My Day-to-Day As I Scale My Business
Episode Summary:
I think there’s two types of people in entrepreneurship… those who are very good at planning out their days and then (people like me) those who think they can get 19 tasks done but in reality can probably knock out 4 of them. In this episode, I’m sharing a few tips for us really ambitious women who are ready to scale their business but may be feeling stuck in the messy middle and need a helping hand out. I’m going to talk a bit about my day to day and how I prioritize the tasks that need done, taking risks as you scale, celebrating your wins and a few things in between. After listening, hopefully you’ll feel confident in knowing what direction to put your ambition.
If you want more direct support, the waitlist for my 6-month mentorship, Sell with Heart, is waiting for you! The next round doesn’t start until July, but by adding your name to the list you’ll get priority access and pricing! Learn more here.
Topics Discussed:
What has helped Anna plan her day to day and prioritize what needs to be done
Tips for planning and actually creating content along with daily sales actions
Becoming comfortable with taking risks as you grow and scale your business
How your team can hold you accountable throughout your scaling process
Reframing goals as momentum rather than something to be met
The importance of taking time every single day to celebrate your wins
Episode Resources:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
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Anna (00:00):
Hi friends for anyone else, does it take <laugh> like seven times longer to do something than you think it will And or do you ever look at your day and be like, okay, I can definitely get these 19 things done. And then you get halfway through the list and you're like, wow, I will definitely get four of these things done today. That happened to me today. <Laugh>, partially because a, I am still adjusting back from international travel, you know, got to take my beautiful kids to Ireland. Also the solar eclipse was today how <laugh> my family was making the biggest deal out of it and I was like blah, blah, blah. But honestly it was amazing. Like my dad got those little solar glasses so I just laid on my back cement and watched the eclipse and honestly was really in awe of it.
Anna (00:49):
And <laugh> probably like you, I'm someone who's a deep thinker. So just like asking myself the deep questions of life while wearing those silly glasses and staring up at the sun for who knows how long today. But I digress. <Laugh> I just wanna talk about this and I think as ambitious women, just this conversation, hopefully I have some tips for you that might help, but also I hope this is just super normalizing and I hope it will be motivating. So you know what direction to put your ambition as <laugh>. Okay, so I have a few little tips first. So I think I've realized in business that like things always take longer than I think they will. But something that has actually helped me is making sure that I put time amounts on things. You guys know I'm a big fan of the daily check-in which is just a little exercise I try to do every morning and it's about 10 to 20 minutes long and you're basically checking in in six different areas.
Anna (01:44):
I'll include a link in the show notes, it's just a free Google doc. But one of those sections is called priorities and that's where I basically look at my Google calendar for the day and just remind myself these are when my client calls are, these are when my open pockets are and how do I wanna spend those open pockets? Look at my to-do list and see what I can plug in ideally, or doing this at the start of your week and planning your week. But I honestly do it often like day to day. But really creating specific time amounts unlike this task will take me 15 minutes. Reviewing that email sequence will take me 30 minutes and really setting an agenda for myself. This is something I started doing back when I started creating content online and it really served me. And that is what I call doing a content workshop or like let's say for next week in your marketing you need to create three reels, two emails and one social post setting an agenda for that hour instead of being like content creation for an hour, right?
Anna (02:44):
Being like what is that hour gonna look like first I'm going to, you know, I really recommend even before that hour honestly already deciding what your content will be on because that is a thing in itself. You guys know I've been playing with reels more and I've really been dividing into one day deciding what reels I'm going to create and then a different day actually creating them. But either way in that hour making sure you're really dividing out, okay, I've got 10 minutes to record each one. And you are someone that you can perform well when you have that structure, when you have a deadline. But if it's open-ended, that sort can be a little bit harder to get things done, right? Pros and cons of being a boss to yourself. So making sure you have your priorities. I also will put my priorities for the day in order so that I'm doing the most important things first and or the things I'm most likely to procrastinate and or the things I'm dreading or avoiding putting those first right?
