It really helped me understand me, understand her, understand how I communicate and show up with others, and what I've learned about being a Manifester is I need to have space, that when I am super charged and excited, I have these huge energetic searches where I go full ass and sprint and then I retreat to sloth mode where I cannot muster up the discipline to do frickin anything. I can't, I can't, I'm like, Oh, I just need to lounge around to lay around and I peed around and I always thought something was wrong with me but this is actually what happens as a manifester. You go through those things. 

11:11  

Now, why I bring this up right now is I have been in a very interesting season for the last four months where I have executed so much. So after the business breakup that ended very, very well. By the way, we still refer clients to each other all the time. She was just in my Signature Talk Accelerator VIP coaching program this week or this will be last week at the time you're listening. Things are going really well with that but there was an aftermath that we both had to handle which was Emily had to turn the lights back on her agency. I had to turn the lights back on it Heather Sager LLC and kind of regroup. 

So all this energy has been going to the back end systems and into rejigging programs and into a full new launch in March to launch a new program, the Signature Talk Accelerator, and all these things moving, there has been so much activity in my business but here's where I'm going to be really frickin honest with you. 

12:10  

Even though I was getting a lot done, I was also in that season of needing to take my feet off the gas pedal and just frickin mentally rest. I talked about this on the episode a few weeks ago, where I kind of joke that everyone's like, Oh my gosh, you're so busy all the time but I'm like, I'm actually really not that busy and it's because I've been really intentional with what I work on and that is all I do. 

Last week's episode I talked about how not guiltily I hadn't sent an email newsletter in almost two months, and while I do not recommend that, that is an example of the things that I have said no to because I energetically couldn't do it. So why do I tell this to you? Okay. Why is this relevant to you when I talk about consistency and being accountable for what you're not getting results in your business? 

13:03  

Well, here's the deal, I got results with my launch. I got results with the shift back to my own personal brand. We've been doing well with growth on the podcast. The things that needed my attention, that's where it went but I cannot sit here and be pissed that my email list hasn't grown, or that my social media following hasn't grown, or that I don't have the consistent income stream passively that I had planned on doing in Q1 that that's not happening. I can't sit here and be pissed or blame anyone but myself for making the choice to lean in on one thing and lean back in other areas. So what does this have to do with you? Why am I sharing this?

13:49  

I sit here at full peace with myself of saying I have not grown as much as I want it to grown financially and system wise in my business this year, and I am so perfectly okay with that. Now me two years ago, would have been like, Oh, why am I never hitting the goal? Oh, why is this happening? Like, oh, I would have been like snarky about it to some degree, right? 

I've typically never snarky around that. I'm always looking for the good and things but I would have approached it a different way and I'm really settling into this idea that everything is working out as it needs to. I am exactly where I need to be to learn the lessons I must learn for what's coming next. 

It is the quote I say all the mother freaking time and I hope that my annoying voice is in your head when you're walking through something hard, were you are pissed that things aren't happening at the phase you want. You have Heather in your brain going, you are exactly where you need to be to learn the lessons you must learn for what's coming next day, like that is exactly what we have to embody. 

14:56  

However, circling it back to consistency. If like me, you have taken your foot off of the gas pedal here recently and you're saying, alright, I noticed it, I acknowledge it, I own it and I'm ready to pick the pace back up and start taking this shit seriously, or get back to taking it seriously or lean into this other area, whatever that looks like for you. If you're ready for, think about like metaphoric, like a gear shift, who ever driven a manual car? Those are really, really fun. 

Okay, fun fact, I was talking about manual cars. I just had a flash memory. When I was in college, one of my friends, he had an online company. This is back before online companies were an actual thing. This is in the very early 2000s. He had an online company. I don't remember what he did but I remember thinking that had to be some kind of like, scheme thing. It wasn't the whole internet thing was like, very oddly not, I mean, it wasn't common. 

Anyways, he calls me one day from a car dealership, and he's like, Heather, I just bought a Lotus but I don't know how to drive a stick. Can you drive the lot and drive it home for me and teach me how to drive it? Which if you don't know, I'm not a car person so I'm like, what is a Lotus? It is like a very, very fancy sports car but it's definitely a manual shift. 

Anyways, so I had somebody dropped me off with this really nice car dealership and I drove my friend's brand new Lotus off the lot and proceeded to teach him how to drive a manual car which was hilarious. Anyways, manual, when you drive a new car, right, you have to crank in the clutch before you shift gears. 

