the bossbabe podcast - 270. BBS: Building A Business The Smart Way

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Danielle drops in for this ultra-inspired episode of the bossbabe business school to give you a peek into a recent mastermind with some of the most influential leaders in the world (like Brendon Burchard and Jay Shetty to name a few!) to share her learnings on building a business you love without all the burnout. A huge part of being an entrepreneur is embracing the journey of growth and being willing and excited to learn from your peers, your customers, even those you aspire to be. We hope you are able to take away actionable insights from this episode, and others like it, as part of your ongoing business (and personal) evolution. Keep listening for more powerful insights from this exclusive mastermind. We can’t wait to share the rest of our key takeaways with you – there were too many for just one episode! Highlights: Do you have shiny object syndrome? Learn how to focus your energy. Discover why a “To-Don’t” list could be your saving grace for success. It’s time to automate! Get the scoop on the software Danielle can’t live without.  Links: BBS: 5 Ways To Make Sales On Your Website — Episode #238 BBS: The Need-To-Know System To Turn One Piece Of Content Into 10 — Episode #258 Asana — Project management software Monday.com — Project management software ClickUp — Project management software Planoly — Social media planning   Later — Social media planning  Mailchimp — Email marketing ActiveCampaign — Email marketing Follow: bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Danielle Canty: @daniellecanty

A Boss Babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, you guys. It's Danielle Caddy here. And oh my goodness, I am so freaking excited about this episode. Every other week, I do one of these episodes that are behind the scenes, the Boss Babe Business School episodes, where I really want to make sure I'm giving you tactical information on how you can make changes to your business, how you can make more money and really create

a life that you love. And having just got back from Napa this morning, I was really, really excited to record this podcast because whilst I was there, I was with some of the most influential people in the personal development space. And fun story, Natalie and I actually met at a Brenda Bouchard event in 2017. And in 2020, he invited us to this group mastermind, which you can't pay to get into. You have to be invited. And we went there. And from that, I've just met the most beautiful people.

I've got to learn from people I look up to and always looked up to and followed their work and now actually get to be in a room from them. And it really is such a pinch me moment. And it's never lost on me the fact that I now get to sit on those tables. And one of the reasons I started Boss Babe and why we started with a membership, which was really, really accessible for everybody, the society, was because I wanted to ensure that we made seemingly unreachable people reachable. The fact that we could take this knowledge that maybe you can't afford to work with these people one-to-one, or maybe you don't get invited into these tables and in these rooms yet, but there is knowledge and there's value. And so I literally took 13 pages of notes. Well, I'm actually going to record them over the next

couple of days. It's all fresh in my mind, but we'll be releasing these every other week in line with our interviews. We'll do an interview and then we'll release one of these and just really digesting notes. I'm going to be covering stuff about how to stay creative when you're not feeling creative, marketing strategies that are working in business, how to grow a team that are focused and in line with your mission and care about your company. But today, I really wanted to start on a topic that really came through when we were in Napa. So sat on this table, there's about 40 influential leaders. And the format that we move through with is you go around and you say something you're grateful for, you say something you're excited about, something you're struggling with,

and something you want to help with. And so I got to hear from all these leaders, things that were going really well in their businesses, and also some things that weren't. And the idea is they share and then we all give support to how to resolve those challenges for them. And within that, you learn so many different tactics for yourself that you can apply in your own business. And I wanted to share them with you guys because I don't want you to feel alone if you ever feel overwhelmed or stressed or you feel like you're running out of hours and there's just not enough hours in the day. You're not alone in that. We all go through seasons and whether you are an entrepreneur or you're in a career, this stuff happens and it's hard. And so I wanted just to be bringing you a space of advice and action steps that are

proven. Other people are utilizing these to create success in their lives. And I want to teach you guys how you can work smarter and not harder. You can maximize your productivity whilst minimizing your stress. So if that's something that is really speaking to your heart right now, that is what we're going to be covering on this episode. So I'm going to dive right in because I always like to make sure these are short to the point and we're really cramming in as much information as we can. And today I want to talk about the four ways that you can really grow your business without actually increasing the hours that you work. One of the biggest mistakes that I see entrepreneurs making is spreading themselves too

thin. It's the pitfall of dispersing the energy too far. You try to do too many things at once and you end up spreading your energy in too many directions. And this phenomenon is actually often being recalled to as shiny object syndrome. And you get easily distracted by, oh my goodness, this thing isn't working. If I do this other thing, it's going to solve my problem. Maybe I should create a new product. Maybe I should be doing all the social media platforms. Just give yourself a nod if you're like, yeah, I'm literally on all these platforms right now on social media and not one of them is growing because I'm spreading my energy. I feel like I can't keep up with all the things. I'm

trying to do a podcast. I'm trying to do a YouTube channel. I'm trying to do Instagram. I'm trying to do Facebook. I'm trying to do TikTok. Like, oh my goodness. Give yourself a break. One of the things that came through the most from this retreat was the most successful people in that room really, really dial one thing in. Some of the people sat at that table literally have just had one product for the last 10, 15 years, and it's made them millions, you guys. And so I just want you to let that sink in for a second. Rather than going wide, you want to focus your attention on going deep. And so let's say you put out a product, whether it's physical or it's digital, and it doesn't work. Don't feel like, oh my goodness,

