You took the leap… now what???

What do we do in the latency? This episode shares how I handled the “in-between” of leaving my corporate job to starting a business from the ground up. 

Transcript

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Hello, gorgeous souls. Welcome back to the Beauty and Positivity Podcast. My name is Alyssa Skinner and I'm back with some more wisdom on my journey. In today's episode, it's a big one because I'm going to teach you exactly what I did after I took the leap. Exactly what I did after quitting all three of my jobs and becoming unemployed. Because I didn't just get clients the next day, right? So what did I do? So you quit your job, you took the leap, you decided to go after it. Now what? You have now, first and foremost, shifted your priorities because you are now giving your dreams or goals 100% of your attention. So you have now made this your number one priority. Temporarily, of course, because the goal is to always have freedom. And how do we get freedom? You get freedom by doing the hard shit first, by doing the scary shit first. This now proves to you and the universe, God, source, whatever you prefer, that you have decided to make plan A work. Plan A is your dreams. This has shifted your energy. You taking this jump, you have stepped into a new identity. You are no longer the past version of yourself because the past version of yourself was too scared to quit her job and actually go for it, right? And you have decided to quit your job and go for it. And so this is a new you that you have stepped into. You are now already ahead. So this new version of yourself holds a new vibration and holds new courage. Now what? Now what do we do as this new version of ourselves? So when I decided to quit all three of my jobs, I was home every single day. Mind you, I was in a brand new state and I was alone. And so that was enough change on its own. That was pretty scary. So I was home a lot, and I want to be real about the latency of working three jobs and then going straight to unemployed and going after my dreams. The timing in between those two things is the latency, by the way. So my thoughts are spiraling because what am I doing? Sitting at home, unemployed, twiddling my thumbs. I don't have money coming in, I don't have clients coming in. How am I going to make this work? What did I just do? This is these are the thoughts in my head at this point. So this is normal because you've completely shifted into the unknown. You've stepped into the unknown, and now you're feeling nothing but uncertainty and fear. So you can only focus on what you can control. And what you can control and focus on are these next steps that I did that I'm gonna share with you. Take what resonates and leave what doesn't. Number one, I meditated a lot, okay? I also did a few tarot readings on myself. Mind you, I do not do this. I don't know how to do it. I shuffled the deck a few times. I imagined my energy going into the cards. I've really only done this a few times, but it was definitely one of the times I needed it because what else was I gonna do? I was literally in a place I had never been in before, unemployed, and across the country from my friends, family, and comfort zone. And now, no job. So I felt like I needed answers and I was looking inward, right? So I'm connecting to the universe, God source, whatever you want to call it. I am connecting, I'm stepping into my higher self. I did what I know best, and I visualized everything working out. I visualized my future self sitting in my salon, smiling, looking around, and thinking, wow, I did it. Like having that moment. I visualized it already being done. I visualized my future version of me looking back at today me, thinking, wow, she fucking did it. It all worked out, and like thanking me, right, for being brave and going after it finally, because we're all too scared to go after it. And there's only one way to succeed. You go after it. Think about that. You want this dream life so bad, but you've not gone after it. So just something to think about. You have to do this scary thing to get to the other side. So I also journaled. I journaled this same vision of what I was meditating, you know, my future self in my salon, everything worked out. What I wanted, what I wanted to feel, as well as what I was releasing. Who am who am I becoming? Who is this new version of me? What was she wearing? Specifically, I have the pants I was wearing in this vision, and they're just some cute little black yoga pants from Amazon, and I was just dressed comfy in this vision, right? I wasn't trying too hard to be someone I'm not. Um, I really was just comfortable. So I'm journaling, I'm meditating on this vision, and I'm doing tarot, asking questions, you know, just looking for some guidance. If you resonate with praying, absolutely pray about it. Um, personally, praying and meditating is the same thing for me, but that's not the case for everyone. So do what you resonate with. So, journaling, meditating. Second, I drove around and I dropped off some business cards that I had made on canva.com. This is a very free resource you should be taking advantage of. The only thing you have to pay for is the cards being delivered. They print them and deliver them to you. I think I paid$50 for 100 cards, didn't need that much, but whatever, I did it. I need a drink. So I dropped them off at boutiques with the Starbucks barista. Anyone who crossed my path, they were going to know I'm a cosmetologist accepting new clients. So these next two, number three, they go hand in hand. Um, and they're absolutely necessary, in my opinion. So I started doing social media. I created a brand new account, okay, because this is a brand new version of me, and I'm creating a brand new business. So a brand new account starting from zero. And I added myself to a local Facebook group. It was a specifically a women's group, and it was the city that I