Ep. 241 The 4 ingredients of your next business breakthrough

Are you a solopreneur expert business owner who is feeling frustrated that you’re just not making progress as quickly as you’d like to, or you’ve hit that plateau and you’re just kind of plodding along and you really feel ready to burst onto the stage and make a bigger impact?

In this week’s podcast, I look at 4 things you need to achieve your next business breakthrough…

•  The first is your vision, having a really clear idea of what success looks like for you and what that breakthrough is going to be.
• The second is your strategy, so the building blocks that will ladder up to give you that vision that you’re after.
• Third, is your mindset, which is all around confidence and resilience, your belief that the breakthrough is possible.
•  And fourth is the planning that’s going to get you there.

If you want to fast-track your breakthrough, we are running the Business Breakthrough Bootcamp this week, so read more about that at onestepoutside.com/breakthrough.

Here’s to the next breakthrough in your business, whatever that looks like for you.

*Resources mentioned during the episode*

The Business Breakthrough Bootcamp – Join us for an immersive week dedicated to giving you the time and space to reflect on what really matters, along with concrete strategies, frameworks, and mentoring support that will give you exactly what you need at this stage of your business. onestepoutside.com/breakthrough

Business Breakthrough

Hello there, welcome back and we are in June, can you believe it. So we’re in the sixth month of 2023. In case you weren’t able to count the months, which means that we’re at the end of the second quarter of the calendar year. And it’s a good time to think about what’s been going on so far. And what we want to do next. Before I get going on today’s episode, I do want to say that, hopefully, I’m reminding you and hopefully, this is not new news.

But we have the Business Breakthrough boot camp happening this week.

So if you’re listening to this today, during the week, we will be running a five day immersive workshop series. It is a paid workshop. It requires a commitment from your side as it does from me. And we’ll be coming together for an hour every day. This week, of course, there will be replays, I know that life can get in the way, and we’re all in different time zones. But of course, if you can join live that is ideal. So I’ve been speaking to a lot of you in the last few weeks or months and understanding where you really need to focus. And a couple of things that came through where I want more clients, which let’s face it, when do we not want more clients, more confidence, and more time for the business.

But of course, ultimately, really more freedom to do what we want to do to live our life. So that’s what we’re going to be focusing on.

So if you haven’t already grabbed grabbed your spot, do you come over to one step outside.com, forward slash breakthrough. One step outside.com. Forward slash breakthrough, you can join in the middle of the week, you will still have the sessions. And if you’re ambitious, and hardworking, you can catch up, and you can watch the replays, you’ll have access for a whole month. So not to worry if you’ve missed it. But do come on over today if you can, so you can join us for the first session. So if you’re listening to this live, we are going live this afternoon at three o’clock UK time. So do check your time zones, three o’clock every day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then on Friday, we’ll have a slightly different time of 11 for the live q&a. So that’s that link one more time, one step outside.com. Forward slash breakthrough. And that is what we’re talking about today, how to get your next Business Breakthrough. So of course, the first thing to do is to sign up to that challenge. But in the meantime, a bit of background on why we’re doing this. So as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, if you’re doing this starting and growing a solopreneur business can be a pretty lonely process certainly has been the last few years, with everybody really being at home, although I suppose in in some way that’s kind of brought us together as well.

But it can also get really overwhelming whether you’re just starting out, and everything’s new and exciting, but also confusing, or you’ve been in business for a while.

And you’re working on the next challenge. Because we’re always raising that bar, aren’t we we’re always looking to the next thing. So certainly, I have new ideas every day, constantly adding to an endless to do list. Not to mention, there are always unexpected challenges along the way. And we can easily end up drowning, getting lost and losing sight of the big picture. And that can be really demotivating can be stressful. We’re not sure if we’re focusing on the right things. And this idea of a breakthrough. I mean, I’ve felt that frustration several times in my business. And so whether you know is at the beginning and you feel like oh, it’s just so slow, it’s so slow to get started, you’ve got these ideas, you have some sort of accelerated periods when you make lots of progress. And then it feels a bit stuck and sort of swampy and you’re not getting anywhere, or you’ve had initial success, and you end up on a plateau because that can happen too. Or you’re just hungry for more, right? I’m certainly at that point in my business where I’m sort of at a pivotal moment where I can’t, and I don’t want to go to all in because I’ve got the kids, I’ve got another four year old and a two year old, Sophia starting school, et cetera, et cetera. And I want to be present with that.

But I also feel really hungry for that next level, to make a bigger impact to change some things and say what and maybe you feel like you’re the industry’s best kept secret, you know, you’ve got some amazing ideas and materials and support available, you just don’t feel like you’re reaching people. So whatever that next breakthrough is, I’ve got four pieces that need to be in place for you. And this is, of course, what we’ll be looking at in the challenge as well this week.

But I want to give you an overview if you can’t join for whatever reason. And if you’re joining this is still going to be a good introduction. So the first thing is your vision. Again, whether you’ve been in business for a while, or you’re just starting out, the first step has to be getting crystal clear on what it is that you’re working towards and what success looks like for you. And of course I talked about this all the time. But specifically in this context, what is that breakthrough that you’re after? If we’re just feeling frustrated, and you know, I’m not the biggest manifester and law of attraction. I don’t just sit on my bum and wait for things to happen. And I hope you don’t either. But there is an element of you know, if I’m just sending out to the universe, hey, I want to break through I want to break through that’s not really specific enough. So maybe if you’re just starting out, it’s about getting your first clients. If you’re further along, maybe it’s about getting a certain amount of income every month or maybe launching your first group program. Getting Your first piece of media coverage hiring your first team member. And if you’re running a financially successful business, it could even be that the breakthrough is being able to go on holiday without taking your laptop, or only working three days a week like I do at the moment or moving from that kind of launch roller coaster up and down the big intense processes or writing long proposals, whatever it is that your business model is, to a more relaxing cycle where you’re really feeling in control of the business, you’re getting new clients sort of on a rolling basis without having to have these high pressure seasons.

