Ep 125: CRUSH the rest of 2026 when you do this

If you’re a product-based business owner chasing bigger sales, more traffic, and a stronger Q4, there’s a truth that beats any content strategy or email marketing tweak...

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Transcript

Recording On The Go Intro

0:00

Hello, welcome to the Ali D Show. And today I'm gonna call it the Ali D Show On The Go, because I'm actually recording this episode from the comforts of my vehicle as I am driving down the interstate. I have been so, so, so busy that sometimes when I'm in my car, commuting is the time that I actually have quiet, and I do a lot of thinking, and I was just thinking about you all and how I wanted to bring this conversation to light today. It is officially the second half of 2026. Yay. So I am really, really, really excited about today's episode because this is something that could drastically change what the next six months looks like for you. And I know a lot of times on this podcast, we talk a lot about strategy. We talk a lot about, you know, actionable things that you can do every single day and exactly what you need to be doing to be growing your audience, growing your traffic, growing your website, content strategy, email marketing. We talk about all things business related for product-based business owners. But one thing I wanna make sure that I am definitely bringing to the forefront, as I think about one of the things that has allowed me to become the most successful and continue to grow all of my brands and businesses and replicate the success and replicate the formula and continue to grow and be, quote-unquote, so busy, but also feel this incredible sense of freedom and time, I think about how you need to actually make sure this is a big focus of the second half of your 2026 as

Who You Must Become To Grow

1:44

well. And what I'm talking about is you have to, uh, really, really, really think about who you need to become in order to have the success that you want. Because as I was saying, strategy, we talk about that all the time, right? I can give you exactly how to get X, Y, and Z result. I can do it in my sleep. But what I've noticed about the women who are most successful in my programs, most successful results, and really fricking, like, drastically changing the way their business is performing for them, is it's not just about strategy, right? You guys have access to a lot of strategy, even in my free content. If you're not inside Trendsetter University yet, hello, you need to join, first of all. Or if you're not in my mastermind or any of my paid programs, there's a lot of free information that is readily available for you. And you can study all that, and you can get great results. The reason why you would get good results, though, is because you understand that you cannot raise the level of success for your business with you being the same person that you are right now. And this is gonna feel a little bit abstract, so I'm gonna kind of break it down so you understand. You, you may be like, "What the heck are you talking about, Ally? This is, like, what?" So again, this concept may feel a little abstract, but I'm gonna explain to you exactly what I want you to focus on for the next six months of the year so you can be sure that you are setting your business up for the most success you've ever had, especially as we inch closer and closer to fourth quarter, which you know is golden for our business, right? So who you need to become. What does that even mean? So right now, there's a lot of sneaky little things that are happening that you may not even really notice, which you will notice after this podcast, are actually holding back you and your business and, and holding back your results. And again, these are things that are very sneaky, that you may not even know that you're doing. And some of them are pretty freaking blatant and obvious.