lived in. Every city has one, to my understanding. And I posted in there looking for models, okay? And these were either free services or highly discounted services. I know you're going to be really tempted to charge as much as you possibly can because you're going to feel like you're in lack. You're going to feel like you need the money and you can't afford to do a free service or discount a service too much. But I'm telling you right now, you need to release the lack mindset. You are no longer the old version of you. The old version of you had the lack mindset who was too scared to leave the job. You are not this version of you anymore. And you have to release this mindset and be in the energy and hold thoughts of abundance. Only focus on where you are headed, and where you are headed is abundance. So make sure you get these models in, do them for free, or do them at a highly discounted rate because it's so important you actually get them in. And of course, the condition must be that they let you film the service. Then you post them on social media. Obviously, you must get that permission as well. Tag your city's location. This is so important because the highly per the high percentage of people coming to you is gonna be from your city, right? Tag your location, and then this the second half of this. I said these two go hand in hand. The second half is marketing on social media. Now, I didn't have very much income coming in, right? So I was paying five dollars for one day of ads, or I'd pay eight dollars, and then I worked up to like thirty dollars, forty dollars, sixty dollars, and this was as money came in, but I started at five dollars and I would pay for the social media app, whatever I was using at the time. You know, there's three main ones, and I think I did all three of them at some point, but I would tag the location on the video and pay for the social media platform to show them to a certain audience, and I would pay five dollars for that. It's very user-friendly, I promise. You um basically get to customize it to your city, the age range. I wanted women only, and so that was on there, uh, one of the filters, and I basically wanted to pay as little as I could to get the exact clients that I wanted. So now people are seeing my videos, they're rebooking. I'm sorry, they're booking their service with me because I put the booking link in my bio on social media. So this goes into number four. I used Square, it's free to start, and so this is my first year of business. I couldn't afford anything else, and so Square is completely free. They even sent me a free card reader that I just plugged right into my phone. Again, this goes back to my last podcast episode. If you didn't listen to this yet, please go listen. I started before it was cute, before it was perfect, before it was something I was proud of. I started with very little, and you just have to start. That's all that matters. Do not wait until you can afford the better chair, afford the better POS system, afford this and that. You are never going to afford it if you don't just start and start getting clients in, okay? So Square is free. They sent me the card reader, you plug it into your phone. They just take 3% of everything you make, you know, with the free version of that. So it's very low, very fair for starting out. Let's say you charge$100 for something, they only take$3 of it. That is very fair and very affordable for someone new. So you create your booking website, also very user-friendly. They completely walk you through it. You do not have to be tech savvy. And you put this link, your booking link, in your social media bios, whatever apps you have, all of them. So now this all goes hand in hand. People are seeing your videos because you tagged your city. People are also seeing them because you paid for them to be shown. And now people click on your profile, they immediately see the booking link, and they are now booking with you while you sleep. I can't even tell you how many people book at midnight because everyone's just scrolling on their phone late at night in bed and they see my videos and they book. I always wake up to a text message every morning that someone booked while I was sleeping. So it's very important that people can book with you without your help, without needing to ask you questions. The fifth thing, I held free events, and I would post these events in the Facebook group I added myself to on my social media. All women were welcome. They could come drink champagne, eat cookies, whatever. They get to come to the salon, they get to meet me, and I would offer free eyebrow waxing. So this would bring people in, right? People love free stuff, and waxing supplies was cheap enough for me to offer it because I viewed it as an investment in my business. And this is exactly how you need to start viewing free things, discounts that you're giving away. You are investing in your business. I believe that you cannot reach success without the investment of your time or money. So the free eyebrow waxing is what brought people in, and then I had cute little drinks and snacks for them to have while they waited for their eyebrow wax because I would have girls lined up at the door. I spent three to four dollars on cookies, maybe six dollars on champagne, and probably a max of ten dollars on the waxing supplies at the end of the day. Essentially, I spent$20 to get what, three, four, five, six, seven, eight new clients because now they know that I exist. They came to my space, they got to meet me, they got a service that they loved, which now they feel excited to keep up on because when you receive something, you get in the car and you think, I need to do that more. We've all done that. I get a facial and I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to do that more. Why do I not keep up on that? Or I get a massage and I'm like, I deserve to get that once a month, once every two months. I wax my