Anna (03:38):
I really recommend my girls in the mastermind when they do their sales actions like they have, if you clock in and do your selling time, you can unlock one-on-one bonus sessions with me and I really encourage them to do that first thing in the morning. Are you taking 15 minutes to connect with potential clients? Right? Whatever it is, even before you do everything else in your business, like check your email. So prioritizing them when it comes to the order you're doing them, making sure there's really clear amounts is just a point that I wanted to make in case that's useful for you. Something else is I really have this belief and I just feel like this year more and more as I'm taking, as I'm scaling my business, I'm taking more risks, right? I've been playing with Facebook ads a little bit, I've been playing with reels a little bit.
Anna (04:24):
I mean people can say like, is that a risk? I don't know. But for me I'm very like change averse, risk averse, like failure averse. Like I am someone that likes to be safe in my home with my kids and you know, it might surprise you to hear, but like I'm not a really big public person. I like, I like my small friend circle. And so because of that it really does take a lot of mindset work to get me to want to grow because I get really content with where I'm, and again, there's nothing wrong with that and it's a good problem to have, but it can almost make me over content in settling instead of really looking at what do I want to improve in a non hussle ish way, right? Okay, where was I at? So really looking at,
Anna (06:20):
Okay, so really looking at for me a lot of the things that on my to-do list don't get done are because either A, they I'm scared, there's like some sort of fear there. Like what if I do this thing and a client isn't happy? What if I do this thing and it works and I make more money and I'm more busy and I'm not present for my kids, right? And what if it doesn't work and I look don't like look a certain way, right? I think a lot of it can be because of fear. I think a lot of it though is because as you're growing and scaling your business, a lot of the actions you're taking are not immediately gratifying. In fact, what I noticed was this really interesting thing as I've been in business for eight years, right? You know, the beginning of business, yes it's hard and yes it's a little bit miserable because you're, nothing's really working at the start and you're like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Anna (07:10):
But you know what is really nice is it's really immediately gratifying because you're kind of doing a lot spur the moment and getting a lot of instant results, right? You're like trying to or instant feedback, right? You're like creating your social posts in the moment you're selling something, then you're selling another offer. It's just very moment to moment. And while we wanna get away from that so that our business is feeling more calm and grounded, the one nice thing about it is it's very gratifying and there's a lot of feedback and a lot of intensity. It's kind of like at the beginning of a romantic relationship, right? For me, I would much rather have long-term love than like puppy dog love. But there is something that's beautiful and sweet about puppy dog love, right? Same thing about business, right? We want the long-term financially profitable, financially stable business, but it is a little bit less exciting.
Anna (08:04):
It's a little bit less gratifying. And I think just remembering that so you're not making yourself wrong as a lot of those things on your to-do list. Like what I noticed for me as I've grown to scale my business is more and more things on my to-do list are important but not urgent, right? When you're working in advance, like if you're recording a podcast episode and it's not gonna see the light of day for like three more weeks, that's not really immediately gratifying, right? No one's giving you feedback on that content <laugh>. If you are and a lot of the actions that you're taking actually don't save you time or save you money, they cost you time or cost you money. Like I think about some of the programs and courses I've created that haven't seen the light of day for a while and or maybe the first launch I sold a few spots but it wasn't till a few launches down the road that I was making like six figures on that program, right?
Anna (08:56):
That is delayed gratification. Like I think about the videos that I recorded for either my mastermind Sell with Heart or my course getting coach. Like I really didn't make hundreds of thousands of dollars on that until a year or more later. And it's just interesting, right? I think also about like hiring team members initially hiring team to support you, it costs money and it costs time because you're training people And it's so interesting because when you're going to scale and or like create scaled products or even if you have a done for you product, you're creating like systems and onboarding and offboarding and streamlining the experience, right? All of that costs time and costs money and it's like you don't wanna do that, right? But it is the thing in the long run that is going to make you more money. And so I think just reminding yourself that like those long-term moves, those long-term actions, they're worth it.
Anna (09:48):
And I think for me, I'm more settled into it now, but I do remember there was a season where I was like, oh my business actions are gonna be one of the downsides of having a more profitable, stable business is again like it's less exciting, it's less gratifying and you really have to motivate yourself to do actions that aren't as time sensitive. Which is kind of nice because then your business isn't as like huy. But again that downside is you really do have to like motivate yourself there and take the time. This is why I love, love, love having most of my client calls Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday because then it really allows me time Tuesdays and then a little bit on Monday Fridays to do some of the like CEO actions, the things that aren't as time sensitive, the things that are bigger picture moving the needle forward.