I need to start all over again. Go look at it. I did an episode on here about websites and how we, actually, I'm going to get the team to link to this, about if your sales page isn't working, things that you can do that help convert it. There's an episode on this.

I did an episode on copywriting, or we've done episodes on finances. So really just understand what the challenges are on your business. So maybe it is that you're not getting enough traffic and you have to focus on social media, but maybe you're getting those followers and you're trying to send them to buy something on the sales page and the sales page isn't converting properly. And so just give yourself that chance to go back through things versus creating new things all the time. Because quite often you can actually achieve better results by doing that one thing better than doing lots of things. So really important

is to identify the core of your business. What is the core product of your business? Get that right. So decide what the core product is and create the funnel, which is the people that are going to see that and they're going to go. Let's say you have a thousand people at the top of the funnel. And when I say funnel, you guys, I'm literally speaking about a funnel that you would pour water through into a bottle, right? You know the ones right at the top, then at the bottom. Not everyone is going to drop into a sale. So you have to recognize that maybe to make one sale, you need a thousand followers. And of those thousand followers, like 600 will hit your sales page. And of that 600 that hit your sales page, 300 will apply. And of those 300 that apply, yada, yada, right? You see how it starts moving down. So just decide,

just pick one funnel. You don't have to be on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, name your social platform of preference all in one go. Just start with one area, focus on getting that in. It's focused getting people into that and then dropping them down. This will then really help you identify and eliminate non-essential tasks so that you can make more time and energy available for all the things that truly matter to you.

Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't

checked out kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe so i just want this to first of all be like a look just because you're doing a lot doesn't actually mean you're going to succeed sometimes you have to take a step back realign your priorities sit with them analyze them so then you can move forwards and this brings me to my next thing the next point is like prioritizing for maximum impact. The key to deep focus is to prioritize effectively. This means identifying the most

vital tasks and responsibilities that will have the greatest impact on your business and then dedicating the majority of your resources towards the completion of that one task. Prioritizing can be really, really challenging. And so I want to share a few methods that I've learned over the years. And also just to really share with you the importance of looking at this is Pareto's principle, which is the idea that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. So you'll probably find that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers or 80% of the money that you make is coming from 20% of your products. Think about it that way. So it can be applied in lots of different ways. But when you realize this,

you basically have to corner the 20% that's actually making the 80%. And realizing then, okay, well, I might have all of these things on my to-do list. I might have all of these things on my task sheet, but what is actually important? And I can promise you, when you start putting them in priority order, and you might do this via doing the smart criteria on each task, you might be going, okay, let me get specific. Let me get measurable. Let me get achievable, relevant, and time bound with this task. Or you might do something much more simpler, which is what I do, is I just write them all out. Like anything that's on my head, any tasks that I feel like I have to do, I write them all down. And then I look at it

and I go, I need to cross 30% of this list off. How can I do that? Like 30% of this list does not need to be high on this priority list. So I'm either crossing out completely and saying, hang on a minute, if I double down on this thing, I can literally make up for not doing that part. Or I can move some of that stuff to delegation and send it to other people. But the point is you have to do, first of all, a to-don't list. A to-do list, then you're taking 30% off to a don't. And then the other 30%, you can really figure out if you can delegate things too. And I always encourage everyone when you're doing these lists to make sure it's not just about work stuff. There's house stuff on

there. Make sure your time is money. So ensure that you are dedicating your number one research, which is time, into the things that are going to move the needle for you and your business. So another one is that was actually a really big trend that we were speaking about there was leveraging automations and tools to support our businesses more. Now, a lot of us that have huge businesses, this can get really complicated. So I'm going to keep it a little bit more simple and just share some of the ways that people were thinking about things. So really a business is not efficient. It's really not a business if you don't have people acting on processes and you don't have automations and tools following processes.

So every single person that was talking about project management softwares and really making sure that they had project support within their teams. And even if you don't have a team just yet, I would really, really recommend making sure that you still have project management and you're starting to utilize it so that when you do bring people in, you're not then having to build just for them coming in because actually you've already been building the habits of working in these softwares. So for an example, we don't function without Asana. Everything we have is laid out in Asana. And so I'm going to put some links for these.

