Insights From America: My Top 5 Takeaways for Online Businesses

Today’s episode marks 300 episodes of the podcast, which feels amazing... it's not quite the special one I had planned (that's coming soon!), but it is still a must listen, especially if you're an online business.

In it I am giving you the inside info and sharing my key takeaways and themes from my trip to America, where I spoke at a seven figure mastermind for women owned businesses in Nashville, and attended the Kajabi Conference in Austin, which was filled with amazing speakers.

If any of these takeaways give you a particular lightbulb moment, please share on your social media, and let me know!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

The key marketing tool that all online businesses need to be taking seriously
Why you need to take a critical look at how you spend your time
Why you shouldn't constantly be creating new things or trying to reinvent the wheel

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Believe It by Jamie Kern Lima

Find out more about Kajabi

Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast, and as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing and welcome to episode 300. I have done 300 episodes of this podcast and sometimes it feels like I've done 30 and other times it feels like I've done 30,000. Hopefully it doesn't feel that bad to you.

Now I'm recording this episode and my dog is at my feet. This is, we've been together a long time. I'm very relaxed about this stuff, as you well know. So I apologize now if you can hear my dog moving or making a noise or whatever. But this is kind of, this is the real life. I am dashing in and out doing things and therefore I wanted to make sure my dog had some chance to see me and he sat by my feet. So I apologize if you hear these things.

Now. I wanted to plan something super special and amazing for episode 300. If you have listened for a while, you'll know episode 100 I had my husband down and we were interviewed by my very dear friend, BizPaul. And episode 200, I have my husband back on again. Cuz it's kind of nice just to do some kind of personal conversations.

And, you know, I, I guess it's kind of a little bit behind the scenes, but back then my husband used to work more in the business and since then he has retired from the Air Force and got himself a proper job. So, unfortunately, He is not in the business as much cuz he is actually, I was gonna say actually doing work.

I mean, when he was in the Air Force, he used to do some big scary stuff, but when he was around, he'd be around for days and days and days, but then he'd be gone for days and days and days. So it was like, I while, he was here he could do stuff in the business. Anyway, he doesn't anymore. So I decided a while ago I wasn't gonna have him in for episode 300, and I had some other thoughts and the timings just weren't...

Today’s episode marks 300 episodes of the podcast, which feels amazing... it's not quite the special one I had planned (that's coming soon!), but it is still a must listen, especially if you're an online business.

In it I am giving you the inside info and sharing my key takeaways and themes from my trip to America, where I spoke at a seven figure mastermind for women owned businesses in Nashville, and attended the Kajabi Conference in Austin, which was filled with amazing speakers.

If any of these takeaways give you a particular lightbulb moment, please share on your social media, and let me know!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

The key marketing tool that all online businesses need to be taking seriously
Why you need to take a critical look at how you spend your time
Why you shouldn't constantly be creating new things or trying to reinvent the wheel

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Believe It by Jamie Kern Lima

Find out more about Kajabi

Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript
You are listening to Your Dream Business Podcast, and as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath Wareing and welcome to episode 300. I have done 300 episodes of this podcast and sometimes it feels like I've done 30 and other times it feels like I've done 30,000. Hopefully it doesn't feel that bad to you.

Now I'm recording this episode and my dog is at my feet. This is, we've been together a long time. I'm very relaxed about this stuff, as you well know. So I apologize now if you can hear my dog moving or making a noise or whatever. But this is kind of, this is the real life. I am dashing in and out doing things and therefore I wanted to make sure my dog had some chance to see me and he sat by my feet. So I apologize if you hear these things.

Now. I wanted to plan something super special and amazing for episode 300. If you have listened for a while, you'll know episode 100 I had my husband down and we were interviewed by my very dear friend, BizPaul. And episode 200, I have my husband back on again. Cuz it's kind of nice just to do some kind of personal conversations.

And, you know, I, I guess it's kind of a little bit behind the scenes, but back then my husband used to work more in the business and since then he has retired from the Air Force and got himself a proper job. So, unfortunately, He is not in the business as much cuz he is actually, I was gonna say actually doing work.