16:41  

So bringing this to you, it's time for you to downshift or upshift or whatever the correct terminology would be here. This is the moment that I want you to say, alright, where do I need to kick up my habits in my business to align them towards where I want to go? Where do I need to kick it up a notch? Where do I need to bring in some more consistency in my business? That is the question today.

17:07  

Now, let me give you another metaphor here to help you kind of categorize where we should focus in our businesses when it comes to money. What I want to do first is, let's describe, I want you to have full clarity around the different phases of your business and then let's talk about two different areas of focus for revenue generation in your business. 

So phases in your business, I like to think about this, I'm sure somewhere in some very sophisticated business book or other business coaches, they have a more formal way to think about it. But here, I'm gonna lay it down for you that there's four phases when starting an online business. 

So number one, these are not going to be new for you but I think it's important to know where you are, so you can know what to do and which strategies to apply. 

17:57  

So number one, we have, I'm in the idea phase and I'm just trying to get launched. And what I mean by launch is not necessarily launching a product or program but there is an interesting thing in the online space that people go from idea to like tinkering around forever in a day to get some basic stuff up and running. 

Now, when you're in this idea to launch phase, what happens oftentimes is we get distracted trying to look pretty and to build this brand so others take us seriously. 

But I'm going to tell you this, people will take you seriously when you help them solve their problem. So the faster you can get to that point, aka book a client, the more people will take you seriously because then you'll actually have proof for it. 

18:43  

So if you do not yet consistently have clients in your business, and I'm speaking to you, if you are one of those who are in my community that have let's say, a brick and mortar business or you have some other type of business and you're trying to start a new business in the online space, I'm also looking at you, unless you have paying clients for, and you don't have to be paid even. 

You could do some work with some people for free but unless you're actually working with people to create the results that you want to create your online business around, you're still in idea to launch mode. The faster we get through that aka book a client and actually help someone then we move on to the next space. 

19:30  

What has to happen in the idea to launch phase? Well, this is really where we do a lot of dreaming and thinking and a lot of those things don't even matter but it's where we actually get ourselves set up. 

You create your business registration. You create your business bank account. I'm not an expert at this so I'm not going to be a hit list the things that have to be done here. 

But the point I want you to make is if you haven't generated $1 online or through clients where they pay you online, you're in this idea to launch phase. 

So the question you have to be asking yourself is how quickly can I get a client booked. Now the catch here is, oftentimes, we think we have to be fancier than we actually have to be to get a client booked. 

So for example, if you're like, but Heather, I don't have my payment gateway system set up. You can set that up very easily on PayPal. Did you know you could do invoices on PayPal, like there is a workaround. You do not have to have an entire cart system built out or products or whatever, if you're going to work with someone on one on one, just create a frickin PayPal invoice, just make sure using a business paypal account. I am not an accountant, nor am I an attorney or all those things so please make sure that you're checking these questions through someone else. 

But the point is, if you are not in revenue mode, you haven't made $1 yet, you're still in that idea phase, we need to exchange money so we can get you in the business business phase. A lot of the things that people think are important pre sale are actually not and we end up redoing it anyways. Okay, that's what I'm going to say for those of you who are very, very new, or you're new to the online space. Your goal is to get through that phase as fast as possible. 

21:10  

Now next week, I'm having my business coach and mentor, James Wedmore, who is the one that I learned from to make money consistently online and he talks about how the goal is you should be generating your first dollar online within the first 90 days, so you'll have next week's episode is going to be brilliant. You're going to frickin love it but he talks a little bit more about that. 

21:32  

Phase two in your business is where you've actually collected your first dollar, whether that's through a course, but most likely, it's going to be from one on one coaching or you've done maybe one on one services or a one off thing. Someone has paid you money. So phase two is now you're trying to figure out, how do I make money again?

21:55  

Quite frankly, that is the question, how do I make money again? So how do I book another one of these or how do I turn this into a digital product? The second phase of trying to generate revenue. The problem that we're trying to solve here is what am I selling and who am I selling it to? 

And in this phase here, we're not really getting distracted trying to build like the most epic offer under the sun. We're hustling for the dollar, and I think a lot of people think that they can skip this phase. They think that they can just go straight to I'm going to have a very successful six figure course but I am, I'll just give you my story here. 

22:37  

So I've shared my story multiple times around how I went from an executive to launching my online business. I had a wonderful transition plan. When I started in the online space, I replaced my corporate six figure income through speaking gigs, consulting, and many of that consulting was referrals from my prior company clients. I also booked a few coaching clients. Let's see, what else did I do? 

