Jasmine Star 00:00:00  Welcome back to The Jazmin Starr Show, a place where we discuss business mindset and today, pushing past business plateaus. Oh yeah, we're going there. Here's the deal. Plateaus are inevitable, but they are overcome. I just made that word up. And that's why exactly, in this short episode, we're going to go over three actionable strategies to break through those plateaus so you can achieve way more in your next milestone. Before we dive in, I want to read some sweet words from CC zero 99, who wrote the following review for the show. I love that Jasmine brings together mindset, business, but also being open to all possibilities. She gives actionable steps to build your business and her transparency makes her one of my absolute favorite podcasters. Shout out! Speaking of action steps, that's what we'll be doing today. So first of all, thank you. People who leave reviews, but people who are listening and watching. Thank you. You are showing up and you are doing the work. And if nobody told you today, I want to be the first.

Jasmine Star 00:00:56  I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you doing the work. And I also want to say that those reviews really do push me and the team forward. Like you all know, this has been a labor of love, so let's keep on pushing forward. Now let's get back to talking about those dreaded but very common and very normal blood toes. Now, the first thing that you're going to want to do is identify the plateau. As you know, a plateau is a period where your business growth stagnates. It's no longer up into the right. It's flat lining. And here's the problem it's easy to blame and find reasoning for, you know, are that plateau. But why don't we just call it for what it is? Now, you might think the economy is down or it's the holiday season, but the harsh truth is, if you're not growing, you're dying. So I'd say when you have three consistent months of stagnant revenue, noticeably decreased customer engagement, or a sense of complacency within your team, it's time to hit the pause button and really assess what's going on, and you're going to want to spot and come to terms with these signs sooner rather than later.

Jasmine Star 00:01:59  Now, the sooner that you identify the plateau, the sooner you can address it and get things back on track. Towards the end of 2018, I started doing a ton of calls with members of Social Curator. Like, legitimately, I'm going to pick up the phone or I'm going to get on a zoom. I'd simply just block out days of time where I could schedule 20 minute zoom calls with people so I could learn what features they wanted on the platform, what they didn't use, what they wish they had. It was fascinating to begin to see the trends of their desires, and then we quickly adjusted our focus on integrating with all social media platforms. In 2020, after doing all this research, we hired a CTO and we developed our own tech stack. We also hosted a live event in the community every week so that we could help them meet their needs again based on feedback. By early 2020, the team was crystal clear on the things that we needed to do to move past a plateau. By the end of the year, we experienced a massive growth spike, but I don't think this would have been possible if we hadn't acknowledged our plateau and identified, hey, what needed to be done to make these changes? Like how do we get out of the plateau? Now this brings me to my next point, because once you've identified your plateau, you can work on overcoming it.

Jasmine Star 00:03:09  The first strategy is to set ten x goals using the ten x principle. You might be thinking, why in the world would I set bigger goals when I'm at a plateau? Let me explain. The ten x principle is a concept that comes from the book ten X is Easier Than two X by Dan Sullivan and my friend Doctor Benjamin Hardy. Doctor Benjamin Hardy has been on the show before. We're going to link to his show. It's stinking amazing. Now the concept, though, it suggests that setting goals that are ten times bigger than your current goals can be more effective and easier to hit than trying to find small incremental improvements or doubling down on what you're already doing. Like I said, I'm going to mention that episode that I recorded with Doctor Benjamin Hardy. But the main point here is we have to break our frame of reality to do much bigger things. And I love this strategy because it encourages you to rethink your current strategies, find new opportunities, and streamline your processes, so setting goals and finding new ways to achieve them was strategy number one.

Jasmine Star 00:04:05  The second strategy is to find ways to become more specialized. I recently interviewed Jerusha Hawke on the podcast, and she graciously opened up about how she significantly increased her revenue in the short amount of time, and it was the result of becoming very specialized in what she was offering. And this isn't rare. Like not at all. So many successful entrepreneurs and businesses achieve significant growth by narrowing their focus and honing in on what gets clients the best results. Now, I know you might be thinking, yeah, I know to niche down I have, but have you gone all in? Have you truly committed to becoming the unrivaled expert in your niche, so deeply embedded that your clients can imagine turning to anybody else? Have you burned the boat? You know, I often say, like, we've got to burn the boat, which means that you're on a boat to a new island, a new destination, and all of a sudden you get to the island, you're on the island. The temptation. Being on the island is so hard and it's devastating, and you're like the temptation to get back on the boat and go back to where we came from.

Jasmine Star 00:05:05  That's why when you get to that new island, you want to burn the boat. You want to take out any option to go back to what it was. So when I say burn the boat, are you fully committed to your new specialty offer? Because that's the level of specialization that transforms businesses and drives exponential growth. If you're not sure how to actually do this or what's possible, I cannot wait for you to listen to derecha as she breaks down step by step. You are going to be inspired to do the same. And strategy number three is to draw inspiration from other sectors. Other industries. I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I want to say it again pay attention to how leaders and businesses in other sectors approach customer success, how they approach technology, marketing, innovation, and then see how you can adapt those strategies to your business. Now, this might seem like big picture, but it's often the small things that can make a huge difference. A few months ago, I attended a scaling event and the host dropped a postcard at each of our seats.

Jasmine Star 00:06:02  We were asked to write a note to ourselves, and then the postcards would be mailed to us at some point in the future. It was a postcard. It was a five minute exercise. It was so silly until it wasn't. It was powerful to receive the postcard a few months later, as a reminder of what I said to myself and what I said I wanted, and that I was committed to do what it took for me to scale. That's when I knew I was going to do the same thing for my mastermind. It cost of a postcard for each member is less than $2, but the value is unrivaled. I was watching what other people were doing, so I can then incorporate it in making my own. Speaking of value, our head of Customer Success came up with a brilliant idea to give value to Social Security members. She began by offering account audits. She would make a personalized video for a member, showing them how to improve their social security profile and creating their social media posts better and even faster.

Jasmine Star 00:06:57  Now this strategy is classic customer service. It's old school. It's unscalable. It's the stuff that you experience in, like those mom and pop businesses. Yet she's creating immense value for members by taking old school principles and applying them to new school technology. So if you are open to learning from people who aren't in your industry, you're going to be ready and willing to bring fresh ideas and perspectives into your industry by listening to theirs, instead of passing down the same old information again and again. If you got one thing out of this episode, I hope that even though they feel like it, plateaus are not dead ends, but they're launching pads for your next breakthrough. Use this time in the plateau to refine your strategies, deepen your expertise, and push your business forward. I want to personally thank you for listening to The Jasmine Star Show. I would love to hear from you if you are in a plateau. So I can just say this is not the time to quit. You have to keep moving forward.

Jasmine Star 00:07:51  You can send me a DM at Jasmine Star on Instagram. I want to hype you up. Thank you for listening and watching the Jasmine Star Show.