The Hospital Story That Changed Everything

3:53

So I'm gonna explain to you, like, a little bit about me. So what I know is every time I level up to, like, a new success level for my business, right, you reach new milestones, you reach new heights. Every time I do that, I have had to make personal changes in who I am in order to see that next level of success. Okay? I... It's not about, you know, having more information necessarily with strategy or more information on, you know, how to have the perfect email marketing subject line. It, it's more about what are things that I was doing that were still holding me and my business back. So for me, one of the biggest ones, one of the biggest leaps I think I ever had was when I had kids, especially my first little baby. Cutest. I have the cutest kids ever. Don't we all say that about our own kids? I just am obsessed with my kids. They're just so freaking cute. But anyways, after I had my first baby, I don't know what I was thinking, like I was just gonna be able to jump right back in like it would be no big deal, but that was not the case for me. Not only was he a preemie, so he was born six weeks early, so, you know, we had to stay in the hospital. He was in the NICU. You know, the whole nine yards. Everything's fine. He's great and fine. But I was forced to step away from my business, obviously. But actually, it even happened before that. Before that, I went in for a regular checkup for pregnancy as we were getting closer and closer, and at my, like, eight weeks left appointment, so what is that? 30 I don't even know what that is. But, you know, I had eight weeks left. I went in to, like, you know, do a little normal checkup, and, um, they heard something on the ultrasound. Like, it's not the ultrasound, but the thing, like the little... You listen to the baby's heartbeat, you know? You put it on your belly. If you've had kids, you know what I'm talking about. And it's like they listen to, like, the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, and they noticed... Actually, I passed my test. Everything was fine. But then as the doctor was sitting there just, we were just shooting the breeze, she heard something, 'cause I still had the stuff on me, and she was like, "Ooh, I don't like the sound of that." And I guess what was happening was there was, like, a decel. So the heartbeat would kind of, like, decelerate, and then it would go back up. Okay? So this was a concern to her, and she's like, "We, we need to admit you. We gotta see what's going on." So right that day, I got admitted to the hospital, and then I had to get transferred to Fort Worth because the hospital that I was admitted to, they did not, they do not have a NICU. So she had to, you know, then transfer me to the hospital in Fort Worth. You guys, she told me they were... She's like, "We're gonna put you on a helicopter." And I'm like, "I'm not freaking going on a helicopter, lady." Like, I di- I had no idea what was going on. I was very naive. And I, she's like, "Yeah, we're gonna fly you there on a helicopter. We just wanna make sure, you know, we wanna get you there as fast as humanly possible." And I'm like, "What the heck is going on?" Right? So luckily for me, it was too windy to fly me in the helicopter, so I had to get transported by ambulance. So I get there, and I am basically bedridden for two weeks, um, as they just monitored everything. They wanted to make sure. Like, any time there was a decel, they would have to, like, come in and shift me. So what, what turns out was happening was there was a knot in the umbilical cord. And so, like, sometimes, like, depending on where he was positioned, it would, like, squish the umbilical cord. Anyways, you guys don't know. I have to know my whole life. But what I'm saying is I was forced, obviously, into being bedridden for two weeks. Then I had the baby, and then two more weeks, I think we were in the NICU, something like that. So it was, like, four to five weeks where I basically was unavailable for my businesses, which was the first time in the history of time that that was what was happening. I was ver-

