171. Don't Let This Powerful Entrepreneurial Trait Sabotage Your Progress

Entrepreneurs are creative and courageous, generating more ideas than they can handle. And while this level of innovation is an asset, it quickly becomes an unnoticed liability. So buckle up because this episode gets spicy as Heather delivers one of her infamous mono-ramble-logues on calling out and raising your awareness around how your perceived strengths might actually be holding you back from reaching your goals. 

Episode Highlights:

• The mistake too many entrepreneurs make online when they see a problem 
• What happens when you have tons of new  ideas and you start taking action on all of these things
• The biggest gift (and probably the biggest liability) why you’re not making any progress in your business
• Plus what to do if you find yourself stuck, not moving forward in your business

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇

https://heathersager.com/episode171/

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Transcript

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1:44  

Well, hey, friend, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm recording this 12 at well, not 12 hours, 16, 17 hours, I don't know. We closed cart on The Speaker Society last night and I am recording this on Friday. You will hear this next week and I wanted to do an episode today to talk about something that was on my mind. This is going to be a freestyle, free scripted, and you and I both know that those always turn out to be the best episodes that y'all go bananas over. And I'm like, that was the one? I didn't even prepare for that. And it's the one that, so who knows, and maybe it's gonna go either direction now, but I want to talk about something that is fresh on my mind and it is something that I have struggled with a lot. But once I got a handle on, it was a game changer in my business. And quite frankly, it's one of the things that I attribute so much of the success for my Heather Sager brand and for our launch at The Speaker Co and our just most recent successful launch of The Speaker Society. This has been the little, I'm not gonna say a secret weapon, but it has been an anchor for me and I want to talk about it today and I'm gonna get to that here in a moment. 

3:00  

But first, I just want to give a little moment of gratitude. If you are a longtime listener of the show or even our most recently to the show, we went full ass on this last launch of The Speaker society. So listening to us again, the doors are now officially closed. Y'all, I want to speak to you, if you have a program or a service, I'm going to put on some chapstick because Mama's gonna preach here. If you have a program and service and you, or service, and you find yourself holding back when it comes to selling because you don't want to be a bother or you don't want to be put in a category with, I don't know the schmucky person that you just, you know what I'm talking about. When you mute yourself, when you hold back a bit, when you're like, I can't like I'm not gonna say that thing or I'm not going to post it again or I'm not going to be so overt with it. I want you to get real present with yourself and ask yourself, do you hold back when it comes to your launches or your selling? Are you more passive? And if you notice that, there's nothing wrong with that. 

I don't want this to be interpreted as a, me telling you to do anything wrong, but what I want to remind you of right now that it's okay for you to boldly sell your shit. It is more than okay. It is required and it is, you're a business owner. You are in business and it is perfectly fine for you to show up and sell the heck out of your stuff. Sure. Some people will be like, look at her, oh my gosh, she's in my inbox again, like who is this person in my inbox. Anyone who's thinking that, they're not gonna buy from you anyways. I roll, let them go, like do not allow those people's perceptions or even hypothetical judgment. They're not even real judgments so it's like you're hypothesizing that they're thinking that, right? So this fictitious story that we tell ourselves of what people think. Don't let that be the determinant of whether or not you show up, or you send an email, or you are a little more bold on your social media, or you do the other post, or you add the commercial on your podcast, like, don't let that potential negative thought of someone judging you for selling. Do not let that be the voice that dictates your strategy because like that's gonna kill you in terms of a business. It's not going to work like that. 

5:43  

The reason I brought this up is, so I'm in a mastermind and it's a little mini mastermind that we primarily chat on Voxer with a few other ladies and we connected in March of this year at a live event together, and I swear, there's in this episode, and they're all gonna be good, and you're gonna love every single moment so here we go, buckle up, baby, you might want to go refill your coffee. But this mastermind, this mastermind it's so informal. It's a peer mastermind. We're on Voxer chatting all the time. We connected because we wanted to have daily exposure to women kicking ass, women who were unapologetically chasing a big goal and not at the sacrifice of their families, or their asleep, or their I don't know, doing other things like taking a lazy nap on a Thursday but we wanted to be around other women who are similar. So all of us have an ambition to have a million dollar business, not to have the money, but to have the sales system and the infrastructure to support that kind of business. That's what we're each after and that's a story for another day. Sidenote, if you want to hear more about that I can do more episodes my whole thought around the quote unquote million dollar business pursuit. 