I did workshop facilitation. I ended up getting booked by a medical device company to consult for their training team. Essentially, I was booking contracts, yes for things that my business was about, but also kind of adjacent things and things that I hadn't previously known for because my friend, I was hustling for the dream. That sounded really lame but hopefully you can stick with me on that thought, hustling for the dream. Oh my gosh, how like there's not language that I would normally use. 

23:35  

But what I mean by that is I think people think they can skip over the phase where you got to figure out like, if you're going to make this whole business thing work, you're gonna have to figure out how to make money and it's not going to fit so nicely in a box as people painted it online. It's not going to be so as build your email list, sell to them. You'll replace your corporate income or whatever your other income is. 

Now, those stories do exist and I have a version of that story but getting to that point of consistent revenue through my online programs, quite honestly, it took me 12 months to do, but I was at a six figure business before that moment. And as I'll share here in a little bit, sometimes I still hustle for the dollar and that is okay. I think one of the things that I really want you to take away from this. Gosh, that was wordy but listen to me when I say this. 

24:31  

If you are truly in this for the, I will never never go back and get a job like I will be successful. This is my choice and I will make it work in my business come hell or high water. If that is you, you're in my people. But when you operate off of that this will work, my success is inevitable. 

When you operate from that piece, you're willing to continue to show up and innovate and you have to put the actions behind it, aka find ways to make money. Now what we want to do is make sure we're not splitting our time and energy across a bajillion things. 

But you notice when you start testing out a couple of these different ways and you are customizing, I'll do a package for this company, or I'll put together this package for this person. That does not mean that you are wasting a bunch of your time and splitting your focus everywhere. 

In my opinion, that's not it, what you're doing is you're actually casting lines to figure out who is the person that you resonate best with? How is your expertise really translated in the real world for people who are buying it? And what you're doing is you're really kind of vetting out your offer ideas, and how I did it is I did it in a really short time period. I'll say this fully. 

I know that I was very privileged and very fortunate to have existing contacts. I had a really good referral network and I had a really good solid business relationships before I launched my company. I had two years of professional experience and relationships that really, really set me up. 

26:04  

Now, I was also really intentional before officially opening the doors of my online business that I had been working some of those relationships to pay off. But the point that I want to make here when you're in this revenue generation mode, you're still in this testing mode. 

Now, why this is important for you to really adopt is, don't be so precious with what you create. I lovingly, for my clients refer to this concept of stop holding that in your precious purse, like you're being so precious with it, like knock it off, as in, stop obsessing over what the program name is, or stop obsessing with the graphics on the workbook, or the slide deck, or all those things. Its going to change in six months, anyway, Susie, like let's just keep moving here. 

26:54  

So what I want you thinking about is when we're in a revenue generating mode, what we're trying to do is figure out what's that thing that we really thrive off of that people would pay for that we can then anchor down and built. That is that. Once we figure that out, we get it launched, we get a little bit of traction with it, then we move into phase three. 

And that phase three, the question is around, how do I generate consistent revenue. Notice that this is phase three, in my opinion in your business. The first one was just the idea, we're going to dink around with it mode. The second one is we've made money and now we're figuring out how we're going to make money. The third phase is how are we going to be consistent with it. 

27:34  

So in phase three, in order for you to be here, you have a main offer that you are selling and that you have sold multiple times and now you're building consistency around that offer. Now that takes discipline because what happens is somebody goes one launch, two launch, three launch, and then I get really excited. I'm gonna launch a membership. Now I'm gonna add retreats. Now I'm going to do all these things and I laugh because I literally did all those things. We all go to do it. 

But the ones who really, really stand out are the ones who have the discipline to stick with their offer and that offer is really specific. It's for one person, solving one problem for one type of transformation. Now it doesn't mean it's only going to help one person. What you'll find is actually when you super, super niche down, you become like a fly paper and your people find you and they stick with you. They stick with you very, very loyally. 

We actually talked about a little bit more on next week's interview with James. He talks really about the value of sticking with that one thing. My personal opinion to take on this slightly different than James. I do agree with him on the dialing down for one thing. 

Where I get really clear with you all is in that phase before, in phase two, you might need to work it a bit, like I said hustle for the dollar. You got to figure out what it is that you're going to do to make money. 

29:02  

So listen to me when I say this friend, if you're in that phase where you're not consistently generating money, you don't have an offer that you're rinse and repeating on launching whether that's you have it for sale all the time or you're actually doing live launches, I think both are great and both can be effective. 

