Personal Brand Journey with Jamie M Swanson

7-Figure Mindsets, Scaling your Messaging, and Hiring a Team with Molly Keyser

Connect with Megan Kuethen, the "Queen of Ops" at @thequeenofops on Instagram. Like this episode? Would you take a moment right now to please leave a review? That'd be amazing, thank you! Send a DM to Jamie Bright @JamieBrightAdventures on Instagram and let her know what you thought of the episode!

Hiring & Managing a Team and the 5-A Framework with "The Queen of Ops" Megan Kuethen

Apply to join the Brighter Together Mastermind and get all the details by clicking here.  >>> http://wearebrightertogether.com Have questions about it? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieBrightAdventures Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript: Hey friend today instead of our regular podcast opener, I thought I'd play a little guitar for you. I'm out of practice, but why not? Right. just kidding. Not going to do that. I don't know why I thought that would be a fun opening, but here I am. Let me put my guitar away. Oh, my gosh, I'm sitting in my closet recording. Cause the sound is better here. And my guitar happened to be here and I haven't picked it up in ages. So I thought I would. But today, what I really want to talk to you about is the intention behind what you're doing. Why are you growing your business? And I want to talk about why it's so important to answer that question and what got me thinking about it in the first place. So it's going to be an awesome episode and I cannot wait to share with you ? so a couple of weeks ago I got mail, like a piece of paper, actually. It was several pieces of paper from Casey Graham, who is the founder of gravy. They're a payment recovery company and he sent out this thing called the outsider and it's a paper newsletter. And it's fantastic. I was really surprised to get it. I've been a client of gravies for several years, although, with closing down the photography stuff, I'm not using them at the moment cause I don't have that membership going anymore, but they were great. And I got this outsider newsletter and it was all about defining your owner's intent, which is. Basically the reason why you are growing your business and what your goal is for your business. Now that might seem really basic, but it's a lot deeper than you might realize. And it got me thinking in a big way. So when I was first starting out my business At that point, my entire goal was just to replace my household income so that I could have more freedom over my time and more autonomy. Be able to see more of my kids' milestones and be around more frankly, I was tired of commuting an hour and a half each day, and then working in a job that sucked the life out of my soul. So my complete purpose in starting my business. Was simply to replace my income so that I could get out of a job that sucked the life out of my soul. I didn't want to be an actuary anymore. Because of that. And because that was my intention with the business, I basically created another job for myself. The business was fully dependent on me. I was the face of the company. I was one doing the delivery. Yes. There are times when I had a team, but it was all based upon me. And I was constantly busy. Constantly busy. I did all the copywriting. I did all the sales pages. I did all the marketing. I did all the customer support until I got really wise and finally hired somebody best investment I ever made by the way. And yes, it was amazing. And yes, it was very profitable. But I was very busy and it took me until several years later to really learn how to grow a team and to pass some things off so that I could get the freedom and autonomy that I was really searching for. And it was a really hard transition and I was still working on it even before COVID came. I was literally in the middle of evergreening, everything so that I could step away a little bit, but it was still push, push, push, and very much so dependent on me, even though it was less dependent on me than it had been in quite a long time. And so when COVID came and I went through the whole massive business transition, it was kind of like giving myself a clean slate and. I was able to think about how I would do things differently. Now with the 10 years of experience that I have doing this. Full-time. And at first I wasn't thinking about that at first I was thinking, okay, how do I get some more money into the business? Because my income dropped 85% like overnight. It was awful. It was stressful. You can hear all about it. And season two, and it was a very much so income focused again. And by the way, there's nothing wrong. If that's where you're at right now. But as I began to move forward and as I began to get really clear about what I loved and didn't love, and as I remembered, and I thought about the fact that this was. An opportunity to really build a business that just made me come alive in a way that I hadn't felt alive in a long time. I mean, I love photographers, but I haven't been passionate about photography in several years. And I was when I started that business. But today I would never start a business in the photography industry because that's not where my passions lie. Can I help them? Absolutely. But I wanted something that was more aligned with me. I wanted to run. Masterminds and work with entrepreneurs. And I thought I would have to wait on the masterminds until later. Anyways, you've heard the story. If you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you've kind of walked through that journey with me and gotten to see where I've come from. But when I got this thing from Casey, this outsider. Pamphlet, I would know what to call it. paper newsletter. It really made me stop and think about why am I doing what I'm doing now? I had already been very committed to lifestyle design. I know from experience that it doesn't get easier to step away from the business once it starts making more money. And that if you set it up from the beginning to be fully dependent on you and super busy, then later on. It's still going to be fully dependent on you, maybe even more so, and even harder to step away. So with this one, I've been committed to creating a business that I really only had to do about 20 hours a week of work with, because I do homeschool my kids and. Uh, he ran a crazy long ultra marathons, which means spending miles and miles and hours and hours and hours on the trail each week training. And so I need to have that flexibility if I want to have, well, one, if I want to have the presence that I want to have with my children, when I'm homeschooling and really do that well, but also have the time to do the training without it affecting my business. So, as I was thinking about the owner's intent, I realized more than ever that I don't. Just want to run a mastermind or build a mastermind business that can scale where I'm running. All of these masterminds. I want to build a business that can truly have a massive impact beyond what I can do alone. I want to see entrepreneurs come alive and have the lives they actually want instead of getting stuck in the weeds and the to-do lists. And actually not having, like most people don't even realize how trapped they are by the business that they themselves have created. And I know masterminds are a great way to help them out of that. I want to help them shine bright and make an impact in the world as well as an income. And honestly, I just want to empower you to know how to empower your people so that we can make massive impact in the world. If I can help you change the lives of the people in your audience, even a one tiny way, then my impact has just been multiplied several times over. That's what makes me come alive, empowering people like you to empower your people so that my impact can scale so much greater than what I can do. I really started thinking about that deeply and about how I was doing that. But I realized that. I actually want to be the architect this time and not an employee. I don't want to create a job. I genuinely want to create a business that yes, I'm going to do a little bit with, and yes, I'm going to be the face of it. And it's going to reflect my heart and the impact that I can have in the world. But. I want to create something that can grow so much bigger than me. I want to empower people who have that same mission as me, who genuinely want to see entrepreneurs succeed, come alive and reach their goals and have a greater impact in the world. I want to do that with other people. I want to bring them along. I want to empower them in the same mission with me, so that we can do it together. And that just lights me up and I genuinely want to be an architect and not an employee. In fact, my dream is to empower at least a thousand entrepreneurs through brighter together masterminds by the end of 2023. And I can't do that alone. In fact, I actually wanted to have a much bigger goal than that, but we're going to start with that one as the stepping stone stone goal. And I honestly believe that it's possible, but it isn't possible if I'm simply creating a business. That's. Where everything is done by me, where I am the employee, where it's all based on me. Yes, I am the architect. Yes, I have the vision, but. This time, this time is different from when I first started, because I can see that I can have the influence on an even greater scale. I can leave a greater legacy. I can impact more people by building a team of people to do this with me, by finding the right people, to be a part of this business. And by structuring it in a way that's a legitimate business and not just. A side hustle. Not that there's anything wrong with a side hustle, but it's a totally different mindset shift. So my question to you is. Why are you building your business? I mean, yes. You want to help people. I assume, since you're listening to this podcast, but you could be working for somebody else doing that. You could be an employee. Why do you feel so deeply called to run a business? And why have you structured it? And the way that you've structured it is this really how you want it to be. And if you've enjoyed these podcasts and are getting a lot of knowledge from it, and you just feel like you resonate in a big way with the idea of not just making an income, but truly making an impact in the world with your business. And you would love to be surrounded by a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who are working to get out of the messy middle. And scale their business and impact in a big way. I would love for you to consider becoming a part of the brighter together mastermind. Now at the time of recording this, I only have six spots available in the current group that I'm running and I'm not quite ready to start a second group yet. So if you are interested in having one of those spots and being one of the thousand entrepreneurs that. I am helping to reach, to empower and to grow their businesses in a real way. And you would love to be a part of this. What I'd love for you to do is go to, we are brighter together.com and fill out the application. It's got all the details there. It's got all the pricing info and what we do and how often we meet and all the things about it. And in the meantime, it just remember my friend, we are brighter together and the world needs us. So let's go out and make it ? brighter.

What's Your Owner's Intent & Why is it Important?