eyebrows and I'm like, wow, I really needed to do that. Um, I was neglecting that for a while. So you're just benefiting from all of this. You're bringing in clients, they know you exist. And this is the scariest part for people that you just checked off the list. The scariest part is, well, if I work from home, how will people know I exist? How will I get clients? I'm not in a commercial building, I'm not at a salon. Someone can Google. I don't have a salon bringing me clients anymore. That's probably the number. If I had to bet money, I would assume that's why people are afraid is like, how will I get clients, right? Especially people who want a home salon. So I'm in a brand new state. I don't know anyone. I had the most fear of all, okay. So, number six, let's move on. I'm gonna give you two tips, um, two things for this next one that I did. Uh, the last one is client retention, but before that, we're gonna talk about referrals. So when clients would book with me and come in, obviously you want to get them back in and you also want them to refer people. So I did a referral discount. Any clients who send their family, friends, coworkers, the relationship doesn't matter. If that client said so-and-so referred me, um, I would give the client who referred the friend a 20% off discount for whatever service they wanted. So now people have incentive. Everyone needs incentive. And for client retention, getting those clients to return, I would give them a loyalty discount. And so every five services they would receive with me, they would get 20% off. I do not do this anymore. Um, I am so grateful to be in a place of business where I don't need to create so much incentive. Um, I feel like I have a very aligned clientele now. So just to make any business owners feel, you know, like there's hope. You don't have to do this forever if you don't want to. I definitely felt inspired to and it got people in. And now I have forever relationships. So if you are gonna do this, please don't be stingy with the discount. I can't tell you how many times I see people say, Oh, you'll get 10% off, you'll get 15% off. No, I'm sorry. These people are being loyal to you, they want to see you, they can see anyone. We know how saturated most industries are, so please just understand they don't have to come to you. Make it worth their while. Make them feel appreciated just as you felt appreciated they chose you. This goes back to abundance. You must be in an abundant mindset. You are always taken care of. You do not have to figure out how more money will come to you. You must accept that. Money always comes to you, money is obsessed with you, money can't get enough of you, and it's always trying to come to you in random ways. So open yourself up to those surprises from the universe because you don't know everything. Okay? And money just wants to take care of you so that you have more freedom in your life. I hope that these tips have helped. These are the exact things I did while sitting on my couch, unemployed, sitting in that in-between, uncomfortable spot after leaving my jobs before the success. And I do want to say how incredibly important the mindset part of this is. Your mind will convince you whatever you choose to think about. This is a part of your control. You must direct your thoughts. You cannot sit there and think, oh, what if people don't come? What if this doesn't work out? What if I fail? What if I have to do this and that? No, as soon as you feel yourself think those thoughts and feel that doubt, do yourself a favor and snap your fingers and say, Nope, I'm done with that. This does not serve me. That is the old version of me. Okay, I've given you lots of inform affirmations as well in previous episodes. But why would you focus on something that stresses you out if it doesn't bring you success? Okay, you're now focused on success. So I am so excited. I hope these things work for you. And really quick, if you're not a social media person, because I feel like this was a big one, I'm probably not the one to help you because I am a full believer in social media. I believe it's at everyone's fingertips at all times, and it's the number one resource we should be using to be successful. But if you liked this episode, I have more for you. I can't wait to share more about my mindset and perspectives and how I have embodied this new identity of me. I mean, I can't tell you how many people from my past have said you've changed. I don't know who you are anymore. Yeah, good. This is a good thing. So I do have a course that's upcoming, the Enlightened Babe Academy. I will be linking it in my bio as soon as I launch it, so keep an eye out for that. And I am going to help you release all of your limiting beliefs that you've ever held about your life, about your business, about your relationships, about your money. All that is old so that you can bring in the new. You are literally going to change your beliefs. You will no longer believe that money is hard to come by, you will no longer believe that success and failure are two options. Like there's one option, okay? How crazy is that though? If your brain actually believed that money was not an issue for you and you didn't have to work to make money, if you actually believed, yes, I make money, the more I sleep, the more I make, the more I take vacations, the more I make. Like, don't you want to believe that instead of feeling like you're lying to yourself? I learned how to do that just by changing my beliefs. So keep an eye out for that in Lightning Babe Academy, because I have learned so much from all the books that I've read. And a lot of people don't like reading those books because you know it can be a lot of work, a lot of studying. So I am the middleman for you to just brief, give you a brief, you know, uh summarization. A brief summary. We'll debrief the success. But thank you so much for listening. I'm sending you so much love and success. Bye.