If you’ve noticed, I almost never talk about mindset.
Now, the reason is I often think it’s over covered when it comes to business strategy and advice for women. But on the same hand, I can’t tell you that mindset isn’t important because your inner mean girl is going to feed all kinds of bologna into your mind.
We all know that mindset is the story in our brain that we’re telling ourselves. So how do you grow yours to not hinder you? How do you change that mindset? Well, it takes two things. It takes confidence and inspired action to outgrow a crappy mindset. So to figure out how the heck do you do that? How do you combine confidence and action, I want to walk through four pillars that I found help combine both the right and the left side of your brains to conquer the mindset. The four pillars we’re going to walk through are knowing your zone of genius, knowing your numbers, building community and protecting your confidence.
Zone of Genius
All right, so let’s dive into the very first one. When we’re talking about knowing your zone of genius, we naturally feel really good when we’re doing things that we’re good at. Now that’s different than doing things we can do.
Do you hear the distinction there?
A lot of times when we’re running our own businesses, we do things because we can do them, not just because we’re great at them. We do things that we must do or things we’re reasonably competent at.
This same principle applies. For the same reason you feel prettier when your hair just got done, or you have your makeup done, or you have the best outfit on. That’s the same type of feeling that we’re chasing when we try to talk about your zone of genius and flipping into this mindset.
So, I have three questions I want to throw out to you. They get asked a lot, and they’re going to sound familiar to you if you listen to the podcast. But these questions are going to help you figure out how to find your zone of genius as it applies to your business.
Who do you serve?
When you know exactly who you’re reaching or targeting with your product, it makes everything you do easier in your business.
Everything. If you don’t have a clear path of who your audience should be or who you want to work with, it makes it really hard to figure out the marketing piece of it. This is my wheelhouse. These are things like talking about client avatars, profiles, research and customer discovery – all those things that kind of bore people to death. But it all boils down into knowing exactly who it is that you serve and focusing on that person. That helps you stay in your zone of genius.
You want to work with people and sell things to people that light you up.
What do you offer?
Now, contrary to popular belief, more is not merrier in business. In fact, it usually means you’re spreading your business too thin over markets that can’t support you.
So when you can find your zone of genius in what you do, it’s just as important as knowing who you’re reaching.
For example, when you know what to focus on at work, don’t you feel better about how much more productive you are? You feel like you’re on track, like you got things done. When you know where you’re going and what your timeline is, don’t you feel better? It’s almost like a part of your brain that gets soothed calm when we have these plans. When you don’t even have to think about your elevator pitch and saying what it is you do just flow out. Don’t you feel incredible? This feeling of, “holy cow, I finally have this figured out.” That’s why getting in your zone of genius is super important.
What are you best at?
Most of you here have created amazing businesses that started from an idea and it’s been grown into what the business you have is today. You had this idea. You put it into action, and today you have a business. That’s amazing! You’re a visionary. Visionaries are rare. It might feel like you’re surrounded by entrepreneurs all the time, because we like to surround ourselves with people like us. But, when you think about the rest of the world and what people are doing, what you do is rare. You’re a visionary, and I want you to own that today. So, when you can focus on your zone of genius based on only what you can do to grow your business, your business will catapult. Why? Because nobody can compete with you.
Now, what I want you to think about these three questions.
- Who do you serve?
- What do you offer?
- What are you best at?
When you can focus on these things, and answer those three questions, it changes everything. It changes your focus. It gives you confidence. It helps you figure out what the action is. Remember, those are really key pieces to mindset. As far as tactical pieces, you have to know where you’re going, and you have to believe you can do it. This is how we help tackle it. The first pillar was really diving into the zone of genius. Now, when you get laser focused it helps all that BS just kind of fall away.
If you actually answered those questions in your head as I was asking them, which of the three was the hardest to answer?
Almost everybody who’s ever done this exercise with me is going to say, “what am I best at?” We suck at thinking about what we’re best at. We suck at saying that we’re actually good at something. If it’s really hard for you to answer that last question, I want you to ask the people who are around you. Ask your business partner, ask people on your team, ask your spouse, ask your partner, ask whoever you need to ask who knows you to help you see objectively what you’re really best at.
Know Your Numbers
The second pillar is knowing your numbers. Now, I know this feels like a weird one I threw in here. That’s the thing most people don’t talk about when they’re talking about how to grow their business and how to be a CEO. We leave off that part. We leave things to be really fluffy and airy and feel good. Knowing your numbers is imperative. It helps your brain feel secure so that it can produce the endorphins that support a healthy mindset. It’s another layer we’re adding on to this mindset piece. Let me just throw out a random fact at you. What are the number one and number two killers of starting up a business? If you had to guess, what would you think it is?