Apply to join the Brighter Together Mastermind and get all the details by clicking here.  >>> http://wearebrightertogether.com Have questions about it? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieBrightAdventures Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript:   In the last episode I talked about how important it was to shift your mindset, if you want to get out of the messy middle and really scale. So in today's episode, I thought I would share three of the biggest mindset shifts that I believe need to happen in order for you to get out of the messy middle, because these three things will keep you stuck. Long-term and until you recognize them, it's going to be really hard to move beyond them. And that's genuinely what I want for you It's going to be a good one. So let's dive in real fast ? you should probably know that the reason. I know these mindset shifts are so prevalent are because I have struggled with each and every one of them at some point in my entrepreneurial life. And when I overcame these three mindsets or shifted them into whatever they needed to be, that's when things really started to take off. And kept me from being held back in that messy middle and started to grow much easier. So it's, it feels a little vulnerable sharing these with you, honestly, because I've had to work through them myself so much, but here they are because I want you to. Basically benefit from the stuff I've been through. And if these are things that are keeping you stuck, the sooner you can recognize them the faster you're going to be able to move beyond them. So, number one, the reason that we are stuck in the messy middle. Is that we feel really insecure about our worth and our authority and feel the need to prove ourselves. what I mean by that is we're putting out way too much free content, or we are over-delivering in our courses and our memberships where we might even been giving them. All of this information, that's really, really great information, but it's overwhelming them. They don't need to know all of it because they just want results. They want to implement what they're learning and get results as fast as possible. But we feel this need to give them more and more and more information or to do more one-on-ones or. Basically, we take on this responsibility for getting them results. So sometimes, and I've seen this and I've done this, so not just seen it, but done it. We even jump in and do the work for our people. So for example, let's say that you're a copywriter and you're teaching people how to write copy, and you give them all these templates and you. Teach them all the different things they need to be thinking about as they're creating sales pages and all these other things, but then you have somebody who reaches out and they're struggling and they're like, Oh, you know, I just I'm struggling with this or that. Or could you critique this? And so even though you didn't charge them for it, and you've got a lot of people and it's not scalable, You feel like you need to prove that what you're doing is good and you feel like you must get them results. And so not only you do, you critique it, but then you give them all of this copy and you kind of do some of the work for them, which honestly. Sorry to say it. It's kind of, co-dependence when we take on the responsibility for them getting results, we need to guide and help them learn how to do things on their own and focus on results more than on giving more information or just doing the work for people. So that. They can truly learn how to do it themselves and be able to replicate it in the future, but also teach them how to trust themselves. The reason we do this, it's not bad to help our people. I mean, love on your people, help them get results for sure. But keep your boundaries in place because what happens is. If we're doing this because we feel insecure about our worth or we really feel like we need to prove that we're good enough. And that we know enough that we really can do this. What's going to happen is that we are going to fill our calendars with time. We're going to put other people's needs above our own. We're going to do way too much free content because. We don't really feel like we're good enough to sell, or we feel like we need to prove it to more people. And we basically fill our time with stuff that isn't actually going to move the needle in the end. So, number one, you need to know that you are enough, you can do this and that the goal is to help your people get the results that thereafter and do it in such a way that still gives you the freedom. And. Protects your boundaries and allows you to live the life that you want to have. because when you don't, it's so easy to get sucked into doing way too much and not actually move forward. It's more like spinning your wheels and almost all of the time. And I know this myself it's because you're insecure about if you're good enough, or if you really can help people. Number two, sometimes we get stuck in the messy middle. Because we're afraid of what other people are going to think. This usually shows up in the form of perfectionism. we want everything to be absolutely perfect. And it shows up in the form of shifts. Well, I should have this massive audience before I do this, or I should have this whole funnel in place before I ever sell, or I should have all of these things that I need to have, because that's what this course I take told me. I need to do. Before I can legitimately move forward in my business and start selling to people. I should have the course done or the product finished, you know, I should have the sales page written. None of that matters. It only matters if you care about. What other people are going to think, or if they're going to judge you, we think we have to be perfect. We think we need to have it all right. And we worry so much. Well, what are they going to think if I sell something to them and we created together and it's not perfect. What if I sell it before it's done? Well, as long as you're framing it. Okay. And saying, Hey, we're going to co-create this it's fine. as long as you're not lying about what's there it's okay. But. Getting stuck in the sheds. Like I should be doing this. I should be running ads. I should any sheds don't should on yourself. Anytime the word should comes up, it should trigger up. I probably don't need to be doing this or there's maybe a different way or. Do I really have to do this, or is this me worried about judgment or not being good enough or any of the other things? So fear of judgment will keep you stuck in the messy middle, because you will do all of this stuff that you don't need to be doing. You'll put so much time and energy on something being perfect. When spoiler alert. It's never going to be perfect. It won't, it's always a work in progress. This is like art. It's not necessarily ever done. You don't perfectly right. a best-selling book the very first time there's multiple drafts, there's edits. There's all of these things that happen. It is a dynamic growing, changing, shifting thing. If you're truly going to have an amazing business and testing is a natural part of it, it shouldn't be perfect. C plus work. It's enough now I know that's really hard to hear or do, if you are an Enneagram three, like I am a perfectionist. Somebody who wants to be the best at all, they do. But that's more a reflection of my own insecurities and my own fear of judgment then of what actually works to grow your business. And so much of the energy that you're putting into your business. When you're afraid of judgment, isn't going to get you results. It's a waste. And it's keeping you from doing the things that actually matter. It's keeping you from reaching out and asking people to. Be a party of our business. It's keeping you from doing the things that really matter, and that really will move you forward faster. They'll keep you stuck in the messy middle. The third thing that we need to recognize and overcome is that sometimes. We actually benefit from the busy work that we're doing, because it makes us feel good that we're busy. It feeds our ego straight up. It feels good to be wanted. It feels good to Mark things off the to-do list. We gain our worth from achieving, even if it isn't the best use of our time, just, it feels good to make that little graphic in Canva instead of hiring a VA to do it for you. And. Sometimes the things we're doing are being done. Not because we really want to move forward, but because maybe something in us feels like we need to earn our love or achieve in order to feel like we are worthy of love. That's something that I've dealt with. That's my not everyone's, but it's definitely mine. Or that if I give to my clients more, they will spread the word more for me and we try and earn it that way or whatever it is. So often we're afraid to let go of doing all of the things and we make excuses about, Oh no, we really love doing all the things. We love them because they feed our ego and make us feel like we're doing something worthwhile. But they aren't growing our businesses. And so you really have to ask yourself, what's your goal here is your goal here just to feel smart, like, do you just want to go up on clubhouse and go up on stage and share some knowledge so that people think of you as somebody who's really bright and feel great. Which that's okay, but recognize it for what it is or do you, I want to do it with intention behind it and not care so much about your ego and about getting credit or, being known for something because you want to be the best of the best of the best of the best. And so you focus on all this stuff that. Helps you be known, but doesn't actually make you money because the backend stuff isn't as fun or whatever it is. Right. I've always wanted to be the smartest. I always want to be the most helpful. That's just kinda my own thing. I want to be perfect the best. And so, so much of what I did was motivated by my ego and it wasn't until I set my ego aside and said, Hey, you know, I don't need to prove all the things that I know. I just need to help people get results quickly. What's the fastest, easiest way I can help them get results. What's the least amount of work they have to do in order to get the clients that they're looking for or to grow in their business or whatever it is. Right. And when I took that mindset shift and I went from having to show them how smart I was too. Really focusing on them and how little could I do and starting to evaluate everything I was doing through this lens of ego, It feels so good to check all these things off the to-do list. But it feels even better to spend that time with my family or to be out on the trail. And so I had to ask myself, am I willing to not help everybody with everything and to let go of these things that are feeding my ego in order to get the things that I say I truly want, do I really want them? And so here's what I want to ask you to ponder. Do you really want to move out of the messy middle? Because if you do the first step is to admit that you want it and say, I want this more than I want to feed my ego. I want this more than I care about what other people are going to think. And I know that I can help people. I don't have to prove that to anybody, not even myself. Because when you do this, It will change the way you spend your time. It will change the way you develop your products and it should change the way you do your business and allow you to let go of so many of the things that you're doing in your business that really are only there to serve your insecurities or your ego. And aren't actually serving your prospective clients or your customers. And what I want for you is to let go of all that garbage and focus in on the stuff that really works, that really helps them. And that really moves your business forward because that. Is where you are going to start to move forward out of the messy middle it's through saying no. And not saying yes to everything that will get you, that momentum to move forward. because the more you can say no to, and the more you can focus on the things that remain, the more you're going to grow. Do more of what's working really, really well. Just go deep into it. And you are going to grow so much faster and have so much more space in your business, in your life. And you're going to have more of all those things that you say you really want to have without it sacrificing. Your life without your business running you. And that is how you scale out of the messy metal. Now, if you want help with this and support as you go, I would love for you to consider becoming part of the brighter together mastermind, where you will be surrounded by like-minded entrepreneurs who are moving out of the messy middle, who are committing to focusing. To supporting each other to learning how to be a mirror for each other. They can point out those limiting beliefs or those mindset shifts that need to happen and support you through it. Do it and remind you of who you are. You can be seen and understood. And celebrated and supported. It's just magical. I would love to have you in it. If you're interested, you can get all the details@wearebrightertogether.com. Right now, as I'm recording this episode, I currently have six spots available, but once they're full, I'll be opening up a waitlist. And if you'd like one of them just go to, we are brighter together.com. You're not going to see this perfect, beautiful, huge thing. It's a Google form, at least right now, as I'm recording this and it's got all the information there and what you need. But I didn't let my perfectionist tendencies take over. Eventually I will make a bigger, more detailed page, but check it out. If you have any questions, just reach out to me personally, on Instagram at Jamie bright adventures. The link by the way to that is in the show notes. And I will be happy to answer any questions in the meantime, just remember we are brighter together. My friends, the world needs us, so let's go out and make a ? brighter.

3 Mindset Shifts to Make to Grow Beyond the Messy Middle

Apply to join the Brighter Together Mastermind and get all the details by clicking here.  >>> http://wearebrightertogether.com Have questions about it? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieBrightAdventures Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript: Confession. I don't do email. I just don't. I hate it. I hired somebody to start doing it for me in 2013. And I have not looked back since in fact, I don't even have email on my phone and. Yes, I have an email address, but it's fully managed by my customer service gal. And she is my favorite person in the entire world most days, because she can do everything I need in very little time and respond to stuff that needs responses from me by asking me a quick question, and then I'm not distracted by email all the time. Now that being said, I do have one personal email address that I use for like my kids, teachers, and you know, all the things that require it, that aren't business-related that I have to deal with on my own. And somehow somewhere I ended up signing up for a newsletter with James clear. And I, I've gotta be honest. I haven't read email newsletters in years because that's why I wanted somebody else to do my email because I will read them and I get sucked into them and I get pulled into all the hype and I need to focus. Like I don't need more stuff. I don't need more education. You probably don't either. I need focus. I need to just do what I know I need to do and move forward. But I saw this newsletter come through from James and he's amazing, he wrote atomic habits. One of the most brilliant people. I follow a note. And when I do go into that inbox, which is like once a month or whatever, I never check it. But when I have to, because I know there's something there from a teacher or something, and I see his stuff, I'll read it because. It's some of the best content in an email I've ever seen. And so today I want to share with you a nugget that I took from his email and talk a little bit about how that can help you grow in your business and help you identify what you should be focusing on right now. ? So here's a quote that hit me really hard that I wanted to share with you. Now, this is James clear. He said where to focus for the beginner execution for the intermediate strategy for the expert. Can you guess what it is? That wasn't his quote. That's my little side it's mindset. Okay. That's James clear from his email newsletter. I just thought this was so brilliant because it makes so much sense to me when you're first starting out, you need to know like what the softwares are to use, what the tools are, how do you actually do the things and what does it look like and how do you get people onto an email list? And what do you say. And the focus is all on getting it set up, it's figuring out what to do and how do you actually make that happen? And that's the bulk of your questions when you're just starting out. Then once you start to get some progress, you start to make some money. That's one strategy is so important. That's when you get super intentional about your messaging, about your offer, about your conversion mechanism, about your traffic and about your nurture. When you get those things into place, then things can really start rocking. And rolling, this is where courses on marketing and sales and all of those things are super helpful and they can really start helping you to accelerate the results that you are getting in your business, which is fantastic. However, and this is the biggest mistake I think I see that keeps people stuck in the messy middle is that we don't give our strategies enough time. We do this thing that I call FOMO marketing. We try a strategy and maybe it kind of works. Maybe it doesn't. And then we read all those email newsletters, which is such. Oh, such a black hole and we get all hyped up and we're excited about so-and-so's new free challenge. And we get excited about this and that and somebody else's course, and then there's this course and there's that course. And we know intuitively that we need some sort of strategy to move forward, but instead of sticking with one and going deep with it, because I can tell you they all work. They almost all work. I shouldn't say everyone cause haven't tried everything, but I feel like I have tried all of them in multitudes of different ways and you can get results from any of them. So I'm speaking from experience here, but the way you get from that messy middle to truly scaling into seven figures and beyond. Is by focusing by not doing all the things, but instead saying no to as many things as you can, and focusing on the one strategy that aligns with you and a massive way, and that's going to help you move forward. Just go deep with the one thing and not give up too early. keep whipping the cream until it turns into whipped cream. And if you miss that episode, go look back a few episodes ago where I talked about with cream. Basically at this point to move from that intermediate stage to that expert stage, you need that mindset shift. You need to be able to focus. You need to trust yourself to implement one thing really deep, and a lot of times the easiest way to get that mindset. Is to be surrounded by other entrepreneurs who are doing the same thing as you, who can support you along the way, they can encourage you and remind you that you do have what it takes. They can be a mirror to you and point out the limiting beliefs that you have. Sometimes we can't even see those things that are so close to us and so much. So a part of us that they're holding us back because we're too close and we. May need somebody else to say, Hey, you realize that's just a limiting belief. Like this is really what's going on. It's not that your offer. Isn't good enough. It's that you've got fear holding you back from putting yourself out there. It's a fear thing. Perfectionism is just fear or whatever it is, right. That's just one example. And that is why I believe masterminds are absolutely essential. If you want to go from that intermediate, messy middle level to getting to that expert level, because what I know to be true is that right now, If you've found some strategies that work, you probably know everything you need to know to really go deep and do this well, but you need to trust yourselves and you need to overcome any of those limiting beliefs and adopt some new mindsets to help you get there. Honestly, that's what I focus on in my mastermind is helping people believe that more is possible and then helping them see how to get from where they are to where they want to be. Because when you believe that it's possible and you know that you have what it takes to get there, then it's only a matter of time until that becomes your reality and having the support along the way. Is invaluable. It's absolutely invaluable. Especially if your friends and family don't understand what you do. Non entrepreneurs do not get it. I love my entrepreneur friends. I love being surrounded by them because they get it. They know what I'm going through. They can call me on my BS and they, they can help me see the things that I can't even see myself. In fact when I was pivoting and starting over and I had to go in and cut all sorts of expenses, including team members and all sorts of things because COVID destroyed my business. One of the things that I refused to cut from my business was a mastermind that I'm a part of and it's expensive. It's a 25 grand a year mastermind. I literally would have sold my house and moved to a new place before I would have left the mastermind. And that says a lot because I love my house. I love where I live, but I know the value of the mastermind. It's just one person. Saying one thing throughout a year. And I make that money back in an instant when they can show me where my mental blocks are, then I can learn to move beyond them and get the momentum that I need to have the success that I want. I will never run my business again without being a part of a mastermind because I don't need more strategy. I'm not there to learn more tactics. I'm there for the support. I'm there to be surrounded by people who know me, who know my business and who can call me on my crap so that I'm not held back by it. And who can. Leverage their own experience to help me see maybe where I might be making little mistakes and need tiny course corrections. It's absolutely amazing. Plus they're just way fun. They're my favorite people in the whole wide world. They will literally become your friends because when the people that you're surrounded by don't understand what you do. You can only be so close to them, but when somebody truly understands what it's like to be an entrepreneur and they understand the vulnerability and the fears and. How hard it is and the motivation and just all of the struggles that go into it. It's really bonding. It's really validating as well. I mean, to be seen and understood and valued for who you are. Is so incredibly valuable and will help you move your business forward as well. So if you're interested in being a part of the brighter together, masterminds, you can go to, wearebrightertogether.com and apply at the time of this recording. I currently only have. Six openings for the mastermind. After those six are full of that, you will go on a wait list until I'm ready to open another group. But I would love to consider you as a member and the brighter together masterminds. If you have any questions, there's a link below in the show notes where you can ask me questions directly. You can send a little video to me, or you can reach out to me via Instagram, DM at @JamieBrightAdventures, which is also below in the show notes. because here's what I know to be true. It's so easy to just. Keep buying more courses and hope that one of them is finally going to work for you and waste a whole lot of money in a year. I mean, think about how much money you've spent on courses. if you're like most people, You spend a lot more money, maybe a little bits and pieces at a time, then you probably want to admit. And many of those, either aren't fully done or maybe not done at all. Or you've done them and now you've moved on to the other next tactic and the next, next tactic, and you keep moving around and moving around and moving around and you're just not getting the results that you really need to, because it's not about more education. It's not about more strategy. It's about the mindset, the community, the focus and everything that you need to support you moving forward, which is why a mastermind is so valuable. So we'd love to have you in there. wearebrightertogether.com and would that my friends remember, I mean, funny that this comes right after the website link, but we truly are brighter together and the world needs us. So let's go out and make it brighter.