6:53  

But what we wanted to do was we wanted to be around people who were talking about money, because right now there seems to be this conversation that when you're in business, you only talk about money with other business owners because people outside of this online business world think are crazy town for talking money or they get really judgy and be like, what, or they I don't know, whatever, right? People have money issues. I think that's just fact, like, it's a very well known thing that so many people, probably ourselves included have weird relationships with money and we're not going to get into that today. 

7:20  

But it's particularly in the industry, there's this kind of like two camps of people who are like, in your face talking about money who it's nice to know, because you can hear it, but it's, I don't know, it's typically paired with a lifestyle that's probably not one that you're after, whether it's a hustle lifestyle, or a look at me, I'm a beach and you're like, that's not realistic, I have three kids and minivan. I have neither of those things. I have two kids and a SUV. Anyways, what we find is the people who talk money are typically are not, I mean, my parts aspirational, but the lifestyle isn't. So what happens is we find ourselves not really talking about money or we fall into the thing of like, we're not going to overly worry, we're just going to focus on just showing up and doing our best and just seeing where the cards fall. But deep down, you have a goal around what you want and then you're drastically disappointed but then you want to tell people that because you didn't want to tell me at a money goal because you'd set it in that goal and blah, blah, blah, I don't know all these things just happens for you. This happened for me right a lot and still, even still today. It happens to a degree. 

But I want to bring this up, so we started this mastermind with these ladies because we want to talk about money goals, talk about the real numbers of launches, are real is what's going into launches. And earlier this year, when we were doing the affiliate launch for Business by Design, I was in the grip of these ladies, a lot of them were also affiliates. And I had approached this, I adopt this mantra that I've talked to you about multiple times. And the mantra is, if I'm going to do something this year, I'm gonna commit full ass. This has been my mantra from day one. Fact, on the wallpaper myself on right now it says always full ass it. When you live your very best, most authentic and sincere life you inspire others to do the same. When you live your very best, most authentic and sincere life, you inspire others to do the same. Always full ass it. That has been on my phone since January 1st of 2022 and I brought that to everything. So I brought that into the affiliate launch that I did in the spring and blew my expectations out of the water and I was sharing about that journey of just showing up, sending another email, going on live, asking Wedmore whose program it was, asking him to come live with me and I'm like who am I, like I just have tiny baby audience why would he say yes but hell you don't know unless you ask. 

9:40  

So I just kept asking for things, I just kept going full ass with it and it was incredible, I mean incredible results from from that launch. But I bring that up because the ladies in the group, they've all now adopted this mantra of like we go full ass, like this is a full last launch we show up. So I bring all this to you because, I started with a gratitude because I know you stuck with it over the lunch with me. But I wanted to say this, I don't say thank you for joining me in the launch because I feel bad that I was in your face talking about all things Speaker Society, I don't feel bad by any means. I am so happy to have the platform and the opportunity to talk about those things, to help the people. We had 45 people joining up for the Speaker Society, which is like, Emily and I are freaking out banana. It's so so incredible. And I say thank you, because I appreciate you and I value you. And it's still crazy to me that I keep showing up this microphone and y'all keep coming back to listen, and this weirdo girl from Vancouver, Washington is working out of a guest bedroom rambling about random things. You keep showing up and that, one, says a little bit about our relationship and I appreciate that you trust me enough to let me in your earbuds or your whatever you listen to this on every single week, but for me I stream by my hearing aids. But I appreciate that and I also want to say thank you for you betting on yourself. This is gonna be really cheesy for a moment. But I'm so appreciative for the other entrepreneurs who have the audacity, if you want to call it that, to show up and share their message because this thing that we do, it's weird. Y'all, like this whole building this online presence, selling our what's in our brain, like the idea that things come from our brains, and we bring them out into the world and turn them into blog posts, and videos, and emails, and we've created things from nothing and that is freaking magical and it's because of the people who've gone before me or the people in my audience who go out and keep doing it that it gives me the courage and the energy to continue to do with myself. 