If you're not at that phase yet, you really need to think about how can I be creative and coming up with ways to create value for others? How can I flow more offers in front of people? How can I have conversations with organizations, with potential clients around what their problems are and then offer solutions for them through consulting, through done for you services, whatever that looks like? 

Like get the money my friend, like get that going because I'll tell you once you are bringing money in, it allows you to breathe a bit. It also that space for breathing, it gives you more creativity too so you can actually put that time into your main offer that you're going to create. 

30:03  

So those are phases one through three. Phase four, essentially is scale. So in my opinion, once you're at that phase where you're consistently generating revenue, then the question becomes, how do I scale this? And that's where team comes in. That's where really powerful systems, more efficiencies through automation and whatever else and this is where we can start cross selling and think about other ways to increase the lifetime value of our customers. That's where that comes in. 

But here's one of the biggest challenges that I see that most business owners that I have worked with or talk to in groups or events where people fall into is there seems to be a kind of a negative vibe or a negative feeling that if you are, let's say, down in phase one or phase two, there seems to be this badge of guilt that's worn around being a quote-unquote, newbie. 

I don't really love the term newbie. But they're kind of like I don't want to be seen as a newbie because people want to take me seriously. People won't pay me money. So there is this thought that if I act like the business owners in phase four, then people will treat me seriously. 

31:18  

And I will say, one of my favorite expressions that I say is act as if, act as if you already are the seven figure CEO or act as if you already are the insert whatever it is that you're climbing towards. But what you need to think about is that is the mindset, that is the attitude, that is how we're showing up. 

What it does not mean, it does not mean that you are getting distracted by trying to implement strategies or tactics of people in the third and fourth phase, but you're still in phase one or phase two. Let me give you a great example of this. 

If you're in phase one of idea to launch and you are spending the majority of your day creating content for social media, my friend, you were applying strategies of people in three and four, because they are scaling their audiences. 

In phase one, your goal, my friend is to get shit out and get some clients booked. Get that first book. So if you're not generating money, yet spending time on Tiktok or on reels or any of those things without spending the larger proportion of your time on finding leads to actually sell to, we have a lack of alignment. What's happening is we are trying to do tactics and strategies from the wrong face. 

32:39  

So one of the things that I'm always always, always, always, working with my private clients on is how is what I'm working on directly tied to sales in my business. The closer aligned you are to sales, the more consistent you will be with your revenue. 

If you're doing this six degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, have you've ever heard that? I think it's a movie, right? Where it's like, at the end of the day, everybody is like related to Kevin Bacon. But what I mean by that is, if you're in your business, if we were to look at the tasks of how and where you're spending your time right now and you had to explain very lengthy or like go through a couple of layers there of the onion of how ultimately it comes back to sales. 

But if it's not just like a direct punch, I'm going to say that that is why you are not generating consistent revenue in your business. And I say that because I know that to be true from experience, both with my clients but also with me too. Even I get distracted and want to do the flashy kind of side tangent things and I have to go hold up, how do I get back to the money making part? 

33:48  

So let's bring this back to how does this really tie into consistency? Because the consistent revenue doesn't really come in until phase three. But what if we're not at phase three yet? Where can we focus on with our consistency? 

I'm gonna bring up a very random, but it's kind of what I do, right? A couple, probably a month ago, I had just finished leading the Signature Talk Accelerator and part of what we did in the Accelerator which by the way, I've got quite a few emails and messages and no, that's not a bullshit. I got so many DMs. I literally have emails in my inbox in my DMs of people asking, when is the next round of the Accelerator? 

We are firming up the dates, but we're going to launch in September. The accelerator will run in early October. So if you want to join us for the next round, be sure to get on the waitlist. That'll be link is always in the show notes to be able to jump on that. 

34:40  

But the Signature Talk Accelerator so we just had it last month and part of what I was teaching them was the power of when you know your message. It is so easy to jump on a podcast episode and be interviewed and be totally on message where somebody listens to it and it feels like you're not delivering a talk, but you're pulling elements of your talk and it's so on brand that people are like, oh, I need to work with you, or they want to go download your thing or they take the next step. 

So what was interesting, so I taught this for three days and the Friday after the Accelerator, I happen to be flipping through my podcasts and I'm subscribed to the Mel Robbins podcast and I literally have never listened to it. I love Mel Robbins. I just don't listen to podcasts that much anymore. I have a very, very tight list of who I let into my ears these days and I just so happened like it came on next was a Mel Robbins episode and she was interviewing a cleaning and organization expert. 

