005: Step Into Success: Building a Thriving Business

In this fourth session of Money Maker Monday for the Blueprint to Breakthrough® program, participants reflect on the first four weeks of the journey that focused on mindset, building systems, taking action, and setting a growth foundation. 

The session emphasizes the importance of implementation over mere discussion, urging members to stop making excuses and start taking action to make their businesses thrive. Key points include converting engagement into revenue by building trust and relationships, ensuring message clarity, and leveraging partnerships. 

Participants are encouraged to make micro commitments to move from passive to active engagement and to operate with a CEO mindset by managing time effectively. The speaker emphasizes the constant need for personal and brand evolution and urges the audience to show up consistently and hold themselves accountable. The importance of setting and revisiting SMART goals is highlighted, and participants are tasked with launching a 7-day engagement campaign and refining their CEO schedules.

This podcast episode is exclusively for members and accountability partners of Blueprint to Breakthrough®. All content provided is for educational and motivational purposes only. Results may vary based on individual effort and application.

For more information and resources, visit www.sarahbethherman.com.

If you have any questions or need support, reach out through the cohort connection channel in Microsoft Teams. Let’s keep growing together!

Chapters

• 2:15 Letting Go & Moving Forward
• 3:09 Engagement is More Than Just Likes
• 3:37 Real-Life Branding Mistakes & Lessons
• 6:14 CEO Mindset & Accountability
• 12:07 Time Management for CEOs
• 15:07 Your Weekly Focus

Transcript

    📍  📍  All right. Welcome back blueprint to breakthrough members. This is our fifth moneymaker Monday and we are officially wrapping up our first four week phase getting out of your own head and prospering forward.  Over the last four weeks, we have covered so much from shifting your mindset to building the right systems, taking immediate action and setting an actual foundation for growth. 

But here's the thing, just because we talked about it doesn't mean you fully implemented it. So today we're circling back on a few key areas to keep you on track. And make sure that you're not just learning, you're actually doing.  Because let's be real. It is time for you to show up. No more sitting on the sidelines.

No more waiting for things to be absolutely perfect. No more waiting for time off. No more waiting for Saturday. No more waiting for that client appointment to be over.  If you want to build a business that thrives, a brand that lasts and a life that actually reflects your potential, then today is the day you're going to start acting like it. 

We're revisiting the best takeaways from the last four weeks and making sure that you have a solid foundation to move forward. You are either building momentum or making excuses. So let's get in, get focused and let's make this week count.



 I want to start this episode this week with something that Tim Grover says in the book Relentless. You all should be wrapping this up this week.  He says you can't move forward if you're still hanging on. And that right there is the problem for so many of us.  We're still hanging on to the fears, the doubts, the excuses, and the reasons it hasn't worked yet. 

And that's why you're not stepping into the level of success that you know you're actually capable of.  So today we're going to talk about turning engagement into revenue because that's where the shift happens. Engagement is more than just likes and comments. It's trust. It's relationships. It's conversations. 

Engagement is a conversation, not a broadcast.  Stop just posting and waiting. Talk to people. DM them. Comment back. The more your audience interacts, the closer they are to becoming customers of yours.  I want you to be crystal clear about your offers. Confused buyers, they don't buy. If people don't understand what you do in less than 10 seconds, they're scrolling past you. 

I've read a lot of books by Jamie Kern Lima. She's fabulous. And she talks about this a lot, how clarity is everything. If people don't get what you do, they won't engage. 

 I have two friends of mine. They both sell a skin care type of product. One of them sells a product that is like a sugar scrub.  Both of them have two distinct problems with their product. I buy from both of them to support their businesses, but I've also given them both great feedback.

One of them, the name of the company doesn't make sense for the product. I wouldn't have actually known that was the product because of the name. I'm not gonna disclose what all of those are today, but I'm just gonna tell you a few key things.  First, the name is odd. Two, the names of the smells don't make any sense to me.

I don't understand how to know what it's going to smell like, because the names are so different. They're not names that make sense. It's like  walking down the sidewalk. Okay, what does walking down the sidewalk mean? How does that smell, right? The other client of mine, she sells an all organic skincare product.

That product doesn't say that it's all organic. It doesn't even say what the ingredients are on the package. 