- There’s no market need for their product and no one is buying their stuff
- They run out of cash
Now, number one can be solved with better marketing and discovery. It ties to actual tangible things, not just believing yourself to be really great at what you do. If you have better marketing and discovery, it helps you grow a business.
The second one – running out of cash – is solved by knowing your numbers. We don’t want to be in a business where we can’t make money and be forced to go out of business. It’s really important to make sure you’re looking at metrics that are important to your business and understand them.
Now, let’s just turn those stats on their head for a bit.
What is the biggest problem that female entrepreneurs face with numbers? Most of us don’t want to actually do that and really hate numbers. It’s so common. It’s like an excuse that pops up in our head. I don’t know if we’re conditioned in school to hate numbers, or we just assume as women we are dumber. I don’t know what it is. I put myself in this category a lot. But we often don’t want to talk about the numbers.
Two of the biggest problems I see when working with female entrepreneurs are knowledge and tracking. They have no idea what their numbers are, they’ve never looked, and they don’t even know what to look at. On top of that, they’re tracking the wrong numbers. I want to break this down in the simplest way possible. I don’t want you to not know what numbers are and I don’t want you to track the wrong things.
When you work with me, I want to focus on this because numbers help us make really inspired decisions. Breaking this down to track the health of your business and your processes will show what’s really making you grow and how healthy your business actually is. These types of metrics are health numbers and growth numbers. It’s going to be different based on the type of business you have, but some of these health numbers will reflect:
- How do you know your business is growing?
- What are the number of new leads coming in and what are your conversion rates?
- How much does it cost to acquire a lead if you’re doing any kind of advertising?
- What’s your break-even point to acquire that?
- If you’re doing advertising, what are your cash flow predictions?
- How is your cash going to work?
- When does money come in and out?
- What is your monthly budget?
- How much value per lead?
- How much money could come in per lead?
- How much is it worth to your business?
This helps you decide on marketing and advertising. What are the actions in your business to actually point to revenue? Now again, these are going to be different based on your business and revenue models, but health numbers ultimately are going to tell you If your business is successful, and how you know and track that. The other side of numbers that’s really important, that’s going to help support this healthy mindset is the growth numbers. We want to know what’s working and what needs fixed first. Growth numbers tell us why or why not your business is successful, and then what we need to do to tweak or fix it. Often these are looking at like the length of your sales process:
- What’s your most profitable social media channel?
- What’s your most visible channel?
- How many leads are making it through each part of your sales and marketing funnel?
- What are the processes you’re doing in your business that are driving sales?
We want to reverse engineer success and figure out where the gaps are in our business. So that helps you determine what’s working and what’s not. This could be really basic. You could even put it on an index card to remind yourself of these metrics you’re watching because these are the things that are going to tell me if my business is healthy and growing. Now, how does this tie into a million-dollar mindset?
Million-dollar mindset means you are owning every part of your business, and then you’re being empowered to make really smart business decisions based on data and backed by intuition. You already know that you’re the biggest advocate for your business. You also probably know that numbers and data are gold. But sometimes, they’re just a little bit scary.
I want you to be committed to knowing the numbers that matter inside and out, and then trusting yourself to make the right decisions that matter. Those cannot be separated. A lot of times we want to follow our intuition and gut and we can’t look at data. Or, we’re afraid to really trust our gut because we want to see hard facts. What I’m telling you is to have this million-dollar mindset, you have to have both. You have to be able to look at data objectively and you have to also trust yourself to make the right decision. The one thing I know is that you absolutely cannot advocate for your business if you don’t know the pulse of it. It’s really hard to go to bat and have others come on board to sell your products and services if you don’t even know what’s happening inside your business.
Building Community
The third pillar is surrounding yourself with community. Now, most of us already know the value of community. We seek people out, we join Facebook groups, we follow people, we meet people in real life, we have friend groups, we have channels where we chat with people. We know the value of community, there’s so much to be said about surrounding yourself with like-minded people.
A couple years ago, I created a Facebook group called the #GirlBoss club! I created it because I was tired of being judged by other women for being a working mom. If you’re not surrounded by people who get and support you, and where you are and what you do, and how you run your business, and how you raise your family and what you do with your time, then I want you to create it. That’s what I did. I created the community to surround myself with women who believed in and are chasing the same things that I’m chasing. I cannot tell you enough how important that is.