I've used Asana before. I really like Asana because it's very intuitive for me. You can do it in sections, etc. Lots of the boards can link up with each other. So when we're creating content and we're talking about the hub and spoke module, which I did an episode on in December, if anyone's looking to leverage their content creation in various different places, I'll make sure the team link that in the show notes as well. So I use Asana. And then also I've used Monday before. That's a little bit more blocky,

but I didn't find it as good for a bigger team. So I like Asana if you're going to scale to a team of at least 10. And then another one I utilized before was ClickUp. ClickUp's cool. It's actually a bit better, I think, a lot of development people if you like building a textile company or you have a lot of logistics in your company. I feel like a lot of people love ClickUp and were raving about that. But I personally really enjoy Asana. But just sharing those with you and making sure there's links. We were also talking about social media scheduling apps too. We used to be on Planoly, but I'm transitioning a lot to later right now and really, really enjoying how that is posting. It just seems to be much clearer to follow than Planoly and my team and I are just really enjoying that one much better. So just

letting you guys know that. And then also just making sure we have systems in place for accounting and software and invoicing. We've been utilizing QuickBooks for years and that's one of my favorites. And then outside of that, building an email list is really important and making sure you have a good CRM system. So I started on MailChimp, but now we're on ActiveC campaign but just sharing like these tools really save a lot of time and energy and if you are just starting out starting on these ones from the get-go is really really important we actually share all of this in the society as well if you remember there there's a whole section in the systems part that you can leverage all the links for as well in there and then the last one was that really shone through for me to build this business is

like you really have to prioritize the importance of self-care, like optimizing operations and doing these pieces is great. But if you don't prioritize yourself, if you don't have boundaries on that, you really are ultimately always going to end up with burnout. And really a lot of what people were sharing was going on their own health and mindful journeys, making sure they were listening to the Daily J, like Jay Shetty's meditations, or Jenna was actually sharing about her health journey and how that had given her more energy. Tom and Lisa-Belle, you were sharing about the importance of like home life and supporting each other and whether you have a spouse or not. Like I've been in relationships and I've been single, like learn to support yourself. If you don't, you're not in a relationship. And if you are in a relationship, be really open about what you're going through because this stuff does

influence your business. Like I've always said, we do business differently at Boss Babe. You want to always be thinking about the holistic approach to business and what that actually truly means for you. And honestly, you can take the biggest risk when your home life is stable. When you feel content in yourself, your mindset is stable, you can take the biggest risk in business at that point. But until you get that mindset right, it's really, really difficult. And so I also sometimes say, you know, building a business is 80% mindset, 20% skillset, going back to Pareto's principle. So really don't underestimate the power of the mind when it comes to building a business, working smarter, not harder. Like you have to start from there to really build a business that is there for longevity and you're proud of.

And every single one of you listening to this, just know that you can do it. Putting your mind to it actually creates the power. And when you address it through this succinct process around, first of all, questioning, don't just do the same thing that you've always done. I think it was Einstein said, like the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting a different result if you are hitting burnout if you are getting tired don't keep doing that go and look okay I might have this to-do list and Daniel says I've got to take off 30% I don't know how I'm going to take off 30% but I know I need to figure that out and that's part of the skill set that

you're trying to build by doing this so I just just want you, first of all, to feel like if you are feeling like you're burning out, you're not alone. It's normal. This too shall pass. And hopefully these skill sets and these principles will help you develop the ability to say no, the ability to create new process, the ability to have a lens that you're screening stuff through versus trying to do the same things over and over again, or trying to like push yourself and, you know, really getting burned out by that. So anyway, I'm really excited to be recording these over the next few days and they'll be rolling out. Like I said, it's going to be one on how to be creative if

you are not a natural creative I know that was something that I was really struggling with I'm going to be giving some really good marketing tips as well things that I know are working really well with other businesses so listen out for that and yeah I'll see you on another episode we've got some epic interviews coming up so if you're not already subscribed please subscribe and if you haven't already left a review, please leave a five-star review. I literally read them. I love your feedback. I love hearing episodes that you've enjoyed and why, and just appreciate every single one of you. And also if you want to tag me at bossbabe.inc or at Danielle Canty, I'm always grateful. And I really try and repost as many as possible. Thank you so much for listening.

And if you enjoyed this episode on the Boss Babe podcast, then I'd absolutely love it if you leave us a review. As a thank you, we'll send you our Side Hustle Success Kit, your simple, no BS guide to keeping track of everything that you need to do to start and grow your business. To access this freebie, all you need to do to start and grow your business. To access this freebie, all you need to do is leave us a review, then share a screenshot of your review with contact at bossbabe.com and we'll send this must-have kit straight to your inbox. Outro Music