I mean, when he was in the Air Force, he used to do some big scary stuff, but when he was around, he'd be around for days and days and days, but then he'd be gone for days and days and days. So it was like, I while, he was here he could do stuff in the business. Anyway, he doesn't anymore. So I decided a while ago I wasn't gonna have him in for episode 300, and I had some other thoughts and the timings just weren't right.

So I do have a special episode coming up. It's not recorded. I haven't decided what, what episode it's going to be. It won't be a million miles away, but it's not episode 300. So I'm really sorry, but this is just a normal episode of me talking to myself. So I apologize if you were hoping that we'd have some really cool different stuff.

Now, what I am gonna give you in this episode is if you have been following me along, if you follow me on Instagram, you will know for the past like almost six weeks. I have been in and out of home and I've been at various different speaking places. I've been at various different conferences. I've run two of my own events, and I thought I would just give you a little bit of a roundup of some of the things and themes that I've heard over the last six weeks. Because obviously, not only have I been speaking and attending things, but I have seen some amazing speakers too.

And I've met some amazing people. So I just thought I would take a really quick episode to tell you kind of some of the themes that were coming up. And lots of the things I guess that I've got for today's episode or some of the stuff I wanna say to you are based on online businesses, because one of the big things I did in these travels was I went to the Kajabi conference in Austin.

And obviously the Kajabi product is the product I use for my online business, and therefore everyone at that event had an online business and therefore all the speakers were focused towards online businesses. So some of those things are gonna be online, but I still think they're good messages even if you don't have an online business.

So let's start with the first thing I did. I spoke in Nashville at a Seven Figure Mastermind for females, and it was awesome. I have to say I was very nervous. I was thinking these are seven figure businesses. I am not a seven figure business. And I was a little bit intimidated by who they might be and what they might know and whether my content and I would be good enough for them.

And I am super glad to say that actually it was lovely and they were lovely and very down to earth and it was really inspiring to be sat in a room with them. But I also didn't feel at all threatened by them, which was lovely or felt like I wasn't good enough, which just proves surrounding yourselves with the right people, no matter what level they're at.

And actually for me, it was really lovely to be surrounded by people who were at a stage beyond me so that I could be inspired by them as well as speaking for them. And I picked up a couple of things from there, which I think is, really interesting. So one of the first things I picked up was the fact that these women were all about diversifying their income.

So they, and, and actually this goes to contradict something I heard later on, at Kajabi, however, I still think it's important. So they talked a lot about having different revenue streams coming in. So they weren't putting all their eggs in one basket. They weren't going, I've got this one thing and this is all I'm gonna do and all I'm gonna sell.

Or I've got this one client now I have to say as well the predominantly the businesses there. Now, they weren't all but predominantly they were in, real estate. So either they bought properties and rented them out, or they did short term rentals and that sort of thing, or they flipped properties. So that was really interesting for me to see that, that, like I said, it was, they were all about different revenue streams.

The other thing that kind of really inspired me was some of these women had jobs, right? Which blew my mind. They not only had businesses that were hitting the seven figures, but they still had jobs because they were still in their own mind, getting to a point where they were comfortable enough to go, I can now leave my job.

But what blew me away more than anything is these women were working their backsides off. Right? They were literally, Working so hard because they were working a full-time job. And I dunno whether, you know, obviously if you're in the States, you will know, but you might not know that in the UK we get considerably more annual leave than you do.

So vacation time, so I was talking to one woman who works and runs her business and she gets 14 days annual leave a year. 14 days, right? So I then started having a conversation with her about, well, how do you even divide that time up? What do you use it on? And she's like, I was get, she's getting married, so she's using five for that.

So I was like, well, what about your honeymoon? Well, I just won't have one. And then she, and then I'm using four or five for Tony Robbins, and that again, blew me away. So not only did she have very limited holidays, she had a business on the side of her. Actual employee job. And then she was using her most valuable time to go and do personal development stuff.