In my opinion, both of these women are completely missing out. on explaining what they offer and how they offer it and what it's like. Neither of them tell you what their product smells like, what it's like to use their product, why it's named the way it's named. It's a very interesting dynamic when you think about products, right?

So we've got to learn to have clarity in everything.  This week, I want you to get your audience to make micro commitments. This is how people go from lurkers to customers. Ask them to engage in small ways first. Comment, DM, download something for free. Then guide them towards a sale. So when I say download something for free, last week we did our digital products.

Every one of you should have a digital product to get you micro commitments. You see everything we're doing here at Blueprint2Breakthrough is little tiny steps to build you a perfect foundation. Even if your business is driving revenue, Even if you feel like you've made it, even if you feel like you got all the money in the world from your business, I promise you something's missing and there's a revenue you're not tapping into.

So I'm going to challenge you to think back to the last four weeks here at Blueprint. What could you do different?  If you don't have revenue coming in, I want you to think about your level of commitment so far.  your involvement in this program is your investment in you.  

What you do on social media, what you do in life, even not on social media and how you operate regularly in life is how you show up everywhere.  So if you aren't here consistent,  are you there for yourself consistently?  If you only post or show up when you feel like it,  you're running a hobby.

Not a business. People need to see you. They need to trust you. And they can't do that if you disappear. If you don't show up.  Yourself doesn't trust you to keep going. To create the new stream of income. The new digital product. The new thing to keep you going. You see, when you have a full time job, you show up, you clock in, you get it going.

You do the things that you got to do to be there all the time because you have a boss that's making you. as an entrepreneur, you are your own boss. So how are you holding yourself accountable?  Everything you do online for your business, Everything you put on your website, it needs to have a purpose.

Before you hit publish or post, ask, does it build trust? Does it educate? Does it lead to a sale? If not, don't post it. Stop wasting engagement on content that doesn't move people forward.  In the book we are just finishing this week, Tim Grover says decide, commit, act, succeed, repeat.  That's the entire game. 

Decide you're going to show up differently, commit to it, take action, see results, do it again.  It seems so simple when we just read it, when we just look at it, when we just hear it, right? It seems so simple,  but yet we don't do that on repeat.  We sometimes even forget the see results. Sometimes we forget to take action. 

I want you to decide, commit,  succeed, repeat.  Okay, now I know some of you aren't just starting out in business, you already have a brand. So I want to talk about leveling up from where you are. 

I have three things that I do frequently within my businesses to make sure that I'm always elevating my brands, my position as a top tier leader in my industries.  First, I audit my brand identity.  If I look at your website, your social media, your messaging,  does it reflect the leader that you're becoming?

Or just the version of you from six months ago.  Your brand should grow with you, right? My brand should grow with me. So what do things look like?  Side tip, I have my team create social media posts for all of my businesses and companies. 14 days in advance, never further  because we used to do it 30 days in advance.

And then I realized by the time we would get to the end of the 30 posts or 31 posts or 32 posts when we would do them a month in advance. By the time we got to the end, it was like, wow, that was like way old. Why is that content coming out? We've evolved from here. We've learned from here. We've had training from here, right?

 Your brand should grow with you  to deepen your audience relationships.  I read the book worthy by Jamie Kern Lima, and she says that people will root for you when they feel like they know you.  Okay. So if that's true, am I being real with my audience?  Are you being real with your audience? Are you letting them in? 

The brands that win are the ones that feel human.  I've suffered, my team has suffered, our posts have suffered from not being human enough. And I do think that I constantly have room to evolve there because we learn, we grow, we become different. And sometimes we have a batch of content coming out that is old content because we just learned how we shouldn't be doing that anymore.

And so it's not going to change for 14 days, but I don't want to waste the work.  We all have room to grow and to change and to become better, right?  Three. Leverage partnerships.  If you're doing this alone, it's your own brand, you're making it harder than it needs to be. I want you to start collaborating. I want you networking.

And putting yourself in rooms with people who stretch you. Even here at Blueprint, people are going to stretch you.  Challenge yourself to show up in their chats, log into your email. You know, I went and looked at everybody who I sent an audiobook to, to listen to the book, Relentless.

And there's four people that haven't even downloaded the free audiobook. Four people. Are you one of them?  You know that book is only six hours of listening? Six hours.  That means over the last four weeks.  You could have literally put in an hour and a half. Maybe that could have been three days of 30 minutes  or six days of 15 minutes  and that book would be done by now.