Bear with, like, just stick with me for a moment, this is going to make sense. And so she's talking about like home organization and Mel is like fascinated because evidently Mel is like I'm so unorganized and the conversation was really fascinating but why I was drawn into it immediately was because this author was doing an exceptional job weaving in her core message, but adapting them to the line of questioning that Mel was bringing, and I'm like, this is frickin brilliant. 

I have to share this with my Signature Talk Accelerators. So I shared it with them. Anyways, but then I started thinking, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, we're getting ready to sell our house and so I'm in the process of decluttering and packaging things up. I should grab this book. 

34:50  

So I download the book and I blew through it on Audible in like, I don't know, a day and a half and here's one of the things I wanted to share with you from this book. I thought this was so good. If you are the type of person who has a very clean and tidy house and you are obsessive over that clean and tidy house, this will not resonate with you. 

But if you are like me, the kind of person who frickin hates cleaning and your house doesn't matter what you do is always a disaster and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed to admit I'm a slob. I'm not a dirty person, but oh my gosh, we're slobs, then this will resonate with you because that is who the book is written for. 

She talks about how she is a project person and a project person is so neat and tidy, right? Because we have the list of, we have this project coming up, we can outline all the tasks. We can execute it and then it's done. Oh my gosh, it's done and we don't have to think about it. 

36:30  

Now this was great for me, because my background is running live events and events our projects. There is a we start planning it and the event happens and then it's done. So for me, I realized I am a Project person. 

Well, in this book she talks about one of the problems she had with keeping her house clean and decluttered was she was approaching cleaning as a project, as in the kitchen was a disaster. So she will roll up her sleeves and spend six hours on a Saturday get into all clean and feel so good and it's so wonderful and then by 7:30am on Sunday morning, it's all undone. 

And it's like oh my gosh, I don't like, I just did it like it's done but now it's not done and the whole thing around house cleaning, she's like, Oh my gosh, it never freakin ends. And that concept, I'm like, Oh my gosh, it never frickin ends. So she has a whole system right around how she teaches you how to declutter your house and clean your house and that's not the point of this. 

But my lightbulb moment was Ooh, this is really good when we tie this into our businesses because in our businesses, there are projects. But there are also another category of things that I would call maintenance things, maintenance habits, maintenance items, maintenance tasks, whatever you want to call it. 

So we have project, tasks and maintenance tasks and depending on your personality and your workstyle you might be drawn to one over the other. So some people really like the consistent habits of every day, I'm gonna do these things and maybe they don't really love projects because they feel so big and daunting and looming. 

So getting that next launch done or getting a podcast started or redoing your website or something that feels big, that might feel really heavy for you and the challenge is you're like I just like the routine. I like these consistent tasks. So I'm gonna spend my time writing blog posts, I'm gonna spend my time networking with other people, I'm going to spend my time writing my email or social media or whatever that looks like because their routine that we can do consistently. 

This is really great if you'd like to kind of block schedule or batching things out because it's beautiful. You can just crank things out and everything kind of consistently maintains at a certain level. 

39:35  

On the other hand, you have other people like me, maybe you're like me where you love the rush of a project. You love the pressure. You love the deadline. You know at the end of the day, you can hustle your ass off and get it frickin done. And yes, you stressed out a little bit but like the thrill of it, it's wonderful and it's done. 

And if you're on that one, like where I'm at the routine tasks, oh my Gosh, they feel so mother frickin mundane and so they fall off, and that is what happened to me so far this year is I really knew the projects and I ignored the routine mundane maintenance. 

40:15  

Now when I say mundane, I don't mean like bad and boring. What I want you to take away from this is you need to understand, which one are you more naturally drawn to? Because the chances are, if you are inconsistent with revenue, it's because you're ignoring the one that you are not drawn to. 

So what that typically looks like is projects, we want to make sure we're prioritizing revenue generating projects, especially if our energy doesn't really love that project vibe. We need to ensure that the project is really really aligned. So if we put our effort into it, which might feel a little heavier, we're going to see results from it. 

40:53  

For those of you who are loved projects, but maybe the routine things, what you really need to align yourself around are what are the routines, what are the consistent things that you do that directly tie to revenue or closely are aligned with revenue. 

So I'll give you an example for me, project for sure are my launches. So my live launches for my program, my launches from my backend membership, and my affiliate launches that I run in my business, those are projects that are very, very well defined. We are like I said, working on the dates for the next big launch of the Accelerator, but I'm gonna give myself some grace because that was a new program we launched in March. 