Micromanaging Makes You The Bottleneck

7:41

I had my hands in everything, you guys. Like, I was very hands-on, like, to the point where it was absurd, which I then had the realization after the fact that this was one of my huge faults Being a good business owner does not mean that you are micromanaging every single thing going on in the business. In fact, that is a big hindrance to your business. So for me, that was something that I personally thought made you a good business owner because I knew, you know, everything that was going out, I knew every order. I like, you know, wanted to just be- have my hands in everything. Gosh, looking back, I'm like, "What a dummy." Because all it did was slow us down. It slowed, uh, slowed our growth down because my team was one million percent more than capable of doing way more than they were doing, but I was being a little weirdo. Um, and not, not in like a negative way. I wasn't like, you know, a, a bitch, or wasn't like, "Wah," or anything like that. I just l- you know, liked things to... I just liked to know everything So when I was forced to not be in the position of being able to know everything, guess what happened? The business started to take off because I was the bottleneck of the business. Like, I l- I have a lot of great strengths, creativity, big vision. That's where I glow. And so when I was forced into that role and not really able to be the person who was doing a lot of day-to-day operation stuff, it opened my eyes to how I was personally holding the business back. So that was one of my things that we had to overcome, or I say we, really I had to overcome, and the team exploded because they were able to move so much faster in terms of getting things ready to roll, whereas I could stew on a decision about, like, something very minute for a long time, which would slow them down, right? I'm the boss. They don't wanna, like, overstep me. But once they had free rein, 'cause I definitely, like, literally was just not available, things skyrocketed. And I pr- I had I promoed, promoted our office manager to VP of operations because I was like, "Pfft, she can fricking do it all. Like, this is amazing," right? And by me being, um, too micromanaging, it wasn't allowing people to shine with their true talents because they probably felt like I was hovering over everything. I mean, I don't A- again, I don't know. There It's not like I was being crazy weird, you know, mean manager or anything like that at all. But I It, it was just something that I thought made me good when it actually was hurting the business. So once that stopped and I was forced to delegate, everything changed for my business, and we just skyrocketed like a fricking rocket ship. And we were already We'd already done, you know, millions of dollars in sales at that point, but this just really exploded the business to new heights that I really didn't even know was imaginable because I was just so inundated with the day-to-day operations. And now, you guys, there's, like, weeks at a time that go by that I don't even make it to the office. And at first, when I was first going through this major change, this, like, major life change for me, I felt so much guilt. I was like, "I can't believe I'm not there all the time. They're gonna think I don't care. They're gonna think that I just don't wanna be there. They're gonna think bad." Like, I was very much going through it big time, a lot of guilt, 'cause I just felt like, "They need me, and I'm not there for them," when in reality that was not the case at all. That was my own thing, that I f- you know, wanted to feel needed or whatever it was. I don't fricking know. But it just wasn't the truth. It wasn't the case. They were totally fine without me, and that was a little bit of a sting, but also it didn't matter It just, the business was exploding, and so I had to get out of my own way. And for a lot of you, the reason I'm telling you this story is you need to get out of your own way. And there's a lot of things that you're currently doing that hold the business back that you don't realize you personally need to work on. So for you, maybe it's not so much like delegating like it was for me at that point in my business. And again, I've had multiple times where different, different things have been the reason for the up-leveling, okay? So the, it's not just that. That was just like a very big, big wake-up call for me at that point, so I did sh- wanted to share that story with you because I think you guys can relate at, in some level. So while it was, you know, the delegation and the micromanaging of everything for me, for you it could be something totally different.

Consistency Beats One Good Live

12:34

For you, it could just simply be showing up on camera and going live when you said you were gonna do it. And even let's say you said you were gonna go live for like, I don't know, you know, four weeks in a row. Well, you go live the first time and you crush it. And then maybe you go live the second time and you don't crush it. It's not so good. And maybe things, you know, you didn't e- the first live you had a bunch of sales, you felt really good. The second time you went live a week later you just felt like, ugh, you got, you hardly any sales. Nobody really watched. You get down on yourself and you go, "I don't know if this is worth it. I'm not sure if this effort is worth it 'cause I, you know, I don't know. The second time I didn't do well." So you don't do it. When reality is if you were just to go live for four weeks in a row And do what you say you're gonna do, I can guarantee you the gold is on the other side of that. Everything you want is on the other side of you sticking to your plan and not giving up on it just because things didn't explode the way you wanted it to. This is probably for a lot of you. This is even with content, sending the email, dedicating yourself to, let's say, showing up on TikTok or Instagram or posting your Instagram stories, and you don't get the results you wanna get, so you think, "You know what? I don't know. I don't know if I should stick with it. Maybe I should try this, this, and that." So you're all over the place. You're trying a million different things instead of going, "You know, if I just went live for, like, three months every single week, even if no one's watching," you are going to feel a crazy explosion in your business because there is no way that you can show up and do something like that, going live once a week for three months, and not have the rewards from it. You're nurturing your audience. You're building your audience. You're generating sales.