Anna (10:36):
On my to-do list and honestly, yeah like I said like I love going to coffee shops for this. That helps motivate me also, what helps motivate me right now I have two main, you know, team members, my OBM and my VA and my OBM. Her job is to really like vision forward and look ahead in my business for some of the bigger projects and hold me accountable for some of the actions that I need to take to grow and scale or do my next thing, right? Planning the next launch that's not happening for four more months, right? Planning and helping me with projects that are longer term and my VA and I are really there often like in the moment like executing on what she's created and planned in advance. So I think for sure team helps me with this. Like I shared this example with you guys before but like something as simple as my bookkeeper calls me and we meet for 20 minutes every month to review my books because otherwise if that were just like a task on my to-do list, I really would not do it and I would be overwhelmed at the end of the year for tax season.
Anna (11:32):
So he basically babysits me to review my books every year, right? So I think like team really can help with, I know for me my coach is a big part of me. I just emailed her like or sent her a message in our chat about you know, something that's not gonna happen for two more months and really like setting aside time to chat with her on that. I'm someone that's like rather communal and so my long-term actions are more instantly gratifying for me when I'm not doing them alone, when I am like chatting with someone about it at least. If that makes sense. So that's something that's been super helpful for me. And then also I just wanted to share like the mindset in general around, I share this in my book, but really making sure you are, have your mindset right around goals.
Anna (12:19):
I think as ambitious women we can get confused on what goals are for and my belief is that goals are not really meant to be created to meet them all goals are meant to put us in the right direction. Goals are meant to change us as a person, as we make the goal, as we move towards our goal. But for me I love setting a goal and then really surrendering to whatever happens because of that. Let me think of an example. So obviously one example is when I had the goal to save my 20 K as a freedom fund to create financial stability for myself. But when I made that goal I had no idea really that I wanted to buy my house later on and that that money would start moving towards that. I was just taking action towards that one direction. I've also had goals that I have set that quote have failed, right?
Anna (13:10):
I remember I was going to get my bar teacher certification and I started the certificate but I didn't finish it because it wasn't a priority at the time. And then really three years later I went back to complete it, right? But in the process of doing that, I really feel like it gave me a lot of clarity around my own personal fitness journey and gave me a lot of clarity around like how I can just practice by myself at home when I memorize the moves. So I think it's just remembering that like our job is to like set the goal but not every goal we will meet some goals. We will abandon because we decide it's no longer serving us some goals we will surpass some goals we will not hit, right? It's kind of, I think about this when I set like launch or program goals, I always set like an intention in my heart of how many women I'd like in a certain pod of a mastermind or a program, right?
Anna (14:01):
But then I really, and that helps me create my actions, right? Like let's say I want 10 people in a program, I'm like okay, that means I've gotta get a hundred people into the conversion event. That means I've gotta send 30 private invites that informs my action. The goal informs our action but then I really celebrate myself for taking the action. And I don't know if this is controversial, but I really say God, okay, I'm really surrendering to you on what my result looks like, right? And I'm gonna trust like kind of like what's meant to be will be and however many women end up being in this round of the program. That's who I'm gonna show up and serve with all of my heart, right? And then doing that, moving on to the next thing and really trusting again the goal I think a informs our action which is super helpful for the day to day so you can celebrate yourself and be like, yeah, I showed up and grew my list by this much or I did did that thing that I know supports that.
Anna (14:52):
But again, I'm not putting like this insane pressure on myself around the results because honestly the results of our life, again, maybe this is controversial but I don't think we have a lot of control over, right? We don't have control over when, which client science on which day. I think we can be determined to work on a goal and detach from the timeline until it happens, right? I'm a big fan of like when I made that goal to have my 20 K freedom fund, I was like I'm gonna work on this for 90 days but if I don't hit it in 90 days, I'm just gonna keep working on it till I do it right? I remember at the start of my business I was like, I'm gonna get fully booked with like eight clients or whatever it was and I'm gonna keep doing it until I hit eight clients.