The next part of this community is that I want you to be the one. I want you to be the person that supports other women and other people on the same journeys. We all know that female friendships are much harder to create and maintain. It’s never going to be as easy as it was in high school and college. When you get out, it just feels harder. It’s really hard to create and maintain friendships when so many people’s lives are changing so rapidly in your 20s. We all know it’s vital for mental health and sanity, especially in these male-dominated fields. We need women to help support other women.
So, I want you to be the person that invests in others. I want you to create the space, go to the lunch, send the group text, take that trip, collaborate and cheer each other on. Be vocal. A lot of times as adults, we whine about not finding our people. But, we’re not willing to do the part to actually invest in other people. To have this million-dollar mindset, you have to make sure you’re surrounded by people that you love and adore, and that are doing the same things in life that you’re doing. Otherwise, it gets really tricky to hold your ground and to not get pushed and tossed around in this crazy life we’re in right now. So look around. How can you invest? How can you be the one?
Protecting Your Confidence
The last pillar I want to talk about is protecting your confidence. Now, this is one of my favorite pillars because it really talks about the inner work that needs to happen. And this is the thing that comes up most often when we talk or think about mindset. It’s really the hardest one to break. This last pillar is the key. Mindset begins with the story that you’re telling yourself.
Let me tell you a story about how I prepare for presentations, trainings and webinars. You will find me about a half hour before literally freaking out at my desk. This happens so often. The lizard part of my brain wants to stay small. It wants to shrink. It doesn’t matter that what I’m presenting on I could do it with my eyes closed. it doesn’t matter that I know the faces that are going to be there. It doesn’t matter that I have the warmest reception. In my brain, when I’m tasked with a challenge that is going to help me propel my business and pushes me out of my comfort zone, my go-to is to shrink. When I’m in new territory, that mean girl in my head always tries to shoot me down, and it can be really paralyzing.
I don’t know if anybody’s had the perverse idea to actually write down the mean thoughts that come into your brain and actually see what your inner mean girl is telling you, but it’s rough. It’s really tricky. Why do we give this mean girl so much power? It’s time to change that relationship. Why are we giving so much power to someone we would never be friends with? It gets quieter and further away the more we learn to change that power dynamic. We would never take advice from them. So why can’t we do that when it’s the mean girl talking in our own head? So how do we break this pattern? How do we get the mean girl out of her head? First, acknowledge it. Acknowledge the fears and the nonsense that’s coming up in your brain and be okay with letting it go.
When I find myself in a really bad mental space, here are some of my go-to things that help me.
First, I keep a list. It’s called my crush list.
It’s a running list of all the things that you can kick butt at. I call it my zone of genius cheat sheet. Whenever I am facing a new type of client or challenge and I start to think “I can’t do this, I can’t do this”, I sit down and look at my list. I add to it, I write down things that I’ve created and helped build. I write down that I help build million-dollar funnels, map out strategies that bring in clients, I increase visibility for clients, I boost website conversions, I generate ideas that generate revenue, and I help bring in millions of dollars. This helps remind myself – hey, I can do this.
The second thing I do is keep an album on my phone called testimonials.
I screenshot when people tagged me in things, I screenshot people leave me comments and reviews, I screenshot when they send me emails. I screenshot it all and put it in this folder because we need to be reminded about how awesome we are. As I mentioned in the beginning, it’s really hard for us to say what we’re good at. When we can read someone else’s words, it helps to break down that mean girl and we start to believe in ourselves a little bit more. When we let these words soak in, it changes our outlook on how we see the world and how we see ourselves.
I want you to go take inspired action. Take one tiny nugget from one of these categories. Go believe in yourself. Make the list. Make the list of how you crush things. Create that album so you can read stuff. Even starting there, it’s going to give you so much confidence to help you knock down this inner mean girl.
I call my mean girl Felicia. I like to have conversations with her. When she reaches out her nasty head, sometimes I actually write what I just heard in my head. I’m usually appalled. Felicia – get out of here, I got this. I can control this. I got it. I don’t need you. It’s not helpful. I want you to put her to rest.
Instead, look at how you can change the trajectory of your business when you show up as a #GirlBoss. That is what makes a million-dollar mindset and makes or breaks how you show up for your business.
I really can’t wait to hear your thoughts about this one, and where you’re going to shift your mindset work to really make it work for your business. We want to take confidence and inspired action today. So, go take some action.
About Marketing Magic:
The Marketing Magic podcast is where women entrepreneurs trying to do all the things come to get inspiration, business strategy, and on-air coaching on how to get their business noticed and growing. If you have a business that people need to know about in order for it to grow, you’re in the right place. This is the place to uncomplicate your marketing. Be sure to listen, subscribe, and leave a review! Join the conversation of other unapologetically successful women in her Facebook community, The #GirlBoss Club.