Ego Detox And The Boring Work

14:30

So many people just wanna give up because they can't handle the ego hit. And this is where I tell you business, like, and ego do not go hand-in-hand. And you may think that's opposite because there's, like, corporate people with a lot of ego, but they ain't entrepreneurs, 'cause I'm telling you, most entrepreneurs don't have a lot of ego 'cause our butts have been humbled time and time and time again. Okay? How many of you are over there going, "Yep"? You can have a, a fricking thousand-dollar sales day and then the next day have a zero, right? Until you figure out how to have consistent sales, and this is... it's a hard lesson. But a lot of people don't wanna put their ego aside. They wanna just go, "Oh, well, you know, I didn't get the adrenaline hit or the dopamine hit of getting all the sales, so I'm just not gonna do it," where you need to learn how to show up for your business without the dopamine hit at the end of the day and without the adrenaline rush, 'cause being an entrepreneur is kind of boring. You're kinda... Your job is to just kinda just do it over and over and over again, even when things don't feel exciting and interesting. It's, like, boring. Welcome to being an entrepreneur. There's been so many times where I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. I don't know how I could come up with another T-shirt design. I've been doing this for over a decade." But I still do, right? 'Cause I understand it's not about how I feel. It's just doing the work. I don't have to feel a certain way to show up for my business. It's just part of my life. And a lot of you still feel like you have to feel something, feel a certain way. You're waiting for the perfect time to do X, Y, and Z instead of just going. So that's what I want you to think about for the next, you know, day or two.

Self-Audit Health Boundaries Focus

16:10

I want you to really do a self-audit and go, "What are the things that may be leaks in my personal development that I need to work on to make my business more successful?" Can you think of one right now? Are you like, "Ooh, yep"? And this does not even just have to be business related, you guys. This could even be, like, personal things. So, like, you may still be running on, like, Diet Coke and crappy food every day even though you know it makes you feel like crap. You don't have great energy. You don't have the brain power to make the decisions you need to make. You're barely showing up because you're barely sleeping. Like, the, this all affects your business. So, like, taking care of yourself, that could be your leaky thing. Could still be, like, loading up on Taco Bell because it's fast, right? But you're doing that on repeat. It's not just once in a while. It's like you're eating a lot of crappy stuff. What we put into our bodies affects our mind So that's something that I also want you to think about is it's not just business. This could be relationships. Are there relationships that you have with friends or family, people that are contributing to something not feeling right in your business? Do you need more boundaries? That was a big thing for me too. I had to create more boundaries around my time. And now I can get so much done in an hour, you know, really focusing, not multitasking. Multitasking was another big thing I had to axe to get to my next level. Like, I am, I am proudly not multitasking anymore because multitasking leads to crappy results. So as we enter the next six months of 2026, and you are thinking about what you need to do to make your business bigger and better than ever before, this is what I want you thinking about. I don't want you to think about the strategy. I don't want you to think about how many emails you need to send in your welcome flow. I mean, that's also important, but this trumps everything. Your success is 1 million percent relied upon who you are, who you are, what kind of person you are. So focus on that and everything is going to change for you. It's, again, it's exactly what I saw, I see happen in my own business. I have a zillion examples like this for myself, for my clients, for even friends in the industry. Like, this is the whole thing, you guys. This is the whole thing. So I just really wanted to have this Ali D show on the go today so I could have this conversation with you without being interrupted by children or anything else. Oh, because the last episode, I don't know if you guys listened to it. Remember my son walked in and I was giving him the snaps. I don't know if you, if you remember that. It was funny. But anyway, the snaps, like, like stop kind of thing. Anywho.

Trendsetter University And DM Me

19:20

All right. I love you guys. Um, I really, really highly recommend you jump inside Trendsetter University. You guys, we have conversations like this all the time. You can talk to me every single week in our special Q&A. It is the place to be if you're a product-based business owner and you are ready to freaking explode and you do need the strategy and you do need the education and you also need the support, which the support is everything. It's everything. So if you have any questions on Trendsetter University, shoot me a DM. So many of you have been DMing me and I just love, love, love hearing from you. So at the very least, send me a DM. Tell me you're listening to the podcast. Give me a little love, a little DM love. And, um, I just love hearing from you guys. Otherwise, I will talk to you next time.