And I have to say, they all made me kick myself up the backside a bit cuz I thought these women are killing it. And, and I know there's about balance and I know we wanna live our lives and you know, I am totally about that. But it made me kind of had a bit of a hard, long look at myself and go. Am I working as hard as I could be?

Am I showing up as much as I could be? Or am I making excuses for myself? Now. I'll talk about something that Brendan Brichard said later at, at the Kajabi event, but that kind of coincides with this, but, and it's not about beating yourself up going, well, you should be working harder. No, only you can decide that.

I sat there and looked at these women and thought, wow. Like one, I could look at Diversing diversifying my income, and it was a lot about investments and things like that. And two, I could ask myself, am I really working as hard as I could be? So that for me was really, really awesome to hear kind of those women and how they work.

So that was the first thing. The other thing that I really liked, that one of the other speakers talked about was micro, daily micro actions. And actually this was a theme the whole way through, and I've done content on this and I'll probably do content again on this. And I definitely do this when I teach people how to goal set.

It's like, what's that one next step that you can take that takes you a bit closer to that goal? Because sometimes a goal looks so big that you can't even start to think, how do I get there? So it's about breaking them down into micro actions, and by having lots of different micro actions, they will then build up to bigger actions and they will then build up to bigger changes.

So, It's about making it, even if it's like, so for instance, someone was talking to me about, steps and they were like, it's not about doing 10,000 steps every day. It's about going, where am I today and tomorrow can I do a few more steps? And it could be literally 10 more steps. Sorry, my dog is now squeezing a ball and making a noise, so I apologize.

But it's about like, you know, Doing 10 more steps than you did the day before. It's not about trying to hit 10,000 every day because someone said that's what you should do. It's about where am I today and what small improvement can I make tomorrow and what small improvement can I make the day after and what small improvement.

And if you're just constantly building on it, then by the end of a month you will be doing considerably more steps, but hopefully it won't have felt like you've had to suddenly up it to 10,000 overnight. So, That was like a really good and interesting one for me to hear again. What else did I get from that event?

Oh, we had an amazing woman talking about, masculine and feminine and in what parts of our business do we show up more masculine and what parts do we show up more feminine? And that was really interesting. And actually, I might invite her to come on the podcast, even though I don't technically do interviews anymore.

I will still have people on who I find fascinating and think it's interesting for you. So then I went to the Kajabi conference. Which was excellent. It always is. I will link up to Kajabi if you have an online business or want an online business and definitely check them out. They are excellent.

These noises you can hear are my dog. I have, I don't know how much you can hear this until we listen to this back, but if you hear funny noises, it's not me, it's my dog. I'm sorry. But basically we had some phenomenal speakers at Kajabi. We had Brendon Burchard, we had Jamie Kern Lima, if I said her name right.

Really, really good ones. And actually I want to tell you a couple of things about, about what Brendon said. So a couple of things that were really interesting and actually the theme the whole way through was if you are not advertising, what even are you doing? And this, I have to say again, was another bit of an ass kicking for me and a bit of a wake up call.

I have been very lucky and that I am very grateful that I have managed to build an audience without particularly spending a huge amount of money on ads. I do very occasionally do ads. I have to say I have not done them for a long time. Occasionally, I'll boost something on Instagram. I know that is not the best way to do ads, and I will happily tell people don't do that, but I have.

But actually what was fascinating was everybody that spoke and everybody that had got the sizeable businesses were spending a sizeable amount of money on Facebook ads, and they didn't start there. Obviously. None of them suddenly put 10 grand a day on Facebook ads. They started small, they worked out what worked, and then they kept going.

And that goes to the second point that I really got while I was over there was about like how much, how often do you create something and then go, oh, now I need to create something else. Now I need to create something else. Now I need to create something else. Well, the truth is like Brendon Burchard, who is obscenely famous and wealthy in this online world and has done stuff with Usher and Oprah and various presidents and whatever.

You know, this guy knows what he's talking about. He basically sells the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. And I think sometimes we get concerned that, oh right, we've sold it this once and only X amount of people bought it.

