Will this help? A Summer Accountability Program

If you’re anything like me (and so many of the people in my audience are a lot like me!) there are many things that you find difficult to get done.

I’m easily distracted. I don’t respect my own deadlines. I get frustrated with myself regularly and then beat myself up for not being “better” at business.

Over the years (I’m almost 13 years in as a business owner!) I’ve learned a few “hacks.”

1) Get support

Seriously - instead of beating yourself up for needing support to get things done, be excited you figured out that support helps you get things done.

Things work really well for me in this regard. My assistant and being in programs where people expect me to show up and give them updates on what I am working on help me start and finish things.

2) Pay for it

I wish that it didn’t make sure a big difference, but when I pay for something then I am more committed to it. I know this is true for other people because the people who pay to do things that I’ve previously done for free get more results - there’s just a different level of internal commitment from people when they’ve paid to get value out of something (even if the value would have been the same for free).

Summer Accountability Program

So, I’ve created something that would work for me and that I know works for my current clients.

• Eight accountability sessions over three months.

• A full-day planning day in September to get ready for the final quarter of 2020.

• A weekly email from me asking you how things are going and asking you to reflect on the week.

The price is low - $297 including tax (for the whole summer, not per month).

I hope you’ll join me. I’m going to be working on my new opt-in, on creating content and videos. What will you work on? Come join me and let me know - the first session in on Monday, July 6th from 1-3:30pm EDT.

What’s included:

Accountability Sessions:

July 6th from 1- 3:30 pm EDT
July 15th from 9 -11:30 am EDT
July 20th from 1-3:30 pm EDT
August 5th from 9-11:30 am EDT
August 10th from 1-3:30 pm EDT
August 24th from 1-3:30 pm EDT
September 9th from 9-11:30 am EDT
September 28th from 1-3:30 pm EDT

A Planning Day on September 18th from 10 am - 4 pm EDT.

Weekly Check-In Emails: You will receive an email every Friday from me asking how the week went and send Lara an update on how you've been doing and what you've been accomplishing.

Cost: $297 CDN

Sign up now! :)

Stop Trying To Do It All

If you’re responsible for everything in your business and you’re the only one who can handle tasks, you’re creating a low ceiling on how much your business can grow.

Do you what you’re great at

You’re not amazing at everything, but you’re amazing at many things. What are you REALLY good at? What is your zone of excellence? (Have you read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks?)

Focus on that work.

You’ll enjoy it the most and it will make you the most money.

(Truth: you can’t outsource everything you don’t like, but plan to work towards that instead of thinking the more you do yourself, the better.)

Create systems so others can do things the way you would

When you outline how you want things to run in your business you’re creating a business that is:

• Consistent

• A business others can help you with

• Scalable

There’s only so much of you to go around. Start figuring out how you do things and get it documented (Clockwork by Michael Michalowicz has some great tips on how to create these systems) so that you can guide others to do it the way you do.

(Truth: You don’t need to write down EVERYTHING that you do and the first time you create the system might not actually be the best version of that system. Start with some of the things you do most often in your business and document the process as you’re doing it.)

Delegate the stuff other people are better at

I know other people are better and faster at getting regular content scheduled, emails sent, contracts updates, and sales pages and automations built. It’s not only a much better use of my time to do the things I’m good at, but when I try to take some of that stuff on myself I occasionally make things worse instead of better anyways! Instead, I can focus on writing, recording videos, networking, having sales calls, and supporting my clients.

By delegating I have more time to make more money and support more people instead of being distracted on the stuff that isn’t my genius work (even though I am perfectly capable of doing it!) And a bonus - I’m supporting someone else’s business/career at the same time!

(Truth: People won’t necessarily get it right the first time they try to do what you do. Don’t have that expectation and know that your job is to mentor them and guide them so that they CAN start to do it the way you would. It is worth the effort.)

How do you take action on this?

Keep a running list of what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis and rate the work.

• What do you love?

• What do you wish you didn’t have to do?

• What do you procrastinate to avoid?

• What do you do that you KNOW someone else should be doing but you’d rather save the money of paying someone else to do it and just do it yourself?

The things you’ll keep doing are the things that help bring in more money, run the business, and manage the team.

The things you’ll delegate are the things that you know other people are better at and that you know isn’t reliant on YOUR brain and skillset.

Start thinking about how big your company can grow if you’re not responsible for everything.

This is one of the ways you can stop feeling trapped in a world where the only way you can more more money is to work harder and longer. That doesn’t have to be the case.

Start believing that the less you are personally responsible for, the more your business can grow and the bigger the impact you can have on the world!

The power of believing in YOUR way

What makes one person feel safe, secure, comfortable and confident can be vastly different from what makes another person feel that way. Recently, I was thinking about one way I do things differently than most people I know: when I go on road trips, I hate to pre-book my hotels.

This makes many of my friends and family SO uncomfortable!

“Doesn’t it stress you out to not know where you’re going and what the plan is to get there?”