How Your Focus Shifts As You Grow Your Business

Mastermind Promo Show Notes Links:  Apply to join the Brighter Together Mastermind and get all the details by clicking here.  >>> http://wearebrightertogether.com Have questions about it? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieBrightAdventures Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript:   A few weeks ago, I had an incredible conversation with my friend, Jay Wong. Now I've known Jay for years. I think it's years now. Wow. And we don't connect super often, but when we do connect, we go deep and he's always somebody whose advice I value immensely. And over the last few years I have watched Jay go from struggling to sell a course on how to start a podcast to running this incredible multi, multi figure agency, helping people deliver podcasts. And he's grown this massive team and he's just crushing. It he's even made some big pivots. And he said something to me in our conversation that I've heard before, but he said it at just the right time to really shape how I'm thinking about 20, 21 and subtly shift the direction I'm going in this year. And I cannot wait to share it with you in today's episode ? So Jay and I connected again because we ran into each other on clubhouse and we had this really phenomenal conversation about how we were using it and how we were planning to use it this year. And so we did this whole little clubhouse room on it, and afterwards we hung out together and talked for at least another two hours and. Caught up because I don't know. I think we hadn't talked in about a year and a half since we were at tribe live together in Toronto a year and a half ago back when people could still meet with each other. Oh, I miss in-person events so bad. Don't you? Anyways, we were catching up and he was telling me about the incredible. Progress that he had made in his business and how he had shifted into this agency model and had to grow as a leader and really build this incredible team because he was so beyond the point of being able to do it all himself. And in order to scale his agency, he knew that he had to bring other people on to help him do the work. I was just so impressed by his progress, but even more so by the personal transformation. But he had to make in order to become the kind of person who can let go of control and really allow other people to do the work for his clients, for him on his behalf, which is, it's just a big shift. Anytime you have a team, you know that they're never going to do it exactly like you would. And even if their quality is good, it's really hard to find people who can consistently meet the quality that you meet and hard to find people who care as much as you do. And all the things, it just requires a massive leadership shift, and you really need to change your mindset and learn to let go of a lot of control. And honestly, a lot of fear of being judged because that's kind of where this all stems that comes from building a team and hiring other people to help you do the work. And it was just a beautiful thing to see how he had done this. And so I told him that and he said something really profound that helped shape the, the entirety of my thoughts over the next few weeks. He said, you know, I've really. Built a business for where I want to go and not for where I am now or something along those lines. I'm terrible about remembering verbatim. And he talked about Wayne Gretzky, who was asked why he was such a good hockey player. And he said, well, I skate to where the puck is going. Not to where the puck is right now. And I started thinking about my own business. I've been growing this mastermind, which I love so much. And my original goal with all of this is to get back to a seven figure business, which I could totally do on my own. With just running, you know, several small groups of no more than 12 people and getting to that point. And that's been my goal. I'm like, okay, I'll start these groups. I just need eight of them to hit seven figures. But I realized that to grow beyond that, I'm going to have to hire facilitators. I'm going to have to hire other people to come in and help lead the masterminds as well. So as I've been leading my mastermind, I've also been developing a handbook, Something that I can use with the facilitators and give it to them so that they can follow the same process and they can use the same frameworks that I'm creating and give people an experience. That's basically the same as if they were in a mastermind with me personally, and then they will have access to me, in the larger group. But I want to really be able to equip these facilitators. To run a mastermind in the exact same way I would and help people get the exact same results that I'm getting with the groups that I'm running. That's always kind of been the plan. It's always been in the back of my mind that I would run the first several. I would figure out this process and then I would scale it by bringing other people on to help. Well, what Jay's comment made me realize is that I'm skating to where the puck is right now that if I. Spend all of my time and fill it with running eight different groups, which I know I can do sustainably. Like I know how much time it's going to take me. I know that I can totally sustain eight groups, but I can't sustain running eight groups. And. Have the time that I really need to invest and it growing and empowering the facilitators to be true leaders in the mastermind. And it hit me really hard that once I get to that seven figure point, it's going to be really hard to scale because my time will be the bottleneck again. And so I was skating to where I thought the puck was going to be in a year, but really I need to skate to where the puck is going to be in two years or where I want to be beyond that. And it shifted a lot for me because. Instead of me. Doing eight masterminds all myself, eight groups within the mastermind. It's one mastermind, but with lots of small groups, because I really believe that you need to have that connection with a set of peers. And it gives me the freedom to make sure that people are in a group that's perfect for them. But. If I do eight of them, I'm going to get to that point. And I won't have the capacity that I need without either handing off one of the groups to one of the facilitators or something else. And it just getting out of that point and scaling seems so messy. And so instead, what I've decided to do is I'm going to start bringing on facilitators earlier. Now, I don't know how many groups I'm personally going to run, but I'm probably going to start either the second or third one. With a facilitator and be co-running it at first with the full intention of handing that mastermind off to the facilitator. and then I would just still be in the main group with everybody, but they would be running that specific smaller group within the mastermind. And if I start that now, Not only is it going to help me avoid having a bottleneck later on, but I'm going to have a better sense of what I really need to do in order to bring on multiple facilitators in order to have a bigger team. And what really excites me is. Well, honestly, what really excites me is empowering people to empower others. So I love helping people become leaders who can empower their audiences. And so instead of me running masterminds, I'm even more excited about me. Helping develop leaders who can empower people within my mastermind and go out and take those same skills and use them in their own businesses. So it, it seems subtle. It seems small, but it really is a massive shift in my mind. And it changes some of the strategy that I'm going to be using this year as I move forward, because I'm going to Bri bringing in facilitators sooner than later, which is exciting for me because. Really my role as the leader and the visionary is going to be. To develop the leaders who can then develop the members of the mastermind because masterminds, generally, it's not me teaching it's me facilitating and everyone in the group who is very carefully curated to be in there supporting each other and growing together. And you know, you get to see behind the scenes of everybody's businesses over a long period of time. You don't just see the Instagram highlights. You actually see what works, what doesn't, you can't get that kind of knowledge and experience. Anywhere else outside of a mastermind, it's really a beautiful, valuable thing that you get. And so it's not about me coming in and teaching this big curriculum. I don't do a ton of teaching. It's me helping facilitate these masterminds and curate the right people in them so that you can learn from each other and support each other. There's a lot more to it. You can go back and listen to some of the episodes I did in October of 2020 to hear more about why masterminds are so valuable, but I am really excited about this because my heart is in leadership development and yes, that happens in a mastermind, but. I really get excited about bringing on people to help lead within the context of my business. I really spent a lot of time learning how to do leadership, how to manage a team, how to it's kind of like a mentorship almost. And it just, it excites me in a big way. It also raises a bunch of new questions for me that I don't really necessarily have answers to yet. Like. Where do I find these people? are they already people in my mastermind? Are they other entrepreneurs? What are the qualifications they need to have? Because obviously if you're facilitating a group Of entrepreneurs. You need to understand what they're doing and be able to point them to the right resources and all of those things. And yet, if they're running their own businesses, how much time did they have to do this? How many should a person be running? all sorts of different things that. I haven't got answers to yet. how do I pay them? How much do I pay them? All of these things, lots of it. And I'm really excited about that. But those questions weren't even on the radar before this conversation that I had with Jay and that one little comment he made has really helped me shift my thoughts to, how could I create a business that supports a thousand entrepreneurs in my masterminds, And what would I need to do differently. In order to go there now. Like how could I start that now? Why should I wait? And if I wait, how am I going to pivot? And that was, that was huge. So I'm really excited about where I'm going this year with this still love masterminds. I think they're incredible. I, haven't done a public opening of my mastermind since October, but I am going to be opening it again soon. And like I said, I'm not sure exactly how many. Mastermind groups I'm personally going to be running. I've got one that I've committed to running for sure. And I might run a second one, or just start a second one in hand that went off. So if you have been around here for a while and been thinking about joining my mastermind, when it opens up again, Highly recommend reaching out to me on Instagram @JamieBrightAdventures. You'll notice it's a new Instagram handle. There's all sorts of details about my name, change on Instagram. I'll share more about that in the future, but for now you can go there. It's also linked in the show notes and drop me a DM. I don't have a big fancy. Mastermind details page going. It's not open right now. but if you really want to be in the mastermind that I am leading, for sure, I have a very small handful of spots left in the current group. And I would love to chat about potentially having you inside there. If you feel like that would be a good fit. And honestly, I truly believe that even with other people facilitating masterminds, that it's going to be amazing because they're going to use my foundation we are all going to have one big group. So all of the different mastermind groups that I'm going to be creating will have access to each other and me, but the groups that I lead obviously get more intimate access to me. So you can always reach out to me if you're interested in that. Or if you want to hear more about it, I'm happy to give you all the details on how often we meet and how much involvement I have, because I will absolutely be involved in this. I love doing these masterminds are on my heart. You've known that since the very beginning of the podcast, if you've been listening from the beginning, but just wanted to throw this out there for my loyalist of podcast listeners, if that's you. And you've been thinking about this now now's the time to reach out because, like I said, I only have a couple of spots left in the current mastermind that I'm leading before I start a second group. And I would love to consider you for it. If you would really like to be in that group with me. All right, my friend. So my question to you then is. Where are you going? Where is the puck going in your business? Are you building a business for what you're doing today and only focused on what you're doing right now? Or have you taken the time to think about where you're going and what needs to shift in order for you to go where you really. Truly want to go for me? The shift from thinking about having a hundred people in my masterminds to a thousand is a pretty significant one. And I believe that by thinking about a thousand people, as opposed to a hundred, that I'm going to be able to create a structure that'll grow more easily and help me avoid future bottlenecks. If I was just thinking about a hundred. So while you're thinking about where your puck is going. Think about if I was to 10 X, that number would there be bottlenecks? Where would I run into problems shifting from what I'm doing now to really truly scaling. And that is your assignment for this week, would love to hear how this might help you in your business and give you more clarity on where you're going and hear about any shifts you're making. Reach out to me personally, Instagram @JamieBrightAdventures. I would be happy to have a little conversation with you, super fun. And would that my friend just remember that we are together and that the world needs us. So let's go out and make it brighter. 