So that probably means we need to create something different. And I sat there and I actually thought about all the stuff I have in the membership, all the courses I've done, all the coaching I've done, and I have a ton of things I could sell and absolute ton of them. I don't, fyi, maybe I should. But also I feel like in the past I felt like I've had to reinvent the wheel every time and gone, oh, well I did a course on this and now I'll do a course on this.

But basically he was saying, you just keep selling the same course over and over and over and over again, and stop trying to create a new course and do a new thing and. Because by no means have you, exploited doesn't ever sound nice. It's a funny word, isn't it? But but basically you haven't exploited the course that you've got, you haven't made the most of that content that you've created already.

So actually it really good did make me think, okay, what have I already got that I could just go and sell tomorrow? So, I am not at that point yet, by the way. I have not suddenly come out with one of my courses and gone here we go buy this thing. But also he talked about the evergreen ness. And again, I could do this, you know, running those ads to some evergreen things.

And the other thing that was interesting is he talked about his, his process and how he does it. And he said it hasn't changed for years. And it's still working. And again, I find that really interesting because you know, you expect or think or feel that there's something new out there that you should be doing.

And the truth is, I'm not sure there really is that many new things. Now, don't get me wrong, there are nuances and things change, but when you look at someone like the size of Brendon Burchard, he's just been doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. And you know what was interesting as a speaker?

I mean, he's a phenomenal speaker. I really did enjoy him. I had a chance to ask him a question the day after. Oh no, same day. We, I had VIP tickets and. They do like a lunch and learn where they bring one of the speakers in and you get to ask questions. And I did. And we talked about speaking and I talked about how I could get more bigger gigs cuz obviously he speaks on the bigger stages.

But I had heard a lot of what he had said already and I've only seen him speak once before. So that was really fascinating as well. Cuz again, you know, Rather than thinking I've gotta bring out a new story, or I need a new learning or a new thing, he's just basically doing the same thing over and over and over.

And I dunno whether it's that consistency or the tenacity that's making him as successful as he is. But that was fascinating. So from him, I took one that basically you need to do ads. And lots of people there made me go, you need to do ads. And two, don't reinvent the wheel like, If you know, when you think about how many people are in this world and how many people have their own businesses, and how many people could potentially buy the thing that you're selling, to say you haven't scratched the surface is an understatement.

Like even someone of his level probably hasn't scratched the surface and there are still lots of other people that could buy that thing. So rather than inventing and coming up with something new, is there just a way that you can go, let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. So that was interesting.

The other thing that he talked about, Which again, like, so he went through his whole funnel and, and talked about the many upsells that he does, which kind of made me feel very uncomfortable if I'm honest. It made me cringe a little bit, but then again, how can I argue with the man who's making way more money than I am?

So that made me think, like I said, it's not that I'm necessarily gonna do it, but it did make me think. So the other thing that was fascinating and I was a bit kind of like, do I talk about this or not? Cuz. Me a couple of years back would've been very triggered by this, but I have to say again, I dunno whether it was cuz I'd been at that mastermind and seen these amazingly successful women working incredibly hard or whether I'm just in a different frame of mind now.

But he talked about, so he asked people to put their hands up and said, who works? Sorry, who goes on social media for an hour a day? And I didn't put my hand up because I am very good now.

If you've heard me talk about my own social media before, I now have a team member that helps me create the posts based off my content and then I do all the proactive and reactive engagement. So I'm the one, if you DM me, I am the person who dms back. She'll never do that because that's really important to me cuz you're having a conversation with me and therefore you should get me.

And I've been very fierce about that for years. But when it comes to me viewing social media, I am actually very good at not doing that. I mute a ton of people and a ton of people who are in my world, who are my friends, but they do similar stuff that I do, and therefore I mute them because I find it distracting.

The big people that I used to follow and love, I mute. I find it distracting. The people who I engage with are predominantly my members and people within my world who and my community. And I love the fact that, you know, that's whose feed, that's the content I see when I look at my feed. And obviously lots of gardening.

I see a lot of gardening stuff, which makes me happy. But no, so I'm generally very good. I don't spend a lot of time on social media....