11:49  

We're in this, it will sound like a really weird turn but we're in this really amazing, feeding frenzy of like sharing ideas, inspiring other people and I know that that also can be a little overwhelming but I'm going to choose to look at the positive side about being around other creatives, being around other entrepreneurs. What an incredible opportunity we're in right now to be in this online space. What an incredible gift it is that we have the tools available for us to be able to take the ship from our heads and help other people, like that, that's just wild to me, like it is just wild. Have you over tried to slow down recently and just thought about how freaking amazing that is? So I just needed a moment to honor that and to say, ha, man, I hope that I inspire you to continue to show up, I hope me showing up full asses for my launches and unapologetically talking about a program because I know they help people. I hope that lights a fire and you're asked to do the same. I hope that maybe an example that it's okay to sell, It's okay to send an ungodly amount of emails as long as you're valuable and entertaining. It's okay to keep showing up and keep reminding people that you're here and you can help them in persuading them to help them because the people who actually want your help, you will find them. It always happens. It always happens. Somebody in 11th hour, like yes, I'm going to bet on myself, and then I'm betting on me they're betting on themselves that each I'm thinking about these 45 incredible business owners who just said yes to the Speaker Society, they all have, they all took a bet on themselves, their own ideas and it's taking that step for bringing them out of their heads and into the world. 

13:33  

But if you, I just want you to really take a moment and give yourself some freaking credit for that because wherever you're at in relation to your goals, maybe you're not quite as far along as you want, maybe you don't want to hit the revenue goals yet that you want, that's all cool. Keep chasing those. It's okay. But can you just take a hot freakin minute and acknowledge what you have done. I have just found that we focus so much on what we haven't done that we cropped on the incredible things that we have and so let's just be a little pat on the back if you need that pep talk today. I don't know that just flew out of me that I just needed to say these things for someone listening. 

14:17  

What I wanted to talk about today and this is probably a beautiful combination, the message that was on my heart to share was the thing that's really made a difference. I think about this online business thing is kind of like dog ears, right? I giggled because I've had some really great conversations this week and when people have talked about wanting to work together in the Speaker Society or doing business coaching with me, they made comments around like I don't have a business like yours, like established, like longevity. You've been doing this for a lot while. You'd like somebody was like how did you build relationships with all these big players in the industries? And I keep giggling, like wait, who me? Like I have this tiny little baby business, tiny little baby business. We've been at it for, how many year are we in? I'm full time, y'all just for a few years, full time in my own business. Granted, I've been doing business coaching and working with entrepreneurs and speaking for the last 15, 17. It's been a hot minute, y'all. I'm not as young as I look, although I am blessed with very great skin and I drink a lot of water and I bought some new skincare products that have really helped me with that. 

15:21  

Anyways, I get a lot of feedback from people that they want to have businesses like mine and I share this with you because I've done a very good job building up my own personal brand and Emily are doing this together now with The Speaker Co. We have done a really good job with something called positioning and positioning is how how you place yourself in the marketplace. Are you low ticket? Are you high ticket? How like, just what's the vibe of your brand? And what are people associate you with? It's all around positioning. It's like why my friend, Phil Jones, who's a wonderful speaker. He talks about sales. He uses a metaphor of a pen that you take a black pen and you put it at Walmart and that price of that pen is going to be 50 cents to maybe two bucks. But you could take that same pen and put it in a velvet blue box and put that velvet blue box encased in glass on a base in a store filled with lights, and it has a front guard out front, like a guard at the front, you know, like a Tiffany's store or one of those fancy purse stores. That same damn pen, you look at that in that glass in case box in this very, very fancy store that you have to get an invite to go into. People would pay like 20 grand for that fricking pen, same goddamn pen. 

