This week on the podcast we're talking all about how you can gain massive momentum in your business. The truth is that when we feel like we don't have momentum, 9 times out 10 we're probably not in motion. We're not doing the things and taking the actions that would actually help us gain momentum and achieve our goals.
I'll take you through 5 Momentum Drivers that you can start focusing on and using in your business right now.
Mentioned in this episode:
Marie Forleo & Steven Pressfield interview on ‘going pro' – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00uKIVk-VUY
EPS 192 – Building Belief Ladders
If you're ready to join BBA then head HERE
Okay, so let's talk about building momentum. I think that I don't know about you. But over the last couple of years, I feel like it's been so stop, stop that it's been really hard for a lot of people to gain a lot of momentum. Some businesses have absolutely killed it. Others have struggled, some of us are sort of in between. And so I think just revisiting and almost real, aligning with what we want to be doing. So that we can continue to build the business that we really want in a way that we want is really important. And I think really understanding how do I build momentum? What does it look like? Yeah, and momentum is really about things happening in your business, not automatically, but there's a flow, there's things that are happening, that are a result of the action that you've taken, and how you focused on what it is that you want. And so this is what we want to start doing. So there are a number of momentum drivers. That's what I call them. That's how I've thought about it and created it is that there are momentum drivers that can really help you to start to move in the direction that you want to go. And the first momentum driver is really having clarity. So what you know, you grow. And I think a lot of times, the problem that I see is so often, we're really general around what we want. So it's like I want my business to grow. I want to have more clients, I want to earn more money. But we're not being specific with what that looks like. And so if you want to build momentum, you've got to think about what would momentum look like? If I had it? I want you to see it. And I want you to write down what exactly would that be? Yeah, what would be happening? Would you be getting five clients a month? If you had momentum? Would you be getting the speaking gigs? Would you be getting a certain number of enquiries, like what exactly would that look like? And at the end of the day, momentum comes from being in motion? Yeah. So that's what the definition is. And so when you feel like you don't have momentum, the reality is, is that you're most likely not moving or taking action often enough. And I have been there before where I've felt like, it's such a crappy feeling where it's like, I just don't feel like I've got any momentum. And the reason is, is because I'm probably not taking action. When I look at it. And I'm like, well, Suz, what are you doing? Like, what exactly would momentum be? What what do you want to be happening in your business, I'm probably not taking the action, I need to for that to happen, which is why I now have the feeling that I have. So it's really important to get really specific with what it is that you want. Yes. So write down, like five things that would be happening right now in your business and life if you want to go across the two, if you had the momentum that you want.
And so some of the key things that I really look at when I am looking at building momentum getting what I really want is that I look across a couple of different things I might look across, say my financials. So when I do my planning at the beginning of the year, this is like what I want to happen. This is the outcome that I want at the end of the time. So what my annual revenue is going to be my product streams, my operating expenses, how much I want to pay myself, all the rest of it and really asking myself, How much do I want to make this year? How much do I need to price my products? At? How much does it cost me to run my business? How much do I want to pay myself? How much am I willing to spend on marketing? So that's kind of setting the foundations? And then I'm going to ask myself questions like, okay, when it comes to customer acquisition, what is the number that I need to reach? So what how many clients do I need to be working with in order to meet my annual revenue goals? How am I going to attract them? What's my customer conversion rate? What's my email list look like? What's my customer journey look like? And so when I can start to take a look at these things, like the numbers, then I can start to do actions and activities work on projects. That mean that I'm hitting that number. So for example, if somebody says to me, well, Susan, I want five new clients a month. My price point is $5,000. And so my question is, okay, well, where are clients coming from? Like, where is the traffic coming from? Where are you finding them is through referrals? Is it through organic? Is it your website? Is it through paid ads? And what's your conversion rate? So how many clients do you need to speak to in order for one to say yes, and so if you can understand that, if you're like, Well, I probably need to speak to three clients. In order to get one if you want five clients, you need to be speaking to 15 Gaby because that's your conversion. And so really understanding, okay, well, how am I going to get 15 clients into my business to have the conversation to contact me through my leads form or whatever. And having a plan around that you can't just sit and say, I want five clients, but I don't know how I'm going to get them, you have to understand that you've got to drive that, you've got to build the momentum around it, so that you've got the volume of inquiries that you need in order for you to hit that number. And I remember being in recruitment, and this is one of the big things that we had was, if I, you know, wanted to have one placement, which is placing one person into a job, then I would need to speak to like, 20 people, and then I would shortlist five of them. And then three of them would go to interview and one of them would get the job. And so we always used to work on those