Are You Thinking Too Small in Your Business

Join the Waitlist for the Launch Your First Mastermind Workshop here >>> https://www.launchyourfirstmastermind.com Have questions for Jamie or are you interested in the Brighter Together Mastermind? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieBrightAdventures Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript: One of the most fun and admittedly, sometimes frustrating parts of running an online business is that things are always changing. This means you always have something new to learn and figure out which can be really fun if you get bored quickly with doing the same old thing over and over again, but it can also be incredibly frustrating. If it means that you're getting left behind and the market is shifting and you haven't kept up. Now, if you are at the forefront of this and you see where things are going and you can react quickly being the first in your market to make a massive shift that everyone kind of follows suit with, it can be a huge benefit. And so today what I want to share with you. Is the shift that I see happening in the online education space that I am watching very closely and I mean, I've been in this business for just about 10 years now. So I've been watching and I know when the shifts are happening and they happen every, I would say every 18 to 24 months. And we're right on the edge of another big one. So that's what I'm going to share with you today in this moment, ? cast Well, 2020 has been one of those years that many of us never want to go through again. One of the beautiful things that has happened is that many people have started online businesses. Now, this is really exciting for me because I know that when I realized I could have an online business that gave me the freedom and the life that I really wanted to have, I was all in. Like, I literally remember the day that I found the pro blogger site from Darren Rouse. And started reading it and was like, Oh my goodness, I could do this. I could totally make money helping people. And it blew my mind. Like I was completely consumed for the entire day. And for months thereafter, I just got really excited about it and I know how much it's changed my own life. And so I get excited to see all of the people who are realizing the opportunity that's there for them and the freedom that they can have even though 2020 has been a really hard year. And some of them are starting businesses because they have to, because they've been laid off from jobs or whatever it is, , which admittedly is very difficult. I really believe that many people are going to look back on this year, especially those who started online businesses and be really grateful for the transition that happened. Now, that being said, for those of us, who've been here for a while, it means that the market is. Becoming more flooded. There are more and more people starting online education businesses, and each niche everywhere, not just online education businesses, there's even box subscriptions and e-commerce and all sorts of stuff starting. So no matter what you're selling or what you're doing, if you're selling online primarily to an audience that's online and you don't have a brick and mortar store, your going to start to have a lot more competitors. This year, the people who have been selling how to start your own online course and how to start an online business type of resources have been flourishing. In fact, I have friends who do that exact thing, and it's been a really great year for them, but that means as people start implementing this. And selling their stuff. The market is going to become more and more saturated. Now this can be really hard and this can be really scary to go through and it absolutely can affect your bottom line. If you go back to season one of this podcast, back when I was called the personal brand journey podcast, you can all listen to what happened in my own business. When a few years after starting it. The market flooded with all sorts of people, teaching in the professional photography education space. It was hard. I actually lost half of my revenue over two years because I didn't realize what was happening and I didn't take measures to protect against it. And it took me quite a while to recover. You can hear the whole story and the very first episodes of season one, that being said. I don't think that you have to be afraid of the fact that the market is going. To be more flooded with people. You're going to have a lot more competitors. I think you just need to do three things to respond. Clearly. That's going to keep you ahead of the game and it's going to help you stand out from everyone else. That's just started their online business and is offering stuff to your clients. And really help elevate you as the expert in your field in a way that maybe you haven't stepped into yet. So I want to share these with you because these are hard earned lessons that I learned after. I went through this experience and struggled through it. the first one is one of already talked about a few times in the last couple of months is you need to get more personal and connect with your people. One of the things that got me out of my slump back when the photography market flooded was moving from a generic bank brand to a personal brand and really focusing on how I could build real connections with people in mass. My photography business has 120,000 email subscribers. So you can't connect with each of those people one-on-one. So I had to learn how I could build that connection, how I could build that familiarity, that personal connection, where people felt like they knew me. Even though I may never have even seen their name or had any idea that they were out there listening, watching, learning, et cetera. And the reason is that people buy from those, they know like, and trust as more and more people are offering the same types of products promising the same sorts of outcomes. The thing that's going to make them decide who to hire. Comes down to who they feel, understands them best. And the people we feel understand us best are those that we've connected with and that we trust when we can show them that we understand their deepest fears, their struggles, and we can show them solutions for getting out of that. Give them quick wins that help them gain momentum. They're gonna. Believe that we understand their problem more deeply and can help them with the bigger stuff as well. They're going to want to keep working with us. So you definitely need to focus on being personal, both in your own brand and being the face of your business as well as mixing in as much. Personal touches. You can. And I have a whole episode, like I said, a couple episodes back about how to be more personal in your business that will give you lots of ideas of how to do that. Whether you have 105 email subscribers, or you've got 120,000 email subscribers, that's definitely worth a listen. Number two, I believe there's going to be a massive desire for experiences instead of just. I believe that if you want to stand out from, what's been done for the last five or six years, which is mostly online courses, video courses with maybe a Q and a session or something. I think one of the biggest things you can do is to offer implementation experiences, a virtual retreats, some sort of opportunity to connect with other people to come and get stuff. Done and to have a whole experience. That's not just learning. It also incorporates doing in a very tangible way, where at the end of the experience, they're going to have something completely finished and they're going to feel that excitement and that big win. Now I. I have seen a number of people doing implementation days with their students, where they offer to say, Hey, if you want to come and we'll all just work together and I'll kind of be there to answer questions and guide you through it. Um, you know, it's a certain amount of money. We'll all hang out on zoom and we'll get her done. Another thing that works really well is masterminds, which is part of why I'm so excited to do this because I believe that, , having that connection. And that ongoing experience, not just one off is incredibly valuable. Now this kind of actually leads me into the third point. So I'm overlapping a little bit, but bear with me not only do we need to be personal. Not only do we need to create experiences instead of just education, but I really believe that we need to be offering something to the advanced people in our specific niches. Now, when people start their online businesses in a topic, like when I started teaching professional photographers, how to book clients. I focused on helping the beginners because I didn't feel that far along. I had a lot of insecurity about being seen as the expert, and I knew that there were always way more beginners than there were experts. And so my market was going to be bigger if I focused on beginners. That's great. But if you've been in this business for any amount of time, or if you really know your topic inside out, you're going to find that all of these new people, I would say the majority of them are going to be focusing on how to teach beginners, which is great because what's going to happen is that there's going to be more people who are beginners, who actually start to make some progress. And now. Are looking for that intermediate to advanced thing that can help them take what they just learned and implement it in a deeper way. And new people coming into the industry, rarely have anything set up that is going to help people beyond beginners to really advance in their fields. So if you can take your offerings and think about how you can serve that intermediate to advanced audience better, not only. Are you going to have more people who are ready for that because of all these people who are flooding your market. So that's one of the positives of it, but you're also going to be able to charge more, which allows you to make more money, which is fantastic. And. Oh, and this is so beautiful. You're going to be seen as an even greater expert because you're talking about the things that are more advanced and not just beginner stuff. And it's really easy to fall back into the trap to speaking to just beginners. But when you can shift that conversation, To a higher level conversation. You're naturally going to attract more advanced people into your business. It's all based on the conversations they're having. And my guess is if you're anything like me, you are so tired of having those same beginner conversations anyways, and it would be really exciting. To have deeper level conversations with people who are further along in your topic or your niche that you can help in a deeper way. And you know, personally on my side too, I love working with people who aren't beginners. I mean, I love my beginners. I have nothing against them. But I really love working with the people who are more intermediate or advanced in growing their businesses, because they're my people, they're there. They've done some of the work they've shown that they get progress. They're not the ones who are going to let limiting beliefs hold them back nearly as much because those people are weeded out at the beginning. Right. They never get past that beginner stage. And so it's easier to get them results and it's just more satisfying. My favorite kind of people to work with are those who are more advanced because we can have deeper conversations. It's more thought provoking for me. They have stuff I can learn from them. It's just one of these win-win wins all around and because it is more advanced knowledge, I can charge a lot more for it. So it brings me back to masterminds. I truly believe. That masterminds and running masterminds in a variety of different topics, not just in the entrepreneur space or how to build a business space, but having a mastermind structure, even if it's not called that is going to become more and more popular for people who want to stand out as experts. And honestly, People want this more than ever after having been stuck in their homes and being forced to cancel their travel plans and not see the people they want to see and live the lives that they've normally been living, which are full of people in connection, people are hungry. To be a part of a community. They need someone to believe in them more than ever, and they are ready to move beyond this beginner stage and really dive into something deeper with other people. They value that energy more than they ever have before. And that's why I'm so excited about masterminds, because I think that. Does this so well, not only does it provide that personal touch and the experience, that's not just once, but it's ongoing month after month after month, year after year after year. And it allows you to work with your best customers and clients and have those deeper conversations to really see them make massive growth and really just get to. Believe in them. It's so fun to be able to cheerlead them and guide them and not have to be providing all that basic how to content, because they already know it. It's not something they're joining because they want more information. It's something they're joining because they want more support. They want somebody who can help them see what's possible and then help them. Understand what that next step is. You know, masterminds are more about getting that one comment or that two comments a year that totally make your money back because they were the right thing in the right moment from somebody who knows you, trusts you and understands what you're going through in your business, that maybe you were just too close to see whatever it is. I get really excited about them because they're also a lot of fun. And I think that fun and friendship and connection has been lacking so much this past year. So I would love to challenge you to think about as you're going into 2021, what's happening in your marketplace. Do you see a lot of people starting to teach in your marketplace? And if you're still focusing on beginners, which is fine, I'm not saying you can't help them. I'd encourage you to think about how can you be more personal with them. How can you build more experiences into your business? Not just courses, but actual experiences where people get to connect with each other and implement something and come, even if it's virtually, which I assume it will be for a while yet, but come do something together and then have a tangible outcome by the end of the day or, you know, multiple days, whatever it is. And then three. Okay. I would have you consider if maybe serving the higher end market with a mastermind might be something that can help you elevate your expertise and serve those more advanced customers and clients better. So if you want help with that, I'm currently working on putting together a mini workshop. It's not going to be super long. It's not going to be super expensive. that's called launch your first mastermind. And basically it's how to launch that very first mastermind and what you need to know in order to price it appropriately. Find the right people, get them to sign up and get this rolling as quickly as possible as well as what mindset shifts do you need to overcome in order to do this? Because when you start doing a higher ticket offer, working with more advanced customers and clients, sometimes that can stir up some insecurities and limiting beliefs that we don't even know is there, like we've got personal junk in there, things about our worth and our expertise and, you know, imposter syndrome and there's all sorts of stuff that. Offering a high ticket item can start to stir up. So I also talk about a few of those things that can come up and how to overcome them in this workshop. Now it's not ready yet at the time of this recording, but it has getting super. Deeper close. if you want to be notified, when it is ready to go, you can join the wait list at. Launch your first mastermind.com. And if it's launched by the time you're listening to this, that'll take you to the information page where you're, it's available to you, but go check it out. And if you have any questions about it, by all means, reach out to me. My contact info is in the show notes. but I really believe that going into 2021, this shift is going to become more and more apparent. More markets are going to be saturated and people are going to be craving more advanced. Opportunities to help them get beyond that beginner level. And they're going to want to have that connection and that personal touch because 2020 has stripped a lot of that away from them. They're going to want to have experience. They're going to want to build friendships as well as being able to grow their business or, you know, whatever it is you serve them and help them to do Check it out, launch your first mastermind.com. And would that my friend just remember we are brighter together and the world needs us honestly now more than ever. So let's go out and let's make it ? brighter.