So we wanted to see how it went before we scheduled again and it went swimmingly well. So that's the projects, but the the routine tasks in my business, this is where I would benefit from more consistency. 

This is where having stronger processes now for consistently recording the podcast, doing the show notes, making sure we have a promotional plan for getting the podcast out into the world and into the ears of more people, a consistency around list building which I talked tremendously about last week around the cross section between visibility speaking and email so that is a priority, and then the other priority is nurturing my audience both on social media, Instagram as my primary but also on email. Those are the things for me that fall off when I feel my energy go low.

42:18  

So coming back to this idea, if you want more consistent, predictable revenue in your business, you want to pay attention to we talked about two things.

One, what phase of business you're in, so that you're focused on the right type of activities but then I want you to pay attention to how you naturally operate. Are you more drawn and lit up by projects or are you more drawn and lit up by those maintenance style routine tasks? 

Neither is better than the other, but you probably will have a preference between the two and the secret to becoming more consistent, is identifying which are the critical ones that need to happen to keep your business on track.

43:00  

Now with anything one of here's the takeaway I'm gonna leave you with today. I think it's really, really easy for us when we're implementing new things or re- implementing or re-committing to somebody to our business. I think you're probably a little bit like me that you have a high caliber of excellence. You have high expectations for yourself. You might even refer to yourself as a perfectionist. 

And what I really want you to embody when it comes to this idea of becoming more consistent by aligning your activities to the revenue in your business, I want you to remember that the first step is to establish the habit of whatever that task is. 

It is not until we consistently have the habit that we can get fancy. So establish the habit first and then get fancy. What do I mean by fancy? I think you know what I mean by fancy. But if you're trying to get something perfect, if you're trying to get the polished version out, you're spending too much time in the perfection or planning process. What we need to focus on is just build the habit. 

So great example of this. If you're trying to get in the habit of posting reels on social, stop trying to make them fancy and just get some shitty ones out to build the habit. Chances are, I mean hello algorithm, people aren't gonna see it anyway so you may as well just start getting out now with the visibility as low then you could start getting good and your visibility hopefully will grow if the quality is there. 

44:28  

What I want you to think about is start with the getting it done first and then you can make an effective, then you can make it fancy, then you can make it pretty and that is probably going to be the most challenging thing for you, my friend, because I know you want it to be excellent and exceptional but we cannot be excellent exceptional if we're not actually showing up and doing the task consistently. So start with consistency first then you can get fancy. 

44:53  

Okay, my friend, I hope that this episode, as always met you exactly where you are today and what you need to hear today, to take whatever it is that next step in your business to start showing up as the expert you are, start being a little bit more bold with your decisions, start unapologetically making money for your expertise. 

As always, if you want some help on your journey with that, we have a couple of resources to help you with that. I've been talking about these last couple of weeks gearing up my Business Coach James Wedmore, who will be on the show next week for an epic encore interview he was on last year and it was so good. We talked for an hour and a half. 

This year's interview is only an hour. I was so proud of myself to help him be concise. We geek out around the cross section between language and messaging and your online business. We talk about the power of your vocality. We talk about that power of launching one offer consistently. We just cover so much ground in the episode, that's coming next week, along with an invite to my favorite event of the year which is the Rise of the Digital CEO. 

It is one time in your live event if you want to see a launch done epically with a lot of heart and just done really freaking well. He's a very generous coach. He's really, really generous in his live experience and audience interaction. I'm an affiliate for his program coming up, Business by Design. I will have a bonus package for that in the month of June so just know all of that is coming up. 

46:18  

If you know you really want to start leveling up your game for your digital products in your business, your courses, your memberships, you really want to start thinking about the difference between that project brain and that maintenance task brain, we break down all of it inside Business by Design in his program, and it's gonna be a big topic of what we focus on the next few weeks. 

So the first place I want you to start is I want you to download the free ebook, Hardwired for Entrepreneurship. If we do not focus on how we approach our attitude and how we think and what we focus on, if we don't get that down, the revenue cannot follow. 

So if you haven't downloaded Hardwired for Entrepreneurship, it's a 17 shifts that you must make to be effective with running your online business, the link for that is in the show notes. And then check out last week's episode where I talked to you about the power of list building and why 2023 is the year you need to double down and focus on not just building your audience, but creating qualified leads on your list so check out last week's episode for that, and I will see you next week for my interview with James Wedmore.