conversion numbers. And you've got to do the same in your business. What are your conversion numbers, for example, when you're in like a launch, or in an online business courses, etc, then the standard is around about 1.5% of your list. So if you want to increase the number of clients coming in, there's multiple ways you can do that. But you need to grow your list. And then you need to show up and obviously be somebody who they trust, you have to build that relationship be in conversations. So for me when I'm in a launch, I do webinars as well. But then I've also got a waitlist. And then we do add, so there's new people coming in so that you've got to have multiple things happening in order for something to gain momentum. Having one strategy doesn't always work. Now I know people that have had massively successful businesses, and pretty much all of their business has come through referral, which is fantastic. So it depends on your model. It depends on what you do. It depends on what you're, you know, you're where people are coming from your traffic sources are, but just really understanding what it is that you want to happen. And then what are all of the touch points are elements that contribute to you achieving that is so important. And if you don't know these numbers, then that is something that you need to know. Yeah, these are one of your SEO goals, SEO tasks, SEO responsibilities, is to know this. And so when we are in a launch, or just at any time, really we're always looking at traffic, how much traffic is coming to the website? What are the landing landing pages that people are going on? How many applications have we got to amplify how many people are going through the Evergreen funnel for BBA, all the rest of it. And so we're looking at this all the time, this isn't just like a one sort of thing. So if you know how many clients that you need, in order to make the revenue that you want, then you've got to also work backwards.
So have a think about that, too. The next thing that we're looking at are things like obviously, social media growth. As I said, website traffic collaborations, for me speaking gigs is a really amazing conversion platform for me. So when I go and I speak in an event, normally, I will get a massive influx of followers, and I will usually get quite a lot of clients from it too. So that is something that I focus on. It's one of my acquisition activities, because it helps me acquire new clients. And it helps me build that trust, as well. And also, as I spoke about last week, in the profitable growth model, I'm always looking at what my brand awareness strategies. So how am I getting new eyeballs on what I'm doing? How am I converting my followers from being warm to being hot, which is from being followers, somebody who knows me to somebody who's a client now. And so doing these things, having these projects, and really focusing on them? And I think as I was speaking about it last week to arrange your 90 days sprint, I work through this with my amplify clients every three months is that we look at what is the next three months look like? Yeah, what are the key projects that we're working on? What are the outcomes that we want? And then what's the activities and the actions that we're undertaking? And constantly revisiting that? Did I achieve all of the things that I wanted to achieve? Because if I can bite off small chunks, and do all of those small actions, that really does accumulate into something a lot bigger, that then builds momentum? Yeah, it's all the little things. It's all the little things that we do every day. It's the professional practices. It's the habits that we have that build momentum in our business. And so if you don't have those professional practices, if you don't have those ongoing habits, then you might struggle to build momentum, because you're not continuously being consistent in how you're working and what you're doing as well. Yes, you've just got to think about it. And so having those 30 60 90 day plans, I think are really important as well. constantly taking a look at how I come back, and I assess it. So for me, I have my Monday morning, which is my CEO morning. And we are course correcting. We're like, okay, so what worked and what didn't? Yeah. And so for example, there were a number of things that have not gone the way that I wanted within this launch of BBA, we had issues with the replay of the webinar going out to people. So I had to do that at a later time. We had leads coming through, but they weren't added to the main list of my email. And so they didn't get a lot of the emails that we were sending out. So there's all these little things, but unless you're constantly checking what's happening, when it's happening, you can't course correct at the time, which means that you could be doing all of these activities. And if you're not checking if it's working, then you could be continuing to do it. And something's missing. Something's not connected, something's gone awry. And so it's not just about constantly doing, but it's about constantly doing and assessing, doing and assessing. Do we get assessing? Yeah. So you've got to really be on top of all of these things, which 100% is a CEO responsibility. So I just want you to really think about that. And at the end of the day, momentum comes from clarity, and understanding why you're doing what you're doing, how you can do it better and doubling down on what works as well. Yeah, so that's momentum driver. Number one, we've just gone through the first one, which is all about clarity. So the second momentum driver is all about action. So you've got to action, your ambition is what I like to say. And the thing is, is that there might be different barriers to this, yeah, you might not believe that you're going to be successful, you might not be focused enough, you might not be committed enough, I was talking about this in the live masterclass, you know, one of the things that you have to do is you've got to be massively committed to the outcomes, so that whether you're succeeding or whether you're failing, you're still going to continue to go on, because you're committed to that outcome, there might be a feel of fear of failure, because maybe there's some history there where you've tried things before and they haven't