The Big Shift I See Happening in the Online Business Space

What is Clubhouse and How do I get a Clubhouse Invitation?

How to Get Unstuck & Regain Momentum in your Business

Interested in a Clarity Coaching Day or in joining the Brighter Together Mastermind? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieMSwanson Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email   Transcript: It can be incredibly frustrating when you know, you are doing all of the things that you're supposed to be doing, but it's still not getting you the results that you are waiting for. So what's going on? Why is this happening? Why aren't you getting the results as fast as you'd like? Well, we're going to talk about that in this episode. So we just celebrated Thanksgiving here in the United States. And my daughters were helping me make the meal because this year due to all the COVID restrictions, we just celebrated as a family and didn't invite anyone outside of our household, but there's still nine of us to feed. So it's a lot of work. And I remember dreaming of a day when I would have my oldest, daughter's able to help me cook and to do stuff in the kitchen and just celebrate holidays together with, so it was actually quite lovely. It was kind of the fulfillment of a personal little dream, but something happened with my second daughter. Her name is Britta and there was something that she did that just hit home really deep for me. And I wanted to share it with you today. So. Brita was tasked with the job of making whipped cream. Now, I don't know if you've ever made whipped cream before, but it is the easiest thing ever to make. If you have a mixing bowl with a whisk and it's very good, it's the best thing you're ever going to have. So if you haven't ever made whipped cream from scratch and you like with cream, all you have to do is go buy some heavy whipping cream. Grab some of your favorite sweetener. I like plain sugar. You could also use maple syrup, whatever it is you like to sweeten things and then use a little bit of vanilla. Now there's no like hard and fast recipe, but you put it all in the mixing bowl. And then you whisk it and you just have to let it run for as long as it takes for it to get stiff peaks. So what that means sounds super dirty, but it's not what that means is when you lift the whisk out of the cream, it'll be, it'll leave a little peak. Like you'll, you'll see where it came out. It'll kind of create like this little. Mountainous little thing. It won't just flatten out kind of like milk does. If you pull a whisk out of milk, it's just going to drip, but as it thickens, you'll get to that stiff peak. Now you have to be really careful and stop at that point because if you continue to whisk it beyond that, you're going to end up with a very sweet butter and it's going to start to separate. And so really that's the only thing you need to worry about is watching. The cream while you whisk it so that it doesn't over whisk now, depending on the speed of your mixer, this might only take a few minutes or it might take longer. And so it's not hard. You just have to pay attention. So my daughter, Brita put all the stuff in and I don't know how much sugar and vanilla to put in. I'm like just put it into taste, teaching her, you know, how to trust herself, which is a great lesson for all of us. And to go off what we think is best and, you know, dip your finger in and give it a little taste and see. So you can get a sense of what it's going to be like when it's done. So she put all this stuff in and she started whisking it and fuchsia standing there starting to get a little bit bored and she's like, it's not working. And I'm like, honey, you just put it in and turn it on. You got to give it some time. And so she stood there and she let it whisk and we were doing a double batch. And so our bowl was quite full. So we couldn't put it on very high at the time because it would have splashed out the bowl. We had to wait for it to thicken up before we could increase the speed of the whisk. So she's waiting and she's waiting and she's waiting and she's getting bored and she's like, mom, This is not working. Like, what am I doing wrong? Why isn't this working? And I said, don't stop. Just let it keep going. You're not doing anything wrong. You just have to keep the whisk moving. It will thicken up and it's time. So she did. So she waited and then all of a sudden she's like, mom, I think it worked now because we were doing it quite slow. I think it took us a good 10, 15 minutes, which is a little longer than normal, but because the whisk was going slower, it was going to take longer for it to bring air in to the cream and for it to do its magic. Now, I don't know exactly how it works. I just know that it does that as you whisk the air. Into the heavy whipping cream that eventually, if you do it long enough, it's going to turn into the most magical whipped cream you have ever eaten in your entire life. It's just lovely. I'm sure there's some beautiful science behind it. I don't know what it is. I'm sure a quick Google search will help you find it. But we got to that point and we turned it off. And then I explained how, if she hadn't turned it off, if she had walked away and just let it go forever, it was eventually going to separate and turn into butter and. We talked about how that's such a good lesson in life that sometimes we're actually doing all the right things and all we need to do to get what we're dreaming of. It's just keep doing them and be patient. And that is so stinking difficult. Right, because we think if we do all the right things, then magically, we're going to have the results that we want to have. But sometimes especially in our online businesses, and this is where I see people getting stuck in the messy middle all the time is that they're doing the right stuff. And they want to grow faster. So instead of just continuing to double down on the things that are working and keep it simple, they're like, Oh, well, I'm going to do this too. Maybe I need to do this. Maybe I'm going to do that. And they, they have this whole FOMO marketing thing, like this fear of missing out that if it's simple and it's easy, That they're not going to be able to grow fast enough and they're not going to have the results that they want. And so they've done all the things they're supposed to do. And so now they've got to do more, to get more money and to grow faster and get their audience bigger and whatever it is, they develop new products. They have more and more offers and more and more upsells, they do more and more marketing channels. And before you know it they're overwhelmed. They have lost focus on the things that really matter. And they either stagnate for a good period of time or burnout or start decreasing in income and revenue. I've seen this many a time or all have some mix of all of those things. So here's what I want you to take from this quick little example that came from Thanksgiving dinner. You might be doing all the things right. But you just haven't done it long enough. Some things take time before they really start to work. One of the things that I have learned that I know now as a bright entrepreneur, who's got almost 10 years of experience having done this online. Full-time what I have learned. It's that consistency and a regular frequency is one of the most powerful things we have for growth. And that small, consistent steps is far more powerful than going out and doing this new, big, massive launch or this new, big social media channel or whatever it is that when you can stay laser focused on what you know works when you've got messaging that attracts the right people, when you are. Really truly helping your people be transformed when they purchase your product or service or whatever your offer is. And when you know that you can sell, right, you can find your people, you can convert your people into your product and you can get them results. And if you know that that's working, then all you need to do to grow is continue to double down on that. You don't need to do a hundred million different things. In fact, that's going to draw your focus away from what you need to be focusing on. And so how do you know. If you actually are doing the things right, and you just need to wait or maybe your messaging is off, or maybe your conversions are off, or maybe you're not attracting the right people. That's a totally different problem. If you're not attracting the right people, you can do it all day long for years, you can grow a massive audience, but they're not going to buy your stuff. That's a different situation now, how do you know the difference? Well, one, you can look at your numbers. And I talked about that a few podcast episodes ago. So go back and listen to the episode on knowing what to focus Cassandra grow. But two. If you have people around you, whether it's a coach or other experienced entrepreneurs who have been there, who've done that. Who've grown successful businesses and who know you and your business, they can help be Amir for you to know if what you're doing is really right as you gain your experience. And as you've done it, like I have grown a seven figure business. I've been doing this full-time for almost 10 years. It'll be 10 years in March. And. I know what works and what doesn't. I know what's aligned with me and I can tell when it's just a matter of time, in fact, this whole mastermind thing that I'm doing. I feel so confident about that because of my prior experience. I know I have my messaging down. I know I have a funnel that converts. I know at this point, it's just a matter of showing up consistently finding more people, continuing to talk about the brighter together, mastermind to get people excited for it. So I know from my experience that that's going to work, I also know because people who are close to me who know my business really well, actually, people I'm in a mastermind with. Not that I was meaning to bring that in, but it's absolutely the case. These are the people who know me best the ones I've been masterminding with over the last three and a half years. And Stu McLaren's mastermind. They've told me, I see what you're doing. This is perfect for you. It's only a matter of time until your success is there. They know from their experience of building seven figure businesses that yes. This is right. This is simple. I'm known for masterminds, or I will become known for them the more I keep talking about them and that's going to help me move forward. And so I've got my self validation from my own personal experience, which if this is your first time building a business, you might not have that yet. And so I can understand why you might think you need to do all the other things. But if you are in a group of other experienced entrepreneurs who are like-minded, they have your values, they understand you and your business and your goals. They can be a mirror to reflect back. If this is actually a good idea, or if there's something you're missing that you can't see because you're too close to what's there. So at this point, if you've done all the things, you might not need more information, you might not need to do more new things. You might just need to double down and keep doing what you've been doing and have some patience. Keep reaching out, keep doing the stuff, just double down on the stuff that's working. Well, I can say this over and over and over again in a million different ways, but you need to know if that's the case or if it is a messaging issue or is it, if it is a conversion issue, so you can talk to people who know you and your business. Well, if you have a business coach, you can talk to them and get that validation that yes, you're doing all the right things. Just keep doing it, ask them for accountability and. It's that simple. I know. It's just like, what really is it really that simple? Yes. It can really be that simple when you know that your business is built with intention, with focus and has a very strategic plan for moving forward. You know, your messaging, you know, who you want to reach, you know how to get in front of them. You've got Supreme clarity about how to get them into your products and services and offers, whatever it is you're selling, you know how to convert them into your business. And then once they're there, you know how to transform their lives and give them the outcome that they are looking for, and then leverage them to help you get more. You're going to grow. You are going to grow. You are going to get so much momentum and you just have to keep showing up and keep doing what you're doing. Keep consistent and not give up. Because you're not having growth as fast as you were hoping, or because you think you need to be doing all these other things that you're gonna let yourself get distracted by a bajillion different new projects. If you're sitting here listening to this and you're like, man, I don't really know for sure. And I don't know anyone who can tell me if I'm on the right path or not. You have two options. Number one, I do have a couple of clarity coaching days left, where I would love to sit down with you. Look at your business and help you find the things that are really working and make sure that your strategy is both strategic and intentional to help make sure that you're attracting the right people, that you can convert them into customers. And that you're serving them really well. That's one of my gifts is helping you cut through the mess so that you can simplify down. Get Supreme clarity, and then just do the stuff you need to do to move forward. I have some of those. So if you're interested in that, you can go down to the show notes and reach out to me personally. And then number two, if you are interested in being a part of a larger group of entrepreneurs who can get to know you intimately, that you can mastermind with going forward, who can be mirrors for you so they can say, yes, this is right. Just keep doing this, or, huh. Maybe you need to look at your messaging or maybe this isn't resonating, or maybe you should try a funnel that's like this because it makes sense with X, Y, Z, right? When somebody knows your business, they can give you really clear and helpful feedback because it's specific to who you are and what your business is. And they can leverage the experience that they have gained through growing their own business. And help you with that because really, truly the difference between somebody who's successful and isn't is their experience level. They've got the experience, they know what works. They know what doesn't, they've had lots of failures too. And so they can use that to grow faster when they're starting over, which has definitely been the case for me in my own new business that I've started. So if you're interested in being a part of a mastermind, I do have mastermind groups available right now. They're on an invite only basis. They're not like open to the general public. So you'll have to reach out to me and talk to me about it, but there'll be no more than 12 people in a group so that you can really truly get to know the other entrepreneurs around you. Very intimately. if that sounds good to you and you want go ahead and reach out to me either for the coaching day or the masterminds, but more than anything, I just want to encourage you because. It's so easy to over-complicate things it's so easy to want to give up when things aren't working, the way that we want them to work, when really it's just. It's showing up. We just got to keep showing up. So if you're questioning this, uh, I would just take some time to go back and say, is this working, has this been working? Am I attracting the right people? And do I just need to keep doing this? Do I just need to be consistent? And most of us are creators. And so we get impatient and we want to do all the things and we get excited by the new shiny objects. And I get it. It's totally something that I do too. But sometimes in fact, the most successful entrepreneurs, I know the ones who grow like are certain to grow big are the ones who are the most consistent, they're the most patient. And they're the most focused. And that's what I want for you. It's the difference between a bright entrepreneur and somebody who's new. Who's just trying everything, just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what's going to stick and somebody who really truly knows what they're doing and can do it fast because they have a simple focus plan. That's intentional that they just show up for day in, day out. All right, my friend, I hope you found that helpful. You can reach out to me. If you have any interest in a coaching day or a mastermind, we'll have a little chat and figure that out. All the information is in the show notes, but just remember we are brighter together and the world needs us. So let's go out and make it brighter.