Anna (15:32):
Like I don't have cure if I to show up for 10 years, like I'm gonna figure this out. So I think there is something to be said about like being detached from that like timeline of it and just working till it happens, which actually makes it happen faster. But again, I really think the point of goals is to move our action in the right direction and I think we as we're pursuing a goal, we be change and become a different person as we're risking, as we're, you know, we're changing from the inside as we're taking different actions in that human trajectory, right? Okay so a point I wanna leave you with is really in the season of scaling and working on like again longer term actions that are less gratifying. Sorry to spoil it for you <laugh>, but I really feel like something that's really changed the game for me is celebrating myself.
Anna (16:23):
Because when you are in a place as an ambitious woman, often you've probably been in work situations before where you have won every game you've played, which sounds good but honestly it's not because that means you're playing it safe. If you are meeting every goal you're making, it means your goals are not big enough, right? You're not really reaching to your capacity <laugh>, if you aren't hitting all of your goals, that's good because you're stretching yourself, right? And so you know, often like in our day jobs we're used to like being perfect and performing perfectly. But in business the whole goal is that we're like setting these impossible goals that are really pushing us. In my book I have this diagram of like a target and it talks about like if you shoot for 30, great, you can get 30. If you shoot for a hundred, maybe you won't get a hundred, but what if you got like 64?
Anna (17:13):
That's way better than the 30. You know what I mean? And so I think how do we though as ambitious women do this without losing our minds is celebrating ourselves, right? Really owning what are you doing well, what are you doing right? Even if you're not quote, always meeting your goals, always crushing it at the end game. How are you crushing it on your path? So for me, I always encourage my clients like you know, every quarter, every month, but I do this personally daily in my daily check-in one of those six elements is wins. And I write down the things that I'm proud of. I write down the things I accomplished, small or big and I really try to focus on my action more so than the outcome. Like if I'm hiring a new team member, I'm like I am. My win is I created the application.
Anna (18:05):
My win is that I met with, you know, I, I sent out, I asked people to share the application. My win is that I did interviews. My win is that I sent a rejection a no to four people that weren't a fit because that's getting me closer to my person. That is a fit, those are wins. When we see it like wins then doing our goals gets a lot more gratifying because number one, we feel good along the way to our goal. And here's the thing, most of our life is moving towards the goal because once we hit a goal, we make another goal <laugh>. And so you just feel really good about yourself and I don't know about you but like as a mom so much of we do, we don't get credit for it. For example, this weekend I for the umpteenth time took my kids' clothes, decluttered them, got rid of the ones that have holes and don't fit anymore and sorted out their drawers.
Anna (18:58):
And I was like Good job Anna, right? I also went to paint my kids' room, did not get the whole thing painted but you know what I painted their door 'cause that was the worst part. And you know in business I'm a big fan of like okay, what's the biggest problem? How do we solve that? And their room looks way better just from the door being this beautiful crisp white and I could tell myself, oh my god Anna, you didn't paint the room you set out to make that as a goal and you would know Instead I'm like I painted their door and honestly I'm really proud of that. Like I'm not someone that's super handy, I'm not a painter, but now they have a crisp white door and I'm proud of myself even though I only did like 10% of the project. But do you see how that puts me on a better track of like now when I have time again I'm gonna paint the rest of the room and I'm gonna get it done.
Anna (19:43):
And I think it's just like sometimes we get used to like beating ourself up to motivate us towards hitting a goal and that can work in the short term but that really won't work in the long term because it doesn't feel good. And as humans to hack human behavior, we wanna feel good, right? <Laugh>. And so if you wanna get more things done like and so anyway on my win sheet I wrote painting that door sorting my kids' clothes. Right? Now granted because we got back from traveling the rest of my house is a little bit messy, but did I write that on the list? No. Right? And so it's really about giving yourself credit and owning that I also do this in front of my girlfriends. Like if there's something in my business that I did, maybe I had, and especially as you grow in your business, you can't really talk about everything publicly.
Anna (20:28):
Like right? Recently there was something like with something legally in my business I had to take care of. Fortunately it worked out okay but obviously I'm like not gonna talk about that publicly or with my clients. But that's something I can talk about with my coach and my coach can be like, great job Anna, you handled that with a lot of integrity. That's something I can write on my win sheet and be like I handled that the best that I could, right? And I'm telling you it changes the game. Like it sounds silly but really starting to shift that inner dialogue, right? When my business, one of the first pieces of content I created was about the four types of self-talk, right? One is the worrier, one is the critic, all of that, right? And I really feel like a lot of us have this critic in our head that's always telling us you're not doing good enough.