worked, you might have some stories around what's happening and what you're doing. You know, like, nobody's gonna buy this, nobody likes what I'm doing, you know, that they're gonna say things to me, there's all of these stories that we tell ourselves as well. So others what others might say, and do that can really stop us. And so one of the key things that you can do around taking more action is what we call the break through cycle. And so it's really about assessing what's happening in your business. Deciding on a course of action, within a set period of time, is what I like to say, because if you give yourself a year to figure something out, it'll take a year, if you give yourself a day to figure something out, it'll take a day. So assess what needs to happen, decide on a course of action, implement it, and then assess again. Yeah, so once again, as I said, we were getting leads coming through. So that was the decision we made. Let's do some paid ads here. leads were coming through, we implemented it, is it working? Yes, we're getting leads, but there's a gap in the system. Okay, so assess, what do we need to do? Well, we need to add all those people to our master list. Okay, so decide we did it, we implemented it, we sent it out. And everybody open the email, yes. So assess, decide, implement, assess, decide implement. These are breakthrough cycles. We talk about this a lot in Brand Builders Academy. And it's something that we can do, which means that you can gain the momentum that you want, without constantly sitting in the drama of things. So really think about how you can continue to have those breakthrough cycles as well. The next one is really around the professional practices. And I talk about this, I have talked about this in so many webinars, and I've talked about in BBA, I talk about it in amplifier, I talk about it everywhere. professional practices are so important. And I feel like part of this. And I got this a couple of years ago listening to Steven Pressfield he wrote the book, The War of Art, and he has been interviewed by Oprah and all of the people. And something that he was talking about was the fact that we come into business. And we really need to commit to doing the work that is required, showing up and being professional in the way that we do it. And so this is something that I have adopted massively in my business, and that I teach my clients as well. And then I want to make sure that it's something that you're doing too, is that showing up no matter how you're feeling?
Making commercial decisions, not emotional ones. Understanding where you're spending your time, focusing on revenue generating activities. Those are professional practice. says those are being the CEO of your business. Yeah. So I really want you to think about how you're doing that. And if you're doing that, like, if you don't know your numbers get help with that. If you don't know how to focus on revenue generating activities, or get help with that come and join Brand Builders Academy, you know, these are things you can learn. And I think that's one of the things is that I remember clients saying to me, I've done so many courses, but nobody's actually taught me how to run a business. And these are some of the key things that you can do. And when you are in professional practices, you will be really specific with where you spend your time, which means that you get more done in less time, because you're focused. And you've got great habits and you understand what moves the dial, which then gives you more time back in your life and your business. Yeah, so when you're faffing my clients always love it is it? faffing everybody's faffing? When you're faffing you waste time, you procrastinate scrolling, you're looking through the internet, you're playing around with things like you don't have a clear project plan for what you need to do in order to reach the outcome that you want. If you don't know how to do that, it's so important to learn. Because at the end of the day, structure brings space yeah, it brings space to your day, your week, your month, your year. And so really thinking about how you're doing that is really important. And the other thing that you really need to do as well, when it comes to building momentum is not waste your time on things that are not where you should be spending time. You know, you're running a business, not a charity. So doing things for others all the time that doesn't really support your business or your vision will absolutely burn you out. And people will take as much time as you give. So you've got to really make sure that you're clear on what your criteria is, for what you say yes to I've got a really simple system, it has to be on purpose. So aligned with my purpose, it has to be profitable, or doesn't take away from revenue generating activities, I have to really enjoy doing it. And it has to be productive, which means that it will help me grow my business either now or in the future. And so it needs to kind of tick a number of these boxes. So you've just got to think about what are your boundaries? And how do you decide what you say yes to? And it's really easy to say yes to things. I recently said yes to something that I totally shouldn't. So even as I teach you this, it's a work in progress all the time. I think I'm about 90% there where I only say yes to things that are gonna make one of these criteria of on purpose, profitable, pleasurable or productive. But every now and again, I make a bad decision. And I kind of kicked myself. And I'm like Suz, you know, like, it wasn't meeting any of these criteria. So I don't know why I did it in the end. But anyway, sometimes that's what happens. And some really easy responses that you can do when somebody asks you to do something that doesn't meet a criteria for you is just thanks so much for asking, but unfortunately, I can't do that. I really appreciate the thought. But I'm not taking on any new projects at the moment. Thanks so much for thinking of me, but I can't commit to anything else. I hope it goes really well. Yeah, so you don't need to explain. You don't need to give them more impatient or need to tell them what's happening at home and all the rest of it, you just politely say thank you so much all the best with it, like fantastic.