Are You Doing ALL the Right Things but your Business Still Isn't Scaling?

Join the Waitlist for the Launch Your First Mastermind Workshop here >>> https://www.launchyourfirstmastermind.com Interested in the Brighter Together Mastermind? Contact Jamie directly on Instagram @JamieMSwanson Sign up for podcast email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript: I've been thinking a lot about how my experience of growing a brand new business now is so different from almost 10 years ago when I was starting my very first online business. And it dawned on me just the other day that there is a subtle but powerful belief that I have now. That I didn't have 10 years ago that has made all the difference. And I'm going to share that belief with you today in this episode, So I want to go way back into time and share a story that I think really illustrates the belief that I want to share with you today. So we're going to go back to the 1940s and back then. People did not believe that it was humanly possible to run a mile in under four minutes. They got really close. In fact, I think somebody got to four minutes and one second for a mile, so really close to it. But for whatever reason, no one was able to get under that. And people. Would talk about how they did not believe that the human body was capable of running any faster than that. They thought we had reached our limit as humans, and that was all there is but in the early 1950s, there was a runner named Roger Bannister who made a goal of his own to run the first mile under four minutes. Now Roger's initial goal was not to run a sub four minute mile. I'm sure he would have been thrilled to do it, but originally he was an Olympic athlete. In fact, he competed in the 1952 Olympics and he was really disappointed with his results. He didn't place on the podium. I think he might've come close. I believe he took fourth in one of the races he ran, but he was really down about that. And he considered. Quitting running altogether as a competitive thing. But instead of quitting, Roger changed his focus. He stopped focusing on comparing himself to others and racing against others. And he decided instead to focus on bettering himself and trying to break the four-minute mile. So he enlisted the help of a few friends to run with him during his various attempts. He had two specific people who were very, very fast as well. And one of them would start the race with him and keep him at a sub four minute mile pace. And then the second one would run the last chunk of the race with him to pay some just for that very last chunk so that he had two fresh people who could run the pace that needed to be run to run under a four minute mile, but who didn't have to do the entire four laps around the track that you need to do to make it the full mile. Finally on May 6th of 1954, Roger was successful. He ran the first mile under four minutes ever with the help of his two friends. Doing exactly what I just explained. Now, the beautiful thing about this was he proved that yes, it was absolutely possible for the human body to do this. And do you know what happened? This was may of 1954 in June of 1954. That same year, just the next month. John Landry ran the second mile. That was less than four minutes. That was so quick for people to have attempted this for years and years and years and not believed it was possible. But as soon as one person, Roger Bannister proved that it was possible. Then other people started to do it as well. I truly believe. That all of these new people were able to run less than a four minute mile because now they knew it was possible before then they weren't sure if it was possible, they questioned if anybody on the earth could run a mile that quickly. But once one person showed that it was possible, then they knew that it was. And they were able to do it as well. And so here's what I want you to take from this today. the first thing, the most important thing is that you need to believe that growing a successful business. Is possible for you. This is the belief that is so different for me today than it was when I was first starting out. Now, when I was starting my business, about 10 years ago, I knew that some people were successfully making money online. And I knew that it was possible in general, but I didn't know if it was possible for me. I didn't know if I had what it took, but now this time as I've been starting a brand new business, I know for a fact that it's possible. I know that I can grow a seven figure business because I've done it before. I have the experience that has built the belief that it's possible. And if you want to grow a successful business, you also need to believe that it's possible. For you. And you can do that in a couple of different ways. So let's look at how Roger did this. So he changed his goal. I want you to note this, he changed his goal from focusing on beating other people and trying to, you know, compare his progress to their progress on the racetrack, to focusing on his own personal goal of hitting a certain. Number right. For him, it was a four minute mile or less, actually less than four. For you, instead of comparing yourself to what everybody else is doing, you need to focus on, uh, what success looks like for you. Change your focus from what everyone else is doing. Focus in on what you need to do to reach your very specific goal. So that's the first thing you want to do. And then second, and this is probably the most important part is that you need to surround yourself with others who can help you get there. Roger did not get there alone. Roger had two people pacing him who were literally running. Side-by-side with him during his attempts to help him get to where he wanted to go. They believed that it was possible and they were willing to help him do whatever it took to reach his goals and with everything that has happened this year now, more than ever, I believe that people need somebody to believe in them. Like those Pacers believed in Roger. People need someone to come around them and encourage them as they work towards their goals as they're training, as they're running and really stretching themselves that can remind them that they can do this, that all they need to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward to reach. Their goals. They need somebody who can say yes, it is possible. And you can do this. You can do this. And we're here to support you in any way we can. This is why masterminds are so incredibly powerful and. Honestly, I believe they are needed more than ever in today's online business space. And even in the online, offline business space, frankly, I believe people need that connection and they need that support more than they ever had in the past. Not only do people get to watch the other people in the mastermind as they are building their businesses and growing and showing that it's absolutely possible. To build a business, they actually get to watch the behind the scenes step-by-step process that they're taking to do it. And so if you're in a mastermind and you're seeing all these people around you doing stuff that, you know, you can do too, and now they're getting better results and they're growing you'll believe that it's possible for yourself as well. So being in a mastermind absolutely builds belief that it's possible and shows you basically how to do it. Watching other people it's like having your own running Pacers. They're showing you what you need to be doing to continue moving forward as well. They will help you hit your goals and support and encourage you as you move forward as well. Masterminds are just wonderful. Gosh, you guys know I'm passionate about these. I've talked about them a lot. But I want you to take another thing in mind is Roger didn't need more education. He didn't need more learning. He didn't need to train in a different way. He just needed to continue doing what it was that he was doing. And he needed the support of people around him to keep him on pace and on track, literally. This might be the same for some of the people in your audience. Some of your customers they've gone through your stuff. They know what they need to do, but now the only thing that's holding them back from hitting their goals and being successful is having people who can surround them and encourage them and support them as they move forward and do what they need to do to hit their goals. they need to watch other people like them moving forward and making it happen. They need to surround themselves with like-minded people with similar values who all want to support each other, take a moment right now and think about some of your best customers. You know, the ones, they're the ones who have the best success stories or they're the ones who've done, all the things and they're moving forward and they have massive momentum. They are moving in the right direction. And you know, you can see where they're going. You know, they're only going to continue to grow and you believe in them, you fully believe in them and you know that they are going to reach the goals that they are dreaming of. If this is you and you don't currently have a different way to support them, you may want to consider starting a mastermind. Now, starting a mastermind allows people to grow together. It basically is a place to take all the things they've learned and start implementing them. They can leverage each other's experience. You can support each other in it. And it's really truly a community of people who come together with a common goal that Bolieve, that it's possible and encourage each other and really seeking those dreams instead of competing against each other on the racetrack in the business world, they are banding together to pace each other. So that they can all reach the goals that they are seeking. If this is something that you're interested in, I'm actually putting together a mini workshop called launch your first mastermind. Now I'm not ready with this yet. It's not done. It's in progress. I'm working on it at the moment, but I do have a waitlist ready to go. If you are interested in signing up for it. And getting access to that when it's available. Now, this is not going to be a $2,000 course. This is going to be a much lower price point and anybody who's on the wait list will get the lowest price that I have ever going to sell it. So definitely jump on that now. If you aren't already, and you can get on the waitlist@launchyourfirstmastermind.com. Once it's launched that link will take you directly to the product. So you can definitely use that, even if you're listening to this in the future, long after I've recorded it. So that's number one. If you're interested in launching a mastermind to serve your people, definitely go sign up for that wait list. But number two, if you're listening to this and you're like, man, I don't have a group like that supporting me. I don't have people around me who have similar goals who can help me take what I've learned and put it into practice and who really truly believe in me. And I want that. I want that community. I want that support. I want to watch others going after the same dream as I am. Then I'd love to invite you to reach out to me, to talk about potentially joining the brighter together. Mastermind. I'll put my contact details down in the show notes. So you can just use those to reach out to me personally. And let's just have a little chat about it because here's what I know to be true as I've been restarting my business and I've been building from scratch, being in a mastermind myself. Has been one of the most valuable things that I could be in the support that I've received, saved the encouragement, the validation, just having people around me, cheering for me, especially in the lowest moments who can help take my hand and pull me out of it and remind me that I do have what it takes. I can do this. And I just need to go one more step further and keep moving forward and keep that momentum building has been invaluable to me. And that's what I want for you. I want you to have that support, but I also want you to be supporting your own people that way. If you feel like a mastermind would be a good fit, So, like I said, just go down into the show notes, reach out to me. I would love to have a chat to see if it's a good fit. And I'd love for you to get signed up for the waitlist for the launch, your first mastermind workshop, which will be coming out really soon. I'm super close to having it done. Also, if you do sign up for the wait list. And you have questions about if running a mastermind is really going to be something that works for you. I'd be happy to answer them. There there'll be an opportunity for you to send me a little note after you sign up or a video, which is much better in my book, because then I get to know you a little better and you can ask me any questions you have and if I think this is something that's going to work for you and your niche, so feel free to ask away there. All right. Would that my friends. Just remember we are brighter together and the world needs us now more than ever. So let's go out and make it ? brighter.