Anna (21:14):
You didn't get the to-do list done. You weren't efficient enough, right? Oh you didn't get the whole room painted. But if we reverse that talk, it really is key to so much number one, getting things done faster but and getting more results but also feeling better and don't we wanna live our whole life feeling good, right? So anyway, celebrate my wins on my daily check-in, but also in front of my coach. I'm like, you would be proud of me, I did this thing, right? I love when my clients do that and in the mastermind in Slack be like Okay girl, celebrate with me. I did this really hard thing or I did this brave thing or something that may not seem big to a lot of people, but to you, you know it's a big deal. Like maybe you've never really done direct outreach and selling to your email list, but maybe you looked at who are your active subscribers who's been clicking a lot on your emails and you set an outreach to like five people and invited them to a free discovery call or something like that's big and brave, right?
Anna (22:10):
And you, that's something you could come into the mastermind and be like, girls, I'm so proud of myself for like putting my neck out there and like actually selling or going on stories and talking directly about my product or service. Like selling is brave, right? But again, the selling actions, we celebrate those because what happens is the results, the 5K months, the 10 K months, the 20 K months, right? But celebrating those actions in those behaviors is what get you to the sexy results faster. So again, having it in your own practice among yourself but also having a community where you can celebrate yourself and others can celebrate you too. It is brave, it is hard, but it is really the work and I think what channels, what balances out the ambition, right? Well balances out the ambition and moving towards your goals faster because you are worthy of that, you are worthy of not settling.
Anna (23:05):
Like I think sometimes we feel like our dreams are visions for our life. Like are they too ambitious? Are they too? No, I really don't feel like you can dream big enough as long as you balance that with being gracious toward yourself, being gentle with yourself, celebrating yourself, not making it wrong when you don't meet your goals. And again, like I blame God <laugh>, I'm like okay God I didn't meet that goal but like must meant because it wasn't supposed to happen, right? Or must meant because you were sleeping on the job or something. Like I know it sounds silly but like sometimes like my kids will like blame me for things, right? <Laugh> And I think there's like a lot of comfort for kids in knowing that like they're sharing the responsibility with their parent. Obviously they can do that too much, right? But I think there's something relaxing as a healthy child to be able to be like not overly blame yourself for stuff.
Anna (23:57):
And I think as adults sometimes we take too much ownership instead of remembering like there's something bigger. I believe there's something outside of us that's carrying our ambitious with us and so we can relax, we can do our best, but then however things turn out we can just surrender and not make ourselves wrong for it, if that makes sense. Okay. I know this was like a little bit of like a blah like, but I just felt like it was important message to share because it's just something that I've been thinking through lately, something I've been talking to my clients through lately. So I hope this was helpful for you. As you were thinking through your to-do list your tasks, your priorities that are important but not urgent and how you are making yourself feel as you go about doing it and planting those seeds. If you want my support with this, I would love, love to invite you to join the wait list for my mastermind.
Anna (24:46):
Sell with Heart. Essentially it's like 10 to 12 women and I've had this same program for over five years now, over 10 rounds now. And it really is my women that you basically comes with free one-on-one coaching in IT group calls. We do a quarterly planning session every month. We do. Yeah, our ma our mastermind calls where you get insight not just from me but from the other women, lots of sales templates, lots of money mindset templates, and it really is my money incubator for women already making 2K in their business, looking to make six figures and beyond because I just think it's a really challenging season where <laugh>, if not like the most challenging season, the messy middle biz puberty of like you're making some money but really not quite enough money to enjoy your money. And so that's why I make the investment approachable and affordable because I know that it's just a challenging time of really looking at how do I make massive money with integrity within heart, with heart.
Anna (25:47):
And I would love to invite you to apply basically. Oh yeah, join. So join the wait list and or when applications open, make sure you apply because that's the way, for best way for me personally, get to get to know the inside of your business. I review all the applications myself and it helps me see a little bit more on the inside what your business most needs. If it is the mastermind, I will definitely tell you that. If it's something else, I will tell you that too because it's my priority that you are doing the programs that most serve you, that you're most going to profit off of and benefit from. And so I would love to invite you to do that. Also, of course, you know my dms are open to you. I am an open book and just sending you so much love on your journey. Okay, bye love.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.