The next momentum driver is around mindset mastery. So outcomes are created in your mind first and not believing that what you're going after is available to you is such a big one. And we talked about this in belief ladders, I love how all of these episodes this month are totally connected. If you listen through all of them, I feel like you're going to get a really good understanding or some of the key things that are going to help you to build momentum, constantly be evolving, build your beliefs, etc. So definitely check them all out. But a really great exercise that you can do is to write down the outcome that you want. So for me, let's say I want to build my personal brand and become known as a thought leader in my space. The next thing is to write down the action you would need to take in order for that to happen. So for me, it could be start showing up consistently and sharing my thought leadership on platforms where my audience are. The third thing is that when you think about taking that action, what is the underlying thought about it. So you will have an underlying thought that controls your behaviour that you may not be aware of. So the underlying thought when I think about showing up and sharing my thought leadership on platforms or my audiences, is that I don't really know what I'm going to say it feels really awkward and scary to me. So that could be the underlying thought that you've not particularly recognised or tackled. And so what you can do is You can take a look at why can you do this? And why can't you do this? And I think it's important to write down both. So I could do this, because I've worked out what I want to be known for. And I can talk to my clients problems. I could do it with other people. So do collabs. That would be more fun, as well. The reason I can't do it is because I don't have enough followers. I haven't done it before. It'll be hard work to grow something like this. Other people are already there. So those are the thoughts that I'm having. Getting them out is so important, like getting them out on paper, is the only way that you will be able to reframe it. Yeah. And so what would you need to believe for this to be successful? What would your new thoughts need to be? What would you need to reprogram in order for you to not feel held back by why you think you can't do it? And so the invisible underlying unspoken things that we don't acknowledge and work on is what stops us just so that, you know, if you're not doing things, there is an underlying reason for it. And you may have acknowledged it you may not have and a really powerful reframe, when you're doing something new is that this is an experiment. I'm experimenting. Let's see how this goes. It's going back to Liz Gilbert's Big Magic of being the martyr or the jokester be the jokester. Let's see how this goes. Let's give it a try. I've got quite a few things this year that I'm like, let's see what happens. Looks good. Yeah, I want to play with it. I want to say if that works or not, for works fantastic as doesn't okay, we tried it at least we tried it. But that helps to build momentum as well. Yeah, is really thinking about what am I going to do? How can I play with this? How can I do more so that it doesn't feel so scary and hard. The next momentum driver is what I like to call manifesting momentum. So what you believe you receive Now stick with me for all of you who are like hardcore. Non woo hardcore.