The Belief Shift that Changed Everything in My Business

Join the Waitlist for the Launch Your First Mastermind Workshop here >>> https://www.launchyourfirstmastermind.com Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript: A couple of days ago, I was talking with somebody who is growing her business and she's in the messy middle and has all sorts of stuff going on and lots of really good things happening in her business at the moment. And so we were talking about how do you know what you should be focused on in order to continue growing? And there's actually a very. Easy way that you can do this, that most people don't know when they're first starting out or they don't do it when they're first starting out. That makes your focus incredibly clear incredibly quickly. And that's what I'm going to share with you today. ? When you're stuck in the messy middle of your business, you have a lot of moving parts and it feels like everything needs your attention. And it can be really hard to now exactly where you need to be focusing. A lot of times the decision to focus on something comes from either what you feel like focusing on or what you think needs to happen. Or it can come in the way of having to put out fires like, Oh my gosh, we need to do this right now because it's broken. So we're just going to go and do it. But there's a better way to decide where your focus needs to be in your business, that bright entrepreneurs now. And that's what I want to share with you today in this episode. And it came out of a wonderful conversation. I had with a quickly growing successful entrepreneur earlier this week. Who was doing all of the things, right. She has her messaging down. She's got her funnel, it's converting, but she didn't know. Okay. What do I focus on next to keep the growth happening? Where should I put my efforts? Should I be testing different ideas? Should I be optimizing what I already have? How do I know what to do next? And so we talked about this and I wanted to share it with you because I think this is something that. I'm going to be straight up honest. It's not fun and sexy at all in any way. This is not the kind of thing that everyone's like, Oh man, I really want to do this. But it is by far one of the most important things you can be doing to grow your business, because it'll show you exactly what you need to be focusing on in your specific business. Now, this is super simple. It comes down to focusing on your numbers. Once you've got everything set up, once you've been running things, when you have the actual data. And you can start looking at what is selling, what is working, what isn't working, and you can start comparing your performance over time. It'll give you. Supreme clarity into what you need to be focusing on in order to continue to grow. So I want to share with you a few of the numbers that you need to be tracking in order to know what you need to be focused on in your business, because if you're crushing it. With audience growth and you're getting tons of followers and tons of email subscribers and whatever it is, but you're not converting them into buyers. Then it's going to be clear that you need to be converting more of those people into buyers and putting your focus on selling. but the reason we need to have numbers is because sometimes we think we're not doing real well, but then when we look at the numbers, it's actually really great. And a perfect example of this was my bright future method workshop launch, which I did a couple of months ago. Because I'm so used to launching to large audiences in the photography space, it felt so much different and so much more defeating to be launching to a much smaller audience. So during the launch, my emotions were telling me, Oh my goodness, this is failing your. Just not doing it right. Your messaging is off all of these things. But then when the launch was over and I actually looked at the numbers, what they told me was pretty dang astounding. The reality was I wasn't getting a lot of sales because my email list of potential buyers was super tiny. I only had 53 people on my email list who didn't already have a version of the course. And so I was literally launching a course to 53 people. I converted over 15% of those on a $1,300 product. Now that is a phenomenal conversion rate. Like that's fantastic for a product that size. So if I had just gone off of how it felt, it would have felt like a huge failure, but because I was looking at the numbers and because I knew that my audience numbers were small, it was easy for me to say, Oh, That wasn't a failure at all. This is actually really resonating with your people. You just need more people to hear about it. You just need to have a larger email list. And it made me feel all sorts of better. I'll be straight up honest because man, so much of what we do is ruled by our emotions. And so when we are tracking the data, when we are looking at the numbers, What we think might actually be doing really poorly, might actually be going far better than we think. Plus it will give you clarity on to where you need to be focusing. So what are some of the numbers that you should be focused on as you are growing your business? So, number one, I am tracking. Audience growth. And this is absolutely so essential. It's super basic. And it's easy for people to focus on that when they're first starting out and then kind of forget about it later on in their business, as they get busier and busier. And focus on different conversion assets or different products or delivery or whatever else. I know that definitely happened to me in my photography business. I grew fast because I focused on growing my list. And then I got distracted by doing all of the things and trying to grow the team. And yeah. Whatever else it came along and my numbers started to drop because I wasn't consistently bringing in new people month after month, I was relying on the momentum that I had to keep carrying me forward. And while it got me a little ways, it definitely started to show that when I shifted my focus away from bringing new qualified leads into my business, it affected the bottom line. And so I don't want you to fall into that trap. So you should be tracking your audience growth. Now this might be your email list. This might be your social media platforms. It's probably all of them, honestly, but you definitely want to be tracking that at the very least on a monthly basis. The second thing that you're going to want to be tracking is your conversion rate. So what percentage of the people going through your launches or your evergreen funnel are buying and you want this percentage to be as high as possible? Obviously, if you're bringing the right people into your business. This rate is going to be significantly higher than if you're bringing in the wrong people. And so if you find that your conversion rates are low and I would say anything below one to 2% is very low above. That is great, but it also depends on the product you're selling the price point and a lot of different things. So giving you exact numbers is kind of a fool's game. So you'll have to look at it. It's best if you actually track your own numbers over time and just continually work on improving them. But looking at your conversion rate can help you see, okay. Am I actually bringing the right people in. And is my messaging resonating with them in a way that's getting them to want to buy and see the value in what it is I'm offering them. So you definitely want to be tracking that over time. Cause if your conversion rate is really low, you're either bringing the wrong people in or your messaging is off or your offer is off. Maybe they don't want what you're giving them. All right. The third thing that I recommend tracking is the average sale amount of the initial purchase they make with you? Now, this is especially important. If you're running an evergreen funnel or you're going to be running paid advertising, because ideally we'd like to be making at least as much money from our ads as we're spending on them. If not several times over that investment. So even if somebody is joining your membership and you're going to have them for however many months, and you know, you're going to be making more income from them in the future, you still want to be tracking what that initial value is. Now, for some of you, if you just sell a single course that has one price, this probably isn't quite as useful. But this is definitely useful for anybody who has multiple pricing options. So if you have like a yearly versus a monthly plan for your membership, or if you're like me and you have a course, but you also have an upsell for something else on the backend, you will see a fluctuating average because. You know, yes. They might just buy it straight up for what the price is, but they may also add something on to help make that bigger. And I love having an upsell on there that makes sense with what they're buying. So for me, back in my photography business, I had the, how to start the photography business course. And that was the, the main thing that they purchased. And if they wanted, at the same time, they purchased that. I also had a legal contract that they could use with their clients to book their clients. And so I would offer that to them at a pretty significant discount if they added it on at the same time that they bought the course. So it was a very logical upsell for them, something they were going to need either way and they could add it on at the point of purchase. If that average sale amount at the time of purchase is a low, you're not going to be able to spend as much money on your ads because you're going to make less money. Right. You know, if you can get that initial purchase amount to be a lot higher than any future payments are all profit. Plus you might actually make money to grow your list and to get more buyers, which is the. Ideal solution when you're paying for ads. So this is why you want to track that number. But the second thing you do want to be tracking is also the lifetime value of your customers. So that's great. We've tracked that first initial purchase, but we also want to know on average, how much does somebody spend if they become a customer now, if you have a membership, this is going to vary from month to month, but you can actually calculate the lifetime value of your clients in your membership, your members. If you have two numbers, number one, you have to know how much they're paying per month. So that's pretty easy. You've got that number. The number two, you need to have your average monthly retention rate. And so all you need to do, and I'm going to get super geeky on you here just for a second. So hang with me, but this is based on a geometric series. If you want to go look up the math yourself, but all you need to do to figure out the lifetime value of one of your members is to take one. Minus the retention rate. So if you have a 90% retention rate, um, one minus 90% is going to be 10% or 0.1, and then you. Take the monthly amount that you charge and divide it by the number you just got. So if you charge $49 a month, you'd now take $49 divided by 0.1. And that's going to tell you the lifetime value of your members, which in this case would be $490. Now this is not going to necessarily reflect reality. A hundred percent of the time, sometimes members will leave sooner. Sometimes they will leave later. You may make changes to your membership that actually increases retention over time, or maybe something crazy like a global pandemic is going to happen. That's going to drop retention over time. But it's going to give you a ballpark number to kind of know how much money you're going to make on average from your members. So it's a super , useful calculation to have. Now, if you don't do a membership or if you also have other products, you might have to go back through your database and look and see, okay, what is the average amount of money I make per. Customer, you may also want to actually see how much you're making per email subscriber the easy way to do that is just add up all the money you've made for a certain time period. And then divide that by the number of email subscribers you have on that list during that time. that's going to give you the amount of money you're making on average per subscriber, which is pretty stinking. Awesome. Because now, you know, if you want to run a Facebook ad to just. Increase your email list through your opt-in and you don't sell anything right away on the backend, you know, on average how much you can spend before you start losing money. Right? So if you, on average, you're making $12 per email subscriber per year. Then, you know, if you're only spending four to $6 for an email subscriber, you're going to double your money in the end. And so this is why this number is really important to know as well. another number that you might want to consider is things like return on ad spend. If you're running ads, there's actually a whole lot of metrics there that you're gonna want to be looking at. , what is your profit margin versus your expenses? So if you're running ads, or if you have an affiliate program where you're going to have to pay a pretty significant amount in either ad spend or commissions to your affiliates, you're going to want to see what your actual profit amount is after you take that out. Now, there are a bajillion different metrics that you can be. Tracking. I know this is not the most fun thing to do. And I also know that there are a ton of other metrics that you could be tracking and you may very well want to be tracking. These are just a few of the main ones that I recommend focusing on. As you are trying to figure out where to go next in your business, because if you're not growing your audience or if you're not converting them well, or if you're not retaining them well, like if you join, if you have a membership and people only stay for like two or three months, then maybe you need to be focusing more on retention and how to keep them engaged in your membership. And so when you're looking at all of these numbers, the beautiful thing is that it can help you get. Real clarity on where you need to focus. Going back to my launch, for example, I only had 53 people going through that launch. I would have had an incredibly stellar launch if I had had a lot more people going through it, even though it felt kind of junky because the numbers were small upfront. The only reason they were small was because my email list at the time was small it's brand new business. Didn't focus on growing a very big email list. And so my results were tiny. So it showed me very clearly that I needed to focus on getting qualified leads. Into my business because frankly, I am making an insane amount of money for every single email subscriber that is on my list. That number is very high in my business. It's multiple hundreds of dollars per email subscriber and that's that's in four months. That's. Insane. And I know I won't be able to keep that long-term most likely because I've been very personal with my people and any time you're personal, you're going to get higher results. So as you scale your business, it's going to be harder and harder to do that for as many people, but it's not impossible. And it's way higher than the $12 per year. I was getting early on in my business when I was first starting out. And so now I can see, Oh, that's actually really good. I would track these every single month. If you hate pulling all these stats together, you can easily hire a VA for what two, three hours a month to compile the numbers for you. So that all you need to do is go in and look at them and see how they've been changing over time so that you can make really wise decisions about what you need to be focusing on. So I'm focusing on email opt-ins. I also am focusing on getting. More reliable cash flow, because I know for me looking back at the last few months, my cashflow has really been a stressor with starting over with everything COVID and so as I'm growing my business, yes, I can do launches. Yes, I can offer to sell something, but if I'm not building that recurring revenue piece into my business, then I have to keep doing it again and again and again, and it's overwhelming. And so at this point, I am looking at how can I bring in both cashflow and leads? And so I'm going to be sharing more about that. I'm actually going to be running a little mini course that I'm going to be selling on how to launch your first mastermind. And I'll, you'll hear lots more about that in the future. If you want to sign up for the waitlist. You get like the very first adopters great deal. You can go to launch your first mastermind.com, enter your email there. And I'm going to give anybody who is on that wait list, a very beautiful price. , when it first comes out but. That is what I'm focusing on. It's going to bring in some cashflow, it's going to grow my leads. And then I have a very specific plan in mind for how I'm going to nurture my leads and get more people into the actual mastermind that I am running. But if I didn't know my numbers, I wouldn't know what I needed to focus on. I'd probably have given up because I would have felt like my launch was a failure, even though by the numbers. It was fantastic. And so I also want you to know your numbers so you can make an informed decision and know exactly where you need to focus, because when you know that you can move forward with confidence. And if you go back to episode two of season three, you'll see why confidence is so stinking important. If you want to be successful. In this business that you are creating, and I know you do, that's why you're here. That's why you're listening. And that's why you're still listening. Even though this podcast is all about numbers. And I know for most people, this is like the least fun topic ever, but when you know your numbers, everything becomes easier. It really does. So go do that. think about any other numbers that you need to add. in the meantime, if you have not signed up to get email reminders about when the podcast goes alive or to hear about things like the, how to launch your first mastermind workshop that I'm putting together, I would love to have you on my email list so I need to do is go to, bright entrepreneur podcast.com/email. The link is also in the show notes and sign up for the email newsletter. I promise it will be worth it because you will not miss out on a single episode, which is super important, but also when you sign up, it gives you a chance to tell me a little bit more about you and your business. And I'd love to get to know who you are. My lovely listener, because I don't know who you are. And I want to, I want to be able to. Speak to your specific situation. And I really want to help make this podcast as useful as possible for you. So when you sign up for the email list, you also get that opportunity to send a message directly to me. And I will respond maybe later on in a few months, when things go crazy, I won't be able to respond to everybody, but in this moment, as I'm recording in November of 2020, I am responding to everyone who signs up. So definitely go do that now. Can't wait to have you on the email list and would that my friends just remember that we are Prider together and the world really needs us. So let's go out and make it brighter. ?