Nope! I get stressed out feeling locked into things! How am I going to know when I want to stop? My friends get personally stressed out for me when I tell them I don’t book a hotel, unable to separate how they would feel in my situation.

“What if you can’t find a hotel?”

I always find a hotel, maybe not at the first place I stop, but it always works out (and I always feel confident it will while we’re figuring it out). And my measure for “works out” is probably quite different than it is for other people because the thing I’m LOOKING for is not “safety” or “security” or “comfort in knowing” it’s “freedom to change my mind and be spontaneous.”

You may not like to road trip my way, but that doesn’t mean my way isn’t great because I’m getting what I’m looking to get out of the experience! I always believe it is going to work out and it always does. 🙂

This same idea applies to the different ways people run their businesses.

Some people like everything very structured and planned out and some like to fly by the seat of their pants (I fall into the second category).

There is great merit in having a well-structured and predictable business model (and the need for this gets more and more important the bigger you grow) but there is also great merit in having a business that is built to suit the things that are important to you (I need to have room in my business to create new things regularly. If I booked up all my time on the same things in a repeated manner for a year in advance, I would feel claustrophobic in my business).

Now, I’m not saying it’s a good idea to never have a plan, but it’s okay if you’re someone who likes to keep things feeling fresh and different on a regular basis.

You can run your business that way too, you just need to to know where and how to keep the freedom, spontaneity and creativity alive for yourself, while keeping the infrastructure of your business sound (you don’t need to book the hotel but you DO need to know you have money to pay for a hotel and a well-maintained vehicle to get you there).

We all get to prioritize what works for us and what we value and want to create. You can find the perfect balance for you by acknowledging what’s important to you, what motivates you, and what will keep you primed for success in your business. It’s the power of believing what you love and desire WILL work for you and lead you to success.

If you want to figure out how to find that balance for YOU and how you can use that to create success in your business, let’s chat. I’d love to learn more about what is important and motivates you as a business owner and how I could support you in achieving that!

Creating clear marketing goals for action, success and more money!

Business owners often know what they want in their businesses, but they don’t have clear goals on how to get what they want. They just know they want to be successful. They know they want to make more money. They know they want to do the thing that their business does.

Here’s the thing though: having clear and specific goals makes it easier to do everything else. Having clear goals even creates more time in your business because you’re not spending time on things that won’t move you forward. Clear business goals also help you define clear marketing goals which will ensure your attention and messaging is focused on what will have an impact on your business. And good marketing turns into more leads, which turns into more sales!

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS?

Spend time thinking about your business goals, specifically about what you're hoping to achieve through your marketing. It's probably (though not necessarily) a given that one of your goals is to make more money, but we want to get more specific than that today. Your goals may include things, such as:

• Being known as an expert at something

• Being seen as a resource on a certain topic

• Expanding your audience geographically or demographically

• Getting more engagement online and building community

• Increasing sales in a certain part of your business

• Getting other people to talk about you to their communities

• Filling a certain program

• Increasing sales online instead of in person

Because it always helps to see specific examples, I'll share some of mine and create some fictional examples:

• Be seen as an expert in explaining social media for small business

• Be seen as an expert in nutrition and wellness

• Expand audience beyond the Ottawa-area

• Expand audience to new moms 

• Increase sales in one-on-one coaching and speaking (or sign two new clients per month)

• Create content that is linked to by other bloggers and media outlets

• Be more findable in search

You can be even more precise and create goals that are channel-specific:

• Increase Facebook likes by 300 people

• Establish a presence on YouTube and get 1000 video views

• Get retweeted and tagged by industry experts on Twitter

• Get three media hits per month

REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO ACHIEVE

The more you work to figure out these goals and why you're setting them, the more likely you will work them into your plan efficiently. Take a few minutes and write down an explanation of what you mean by each one and why they're important to you. For example:

• I really enjoy helping small business owners figure out how to use social media for their business in a one-on-one setting. I get energized and excited when having personalized calls with business owners and hearing them figure out what they could be doing. Their lightbulb moments make my day, and their wins and increased revenue are my wins too. I want to do more of that so I need to make it clear that this is something that I do, like to do and I am good at.

• I feel that it's time to expand beyond my local market. I like to spend time in Toronto and Boston and want to start by growing my audience in those specific cities. To do that, I need to start to grow an audience in those cities, so there is already a start of a customer base in those cities when I arrive to hold an event or launch a product. I need to figure out where my audience is spending their time (online and off) in those cities so I can create a custom plan.

• I want to grow my online sales. I know that if I focus more of my attention on driving people to my online store and the products I sell there, I can increase that revenue stream. That may mean decreasing what I make in person while I focus on online or working extra hours to carry me through the gap.

TIME TO DO THE WORK

I challenge you to spend 10 minutes right now coming up with three or four marketing goals for the next six months. Really think about what you like to do, what you want to be doing and why you want to be doing it and give yourself some real explanations on why those are important and meaningful goals for you and your business and your marketing right now. Then leave a comment and share some of those ideas here!