I love it Becky, my client Becky's she, she talks about wudu zen like there's Whoo. And then there's du, which I think is awesome. So some of the things that I have done when it comes to manifesting momentum are, I packed all of the envelopes with the gifts for my new BBA students, and I wrote welcome cards. And then as they join, I write their name on it. Yeah. And I might edit the message if I want to. So I was doing that before it happened. Because I want to have 250 people join Brand Builders Academy in this year, I went to moo.com. This is not an ad. And I ordered 250 of the cards that I sent, because I just ran out. Yeah. The other thing I've done is that I hired somebody to fix up my Active Campaign, because I want to build my list this year. So I'm going to hire somebody to set it all up in anticipation of the success I'm going to have with that goal. And then because I want to get more speaking gigs, I went and wrote a draft email that says thanks so much for inquiring, here's all the details. You know, these are the dates that I can't do really looking forward to hearing more from you, etc. So went and created that so that when somebody messages me, I've just got it to send to them. Yeah, and I've obviously got my rates page on my speakers page and all the rest of it. And that's all in the email, too. But I'm like, let me take the action that I would need to for when this comes to me for when momentum hits for when I have success with my goals. And the other thing is, is that I book in little celebration lunches and stuff with girlfriends for the anticipation of celebrating our wins for the quarter. So manifesting momentum is taking the action that expects a positive outcome, I totally expect that I will need to have 250 of the cards that I send to my BBA students if 250 is my goal. No. Yeah, so I need to have that. So let me go in order them now in anticipation of my success. So I just really want you to think about if you're doing that and how you're doing it, and it's about planning as if, you know, what are you doing planning and acting as if being in that motion and believe will change the way that you show up? And I'm a big believer and I've shared it with you before that the more you talk about what you're doing, what you've achieved, what you want to create, the more it'll be front and centre as well. So it's like you know, I want to be on more podcasts. If you know anybody that you think we would be a great fit then let me know. The more you talk about it, the more you will speak what you want to happen into your reality and into existence. Yeah. And then they'll Sing around momentum drivers is number five, which is maintaining, so really keeping the ball rolling. And so it's just working through all of these, it's having clear like that clarity, what exactly are you going after it's having the action, the 90 day sprint on what you're exactly going to do. It's having the mindset that you know that what you're going after is available to you. It's manifesting and acting as if, yeah, you've already got that success. And then just keep doing it. All of these things. Keep doing it, rinse and repeat. Really good business, really great systems, really good strategies. You rinse and repeat, you tweak, you assess, you implement, you rinse and repeat. And it's about bite sizing it Yeah. So what are you doing this month? That is focused on your big goal? What do you know you need to or you really want to do that you're not, and being really upfront with yourself, and saying, you know, something, I'm really not doing this thing, even though I want that outcome. So my question to you is, what are you going to do? What are you going to do that's different? What are you going to do that's going to help you push through it? What are you going to do that's going to help you get the momentum? What are you going to do, and if you can't do it on your own, then get help to do it. But don't stay stuck, say to my clients all the time. Never, ever stay stuck. If you feel stuck, you contact me. If you feel stuck, and you're like I literally don't know what to do next, you get in the Facebook group and you ask the question, never, ever stay stuck stuck is a choice, when you've got support around you as well. And so tell your brain these things, I can create momentum with ease. I know what I need to do, that will get me the results I want. I can manage my mind to achieve what I want. So I want you to have that in your brain. Tell yourself that I create value. Clients want to work with me. Yeah, I can create momentum. I know how to make money. Tell yourself these things. Like tell yourself, we allow negative thoughts to constantly be in our brains. I can't do this. Like I feel really tired. This is really hard. I don't know what to do. I don't have momentum. Like why other people like doing more than me, like all of this.
You've got that winning voice in your brain. And what you need to do is that you need to start telling your brain what to think otherwise, your brain will offer up its own really unhelpful thoughts that will then control what's going on. Yeah, if you haven't listened to the belief ladders, go and listen to that episode. I'll link it up in the show notes for this for this episode, as well. But tell your brain I can create momentum. I know what I need to do to get the results. I can manage my mind and achieve this. Yeah, I create value people want what I have clients come to me own it. Own it, believe it, you have to step into the person who has the courage to build momentum and consistently take action. So there's, you know, I don't want to hear I'll wait and do it later. I don't want to hear I'm not ready for this yet. I don't want to hear but what if I fail? Because we all fail? I fail all the time. You know, don't don't say I'll think about it and say like that is a killer as well. Make a decision yes or no? Like even a no is better than just like plan. And I let's just see what happens. Just make a decision. And I think that when you can really step into that, then that will give you more energy because not taking action and not making a decision is what exhausts you because you're overthinking it. Yeah. So building momentum doesn't have to be hard. You just have to work through the break through cycles and the momentum drivers again and again and again. And so really think about what does it look like for you to build momentum in your business? What does it look like for you to take charge and to be the CEO. Go through the momentum drivers go through the belief ladders, go through the profitable growth model. Like I am giving you all the things that you need, you have to take action. And if you want the support, then come and join Brand Builders Academy. Yeah, but I just want you to take action and focus in on doing what needs to be done in order to build the business that you want. And for it to go in the direction that you want as well. And it might take longer than what you thought it was gonna take. It always does. It always takes longer than what we think it's going to take. Yeah, but you can do it because you've got you committed to it, haven't you? You've got that commitment. You've committed to the outcome that you want. Alright, that's it for this week. Hopefully you got something out of that let me know feel free to share the episode and let me know if you've got any questions if you want the replay to the master class that I did just DM me at Suz Chadwick but I'm going to go to my retreat soon so have an amazing week
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