So that’s the first piece is having that clear vision for your business and your life as a whole. And specifically, it really targeted goal for what it is you want that breakthrough to be the second piece, and usually I go to mindset at this point, but I know people are eager to, to get the the nitty gritty and the tangible thing. So I’ve mixed things up a bit, I’m looking at strategy, because once you have your personal vision, you need to know what those individual building blocks are going to be that that will get you there. So you want to have a really focused plan, that’s going to be a viable business, whether it’s a new business, or you’re pivoting in a different direction, it needs to be financially viable, there needs to be a market for it needs to make sense for you. And that strategy is going to help you reach your targets.

So that could be the business model, having the right mix of products, having the right pricing, of course. And that’s a huge topic that we often talk about here. It’s putting in place the financial forecasting, to make sure that you’re hitting your goals and that you have the marketing and sales plan in place to reach those goals. And then of course tracking and I know it’s easy to put your head in the sand, but really monitoring those numbers and saying, hang on, I didn’t hit my target for this month for May, June. Now, this is I’m not going to give up just on the rest of the year, I’m going to knuckle down and see okay, what can I do differently? What can I do more of? What do I need to do differently? What do I need to add? What do I what do I need to stop doing and so on. So having that really, really clear strategy as to how you’re going to achieve that breakthrough? If I want that first piece of media coverage, what am I doing? Well, I probably need to identify the channel. So is it TV, radio, magazines online, offline, and so on? And what are those magazines that I want to get published in? What are those stories? How am I going to pitch myself? How often am I going to contact them? How do I get their email addresses and so on and get quite tangible, really detailed? And if you want to hire your first team member, then what what is the list of roles they need to have? And how are you going to go about doing that? Do you want to have someone local? Do you want to hire perhaps a mother who’s working part time? Do you want to go for the VA in the Philippines, you know, there’s all sorts of really tangible strategic and tactical pieces that need to come into play to get to you to that Business Breakthrough.

So number two is strategy. Number three is mindset. Because, of course, you can map out the best strategies in the world, put in all that hard work. But if you don’t have the confidence that you need, if you don’t have the conviction that you’re working on the right things. And if you don’t have the resilience to get up again, when you inevitably hit some setbacks along the way, then you aren’t going to get the results that you want. And I don’t want to be too negative, because that’s the whole point, actually, you need to believe that what you’re looking for what you’re working towards as possible. There are all sorts of things that can hold you back, like perfectionism, procrastination, and you need confidence to stick to your plan and make it happen, right. So again, if you’re starting out, and if your mindset is I’m just starting out, I can’t really charge that much in this market, I need to offer steal things for free and a really cheap services, then you’re obviously not going to be able to raise your prices, because even though you might hear me or someone say oh, you know you need to, you have a greater value in what you’re providing. And you need to look at how you can deliver more value and raise your prices for that.

If you don’t believe you’re ready for that then unfortunately, that sort of self sabotage. And it’s a cognitive something or other going on. I was gonna say cognitive dissonance I’m not quite sure if that’s what it is. But there’s a disconnect between the action that you want the action you take, you’re taking want to take and and what’s happening in your in your mind. If you’re again, further along, if you take an example of someone who’s financially successful, you still link success to hard work to stress to being in the weeds of executing in your business, then you’re not going to be able to take time off and feel confident that your business can still grow. Because you don’t believe that it’s possible to be relaxed and to take time off and still have a really successful business. So there’s the element of self sabotage.

So you need confidence. You need the beliefs that are going to support you to achieve your goals and your strategy is going to work then.

And then finally really tangible, not so sexy, I know. But it is the key piece. Once you’ve taken a step back and you’ve got the vision, you’ve got your strategy mindset, you have to actually execute it right and this is one of my passions is really anchoring your big picture vision in the day to day. It’s so easy to get lost in all the things you need to do. And you know, we get obsessed about the tech here and the automation there and the number here and whatever. And then we forget the bigger picture. We’re not really looking at what needs to happen to move the needle in the business. We’re just kind of doing these executional things, we can do the busy work really all day every day. And unfortunately, we’re not going to get anywhere. So we need to keep things super, super simple. Plan out the steps that are actually going to ladder up into your strategy, and then your big goals so that you have super clear priorities each and every week. So I’ll give you that link. One more time. If you do want to join us, there is still time again, you can join us today, live over in will be on Zoom and a private room together, you’ll be getting lots of support from me this week. So it is it really is incredible value to join us. Again, we’re focusing on the end result of getting more clients more confidence, more time and energy for what matters most. And really to helping you identify your individual breakthrough, whatever that is for you. This is an incredible opportunity. You know, if you haven’t been able to work with me until now, if you’ve considered it and you’re not sure, if it’s the right fit, this is a really good moment to work quite closely with me and with a small group to get these pieces of clarity. And maybe that’s enough for you then to sail off into the sunset and keep keep implementing that which I hope and if not, then I of course will be sharing how we can work together in a more ongoing way.

Because a week as much as I will cram as much as I possibly can into it to give you lots of value. Of course, there’s so much more we could do together. So they’ll always be that opportunity as well. So again, one set aside.com forward slash breakthrough, you can still join us again, if it is midweek, if you’d like to still join us, just let me know if it makes sense. And we can chat about if it still works. You know if it’s a little bit late to join in the middle of the week, but I’d be really happy to have you on you can listen to the recordings. If you’ve got time