16:36  

So what's interesting is that that's positioning, right? And we're not like obviously a crappy pen here as we're talking about it but I've done a great job positioning my brand. And what I want to share with you today is as we transition from my company and Emily's company into one business, The Speaker Co. There's been one specific thing that I think has really served us both very well that I want to press upon you here today because if you are an entrepreneur, most likely one of the things that is your best gift but it's also probably your biggest liability and might be the reason why you're not making progress is that your creative innovation and wanting to always do new things, so hear me out for a moment. 

17:28  

How many ideas do you have on any given day? If you're anything like me, it's probably like in the 1 billion category and think about any given week or even a given month. How often do you sit down and dream about the different revenue plans for your business, or the different offers that you create, or the different types of podcast episodes you can do or the different ways that you have different tactics for marketing? It's like, oh, now I need to do reels, we're now new to YouTube, or now you did this like that hopping of tactics and strategies. These are all ideas, whether they come from you or they come from external things that then sparks something to your shoes. I want you to think about how often you're coming up with new ideas, new tactics, new strategies, new content. And this is a beautiful thing because as entrepreneurs, we're creative, we're resourceful, we have the ideas and we take action on them. But as you'll quickly notice in a moment that same ideation to like wanting to take action, what happens is when we start taking action on all of these things, but we don't actually stick to one thing long enough to make it work, we find ourselves in one of those hamster wheels, where we find ourselves kind of stuck in the mud and we can't seem to get out. Pick the metaphor that works best for you in your brain right now. 

18:44  

The thing I really wanted to bring in today is I want to challenge you to ask yourself, have I really committed to something and stuck with it long enough to evaluate what's working and what's not working to refine it? I mentioned all of this because when Emily and I were building The Speaker Co, specifically when we were building the Speaker Society, what was interesting is we found ourselves for a moment going like, Oh, we got to reinvent the wheel oh, let's bring all these things together. Oh, look at all this new stuff. And what we realized is really what we need to is  we just need to double down on what we already have that was working really well but do it at a higher level and that's exactly what we did. That was exactly how I built my business and how I've been able to capture the revenue and have the conversion rates that I've had in my business is I committed to one program, and I launched that program over and over and over and over and over again. And I'll tell you with full confidence, I've never once had a six figure launch in one launch, never, never done it. My launches have been between $25,000 and $65,000 continuously every year for the last, what four years of launchesr,  three years of launches, whatever that number is. 

20:03  

If you find yourself not making progress, I want you to ask the question, are you changing what you're selling? Are you changing how you're selling it? Are you going from a webinar launch to a challenge launch, to a sales call, to a, I don't know, whatever it is. I just wanted to ask you, your thing that you want to sell, have you stuck with that one thing and figured out different positioning different messaging, different approaches, but stop changing all the things because you don't know what's working and what's not working if you keep changing at all. 

20:37  

So coming back to how I opened up this episode, the singular thing that has helped me be successful is to respect and understand that I am a creative idea person and if I always live in that creative idea mode, I will never reach my goals. So what I did very quickly is I, kinda like the Home Edit. I know Emily and I talk about our love for Clea and Joanna and their business bestie relationship but here's a little example for you. One of the things, if you've never watched the Home Edit, even if you have, you probably forgot about this step. One of the things they do in the Home Edit to help people with organization is the rule is you have to contain things. You have to give things a place to live. So friend, when it comes to you, as an entrepreneur, you have to give your creativity space because that's what makes you brilliant, and unique, and genius, and just magical in what you build. But if you let that creativity and the ideation go every single area of your business, you're never going to get traction. 

21:40  

So what you have to do is direct it. Can you direct your thinking around content ideas for your platform or in your podcast? Can you direct your ideation to, can you have idea time and then ensure that you have a container to put those into and come back to when you're wearing more of your strategic hat? I had a common phrase I used to use with my old events team. Shout out to Brent and Jess if they're listening. We used to play a lot of events like really big high scale events for 1000s of people. We're talking millions of dollars in the budget. And we got into some really creative things ranging from like a donut wall, to having fire dancers, to building really crazy stages like all these things. Once time in Las Vegas, we built an entire set of risers to create an auditorium feel in a ballroom. That was really cool. So we come up with all these really creative ideas. And I remember at one time, we were down to the wire on this really large event in Las Vegas and one of my event planners was relatively new to the team, he had a really awesome idea and he brought it in, and it was like a great idea. But I had to be the asshole and I had to shut it down. And I remember telling him, this is not idea time. This is due time, like we have past the point of being able to have creative ideas, but I want you to write that on the idea wall and we're gonna come back to it later. 