Where are you at?  How are you stretching yourself to get it done? How are you going all in on the investment in you? 

This week we're talking  a few weeks ago we talked about the CEO time management aspect. I want to bring back Dan Martell this week.  He has a saying that stuck with me and it says you don't lack time, you lack focus.  So, how do we actually manage our time like CEOs? What does that look like for us, right? 

The reality is, that you think you don't have time to, but you do. The average CEO spends 72 percent of their day in meetings and only 28 percent on actual growth driving work.  If that's you, you're operating like an employee, not a CEO.  So how do we shift into that high level time management that we're talking about? 

Well, the first thing is you've got to start your day with impacts, not emails. Your first 90 minutes should be focused on growth, not reacting to other people's priorities.  Two, use the 10 80 10 rule. 10 percent set the vision, 80 percent let your team execute, 10 percent refine.  And three, protect your flow state hours.

Know when you're most productive and block that time out. No meetings, no distractions.  If you aren't showing up for yourself, how can you expect anyone else to show up for you?  This CEO shift for you is going to look like you  stop waiting for the perfect moment and then you start creating it.  No one is coming to save you.

You have to be your own hero.  You invest in your time. You invest in yourself without hesitation.  If you won't invest in your own growth, why would anyone invest in you?  You hold yourself accountable. If you don't have an accountability partner, which all of you should right here, go get one.  If your accountability partner isn't holding you accountable each week, go get a new one.

Let me know, I'll add them to the system.  If you've got someone that is your accountability partner, push each other.  And now push each other a little harder.  The way you show up in this container is a direct reflection of how you show up in your business. You have to make it a priority and not for me, because it doesn't matter to me if you do or don't show up because there are so many people here that are showing up  and I want to pour into everybody that wants to show up for themselves. 

So this Weekly Focus, I've got some things for ya. I want you to grab a pen and paper and write these down, and if you don't have a pen and paper, get your iPhone out. Or press pause here, and when you get to wherever you're going, I want you to grab out your phone, open your Notes app, and start it up.  One, I want you to launch your 7 Day Engagement Campaign. 

I talked about a lot of ways you can engage. We've built the foundation over the last few weeks with even digital products that you can be launching to get engagement. Those micro commitments I'm talking about.  I want you to go back to your CEO schedule.  I want you to find out when your growth hours are block them.

We're refining that CEO schedule. We've got to keep coming back to it because if you're anything like me, I'm a little bit ADHD, a little bit ADD. I jumped from one thing to another. I'm looking here, but going there. I start this project, but then I forgot another one exists. Somebody needed me over here, so I've got to go over there.

 Get back to your CEO schedule. Check in with your accountability partner this week. Push each other.  We've got our wins and our goals this week. When was the last time you put yours in? Did you put them in last Monday? Where are you winning? Where are you winning? Tell me.

So that we know. Tell me so we can track it, so we can keep an eye on how you're winning. What are you learning every week that's changing everything about where you're going?  If you are someone with services that you offer, how full is your schedule?  Are you killing it?  Could you offer something to your community for free just to get engagement? 

Sometimes I throw up a free mentor session. 30 minute free mentor session. First five people get time with me.  Typically that makes my story views go from 300 to a thousand like that.

  What are your goals this week?  What are they?  And remember, it's not just a goal. What are your SMART goals?  Specific,  measurable,  attainable. 

You know the routine, you know what I'm looking for you to create, you know what I'm asking you to do, and now I just want you to be the CEO that you were always designed to be. And step into this shoe so you can really act like it.  I know you were meant for more  and now I need you to see you were meant for more and the way you know that is by showing up every single day, not taking one week off of our initiatives because I promise you by the end of these 16 weeks, your whole life and business will have changed completely. 

This week is an off week, which means we are not going to meet live. That's okay. We're gonna keep the chat going We're gonna talk about our wins and goals. You're gonna listen to this episode on repeat. Go play it back two times the speed My voice might sound crazy. I might drive you absolutely bananas, but you got to do this This is for you.

You can get this done. If you haven't made the digital product go do it now If you haven't listened to the audio book, go download it now. If you haven't logged into Teams yet, go do it now and share something amazing with the group. Get it going. We're four weeks in.  It's time to get some results.  

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Money Maker Monday. Let's go get some money making. Thanks guys and I'll talk to you next week.