How to Decide What to Focus on to Grow Your Business

3 Ways to Add Personalization To Your Business

Does Your Business Reflect the Lifestyle You Want?

Get a bit of custom encouragement from Jamie here >>> http://bebrightandinspired.com Sign up for podcast  email reminders here  >>> http://brightentrepreneurpodcast.com/email Transcript: It's been a pretty emotionally draining week for me. And I know that I am not the only one out there who is dealing just with this sense of deep exhaustion between the elections and the stress of the holidays coming up and more and more areas going back into lockdown and just all of the things. It's a really exhausting time for so many people. So today I just want to do something a little different on the podcast. I want to share a little bit about how I'm dealing with it, but more than anything, I want to encourage you as we move forward through this time. And that's what I'm hoping this podcast will do for you a little bit today. Okay, confession today. I kind of skipped out on my afternoon. I had a meeting plan. It was one that I had set up, but I had been, I've been in like a day and a half of meetings and it was a really emotionally draining weekend and the sun is shining and it's warm here. Okay. It's warm in November in Northern Minnesota, like the last two weeks had been about 25 degrees. So below freezing, we had snow on the ground. And the last couple of days, it has been 50 to 60 degrees and sunny outside 50 to 60 degrees or sunny, like that's practically summer for me. I know it's not summer, but pretty dang close for me. And so this afternoon I had just gotten out of a few hours of a zoom meeting and I'm looking at the sun shining and I'm just like wiped out and I'm like, I just want to be outside. And I had another meeting coming up and I just couldn't do it. I could not do it. I knew that I was going to be pretty worthless in the meeting that I wasn't going to be able to be myself. And I just, I took a personal day, so I canceled my meeting. I just personally didn't have it in me to show up to this. And actually, I almost even forgot about this podcast episode. Oops, glad I didn't. But I made the decision to reschedule that meeting and then. Really go out and seek this stillness that I had been missing from sitting in front of a screen the last few days and just from kind of a crazy weekend. And so I grabbed a couple of journals, so I could do some working up there if I wanted to, or just whatever I kind of went without an agenda. And it's about a mile and a half to get up to the top of this cliff where I can sit in the last of the sunlight. And it was so lovely. It's a, it's a big uphill climb it's equivalent to about 75 flights of stairs. So it's no joke to get up there. It's a decent sized cliff and it's pretty remote. It's really, really lovely. I go up there relatively frequently so that I can just sit and find rest and find stillness. It's a beautiful place for me to get grounded with the earth. Cause it's really. I mean it's stone. It's like huge stone steps and, It's just amazing. It's just this deep place of stillness for me. And I love to sit there and the quiet, I love to listen to the wind. it's really a place for me to go and recharge. And so I went up there, I brought a blanket, I brought some decaf coffee, laid it out and just sat and soaked up. The son ended up having a lovely conversation with a friend and I just felt so much. Better, even within moments of getting up there where I could just breathe, I could just relax. I could lay my body out on this rock and just feel myself melt into the weight of this rock. And actually even this little chipmunk, I've never had this happen before. It was like, So curious about me and it was like a foot away from me. It kept coming up like really, really close to me, which is not typical here because it's a pretty wild place. I know sometimes in parks and things at might be a little bit more typical, but this was crazy. I've never had one get that close to me. And I didn't even have food that I was offering it. I don't know what was up, but it was just a lovely opportunity for me to really remember who I am. And what I'm doing. And, you know, I took some notes about the mastermind that I'm starting and I'm trying to get all of that put together this week. And I've got a big to-do list. Honestly, I didn't honestly have the time to be going up there and doing this, but I knew that if I didn't, I would be pretty worthless and I wouldn't get a whole lot done because I was just so wiped out. So there's two things I want to encourage you with today. Number one, if you are feeling emotionally exhausted or burned out or anxious or any of the things. Take a little bit of time away, even if it's just a few minutes to get outside and breathe, or maybe it's some time to soak in a bathtub or I don't know what it is that brings you stillness and it helps you find peace. But it's okay to step away for a little bit, even if you have to cancel some meetings and find your center to come back and find that piece, and I really call it stillness, you can call it prayer. You can call it whatever you need to contemplation forest bathing, whatever it is, find the thing that brings you peace and just really reminds you of who you are and let. Everything in you, that's just start up, get still. And then second reach out to the people who love you and know you and are there to encourage you. It has been a rough few days for me, actually. It's been more than a few days, but it's been rough for me lately. And there have been. Several dear friends of mine. Who've just been checking in on me. Who've been reaching out, who've been encouraging me and just really believing in me and in what I'm doing. And that means more than I can tell you. It's so wonderful to know that when I'm struggling or feeling down or even just I'm on the right path, but I'm exhausted. They're there to help. Bring me up, they're there to encourage me and they are there to believe in me. We all need somebody who believes in us. And I believe that we can help bring that gift back into the world, by believing in other people as well. It's part of why I love mastermind so much because a lot of the people who reached out to me this week have been people I've met in masterminds and I'm currently in masterminds with, and it has meant more to me than I can even describe. I've never felt so supported in my entire life, but if you don't have those people in your life right now, Here's what I would like to do for you, or even if you do, but you could use some encouragement right now. I've actually set up this cool little thing it's called a video ask. And basically I'd love to be able to encourage you. Personally now, all you need to do is go to be bright and inspired.com. And let me know, how are you doing? Where do you need encouragement in your life? Where are you feeling emotionally drained? Are you struggling in your business? Whatever it is, it'll allow you to leave a message for me, and I will respond to you personally. With a video so go to be bright and inspired.com and I'll drop the link into the show notes as well. Leave me a message, either a voice message or a video message, and don't worry. No one sees it, but me. So don't worry if your hair is all. Whatever, and you don't got makeup on. I don't care. It's totally cool. Um, just go there, leave me a message and I will send you back a video message with a little bit of encouragement and yeah, I just would love to give back in that way and be there for you because we all truly need someone to believe in us.   Because I know how helpful can be, to be reminded of who we are and that we are capable and that somebody out there cares. And even if I don't know you personally right now, I want you to know that I do care and I am so thankful you are listening and it's the least I can do to encourage you and help you move forward. So be bright and inspired.com. Go leave me a message. And if you're listening to this in the future, and my podcast is exploded and I'm getting like crazy, crazy amounts of this, I'm not going to guarantee that it'll still be working, but right now in November of 2020, I am responding to everyone. So go ahead, go leave a message. You can always try. I'm going to do my best. I love that service so much and I can't wait to get to know you a little bit better and to send some positivity and brightness your way. All right, my friend, if you haven't already done. So please subscribe to the podcast right now. And if you would like to get email reminders about the podcast, when they go live, you can sign up for that@brightentrepreneurpodcast.com slash email. That link is in the show notes as well, would love to have you as an email subscriber so that you never miss an episode. so with that, my friends, just remember we are brighter together and the world needs us, so let's go out and make it brighter.

Why I ditched out today (and why you should too!)

Want to build a Personal Brand? Wish you could see the real behind-the-scenes of how someone actual grows a strong personal brand and becomes an Influencer? How does personal branding work? What personal branding strategy actually helps you grow your audience, and what doesn’t work? Curious about how to make money as a social media influencer? And why should you want a personal brand at all in the first place? In this podcast, Jamie M Swanson, founder of the StorySession System and leader of the Personal Brand Photography movement, takes you behind the scenes as she pivots from having grown a highly-profitable business brand to growing her own personal brand. You’ll see what works, what doesn’t, and hear business tips along the way to help you grow your online business. She’ll explain her social media strategy, how she leverages her audience to fully support her family and make money online, and she’ll share the behind-the-scenes stuff that you’d normally only hear from your closest friends and colleagues in masterminds or over coffee. Plus, she’s going to share her statistics and numbers along the way. Sound good? Then Subscribe, Listen, and Leave us a Review letting us know what you think!

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Personal Brand Journey with Jamie M Swanson

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