23:01  

So as a business owner, you don't have a boss telling you like, it's not about dampening your idea to any of your goals but knowing when to apply that creativity and ideation and wind and hunker down and say this isn't idea time. This is due time. This is get shit done time. This is you sticking to the plan, working the plan and looking at the data to tell you the data will direct where to be creative. You see, this is the biggest mistake like hello, we all just like sit up and dream up and come up with all these ideas all the time when we're on walks, when we're taking a shower, when we're laying in bed at three o'clock in the morning, like all these ideas all the time, and when we don't direct where that to have these ideas, it's just everywhere. But when you run a business and you're able to start collecting data, and for me that was in launches, right? I'm actually looking at list building and conversion rates into launches, and how people nuanced with those launches, what was the average selling price, like looking at the numbers, y'all and it might not sound very sexy. And if you've only done one or two launches, you're like, I don't have much to go off of any numbers are better than no numbers. You need to look at the data and let the data tell you, where do I need to problem solve? And then let what you do so great. Let the ideas come in. 

Don't make the mistake that I see too many entrepreneurs make online, where when they see a problem, do you know what they do? They go to a Facebook group and they dump their problem and they ask other people for solutions. And friend, that could be helpful. Sometimes getting outside ideas helpful. That's why I have, I'm in a mastermind. I'm actually in multiple masterminds right now. I have different Voxer threads with different people because I need that external piece but do not go to the external first. You have a big beautiful brain that can problem solve and only you know your business, only you know your content, only you know your offer so give yourself space to be creative. But you notice how this all, kind of this whole word vomit that I'm doing on you right now. It's all came out where you need to focus is you need to direct that creativity. You need to direct that idea flow that comes out of you have to point it at something because if you don't, it's like imagine, okay, you know, water, here's a metaphor I'm gonna use. Water, if you direct water through a hose, like a fire man, you can blast that water and it can be so powerful. It could put out fire and a whole home, like, I'm just, I'm not a firefighter, nor do I play one on TV. I just watched Grey's Anatomy and station 56, 79. I don't know, whatever, that station 19. Those two on ABC. Yep, that's my extent here so please forgive me if you know a firefighter, or your family is one, or any of those knowledge things in your brain or is there. What I'm saying here though, is you know, water, if you direct it, it can be very, very powerful when it's potent through one source. But if you were to just like, let water flow, let's say a mile long, it's the same volume of water, it just kind of trickles and my metaphor is kind of falling apart here. 

26:01  

But what I'm trying to get at is you don't want to be like in this leaky situation of just ideas, flooding kind of trickling in, you want to direct that powerful creativity towards something that's going to move you forward. That's going to be valuable for your audience. So let this TED talk style, really long winded rant that is probably exactly what you need today. Let this sit with you for a moment and just remind you that you're good. You're on the right track. Maybe this is a good moment for you just to calibrate, kind of reset, fix the ladies, reposition the bra, figure it out and say, all right, let me just take a beat and say I got this, and now direct your attention towards the things that are actually going to move the dial for you. 

26:48  

Alright, friend, I hope that today's ramble, we're just going to call these the Heather monologues. I hope this is helpful for you. And if I said something today that really resonated that really stood out, will you do me a favor and send me a note on Instagram and tell me, share with me what stood out with you? And I'd also love to know if you have any questions around speaking, around growing your online business, send them over my way. I'm looking for some topic ideas for an upcoming podcast related to online business. So if you have any specific questions that have been coming up to mind lately that you would love to get my brain on, if you want my brain on your business, shoot me a message. I'm @the heatheraager you can find all the links in the show, and I will see you again next week for another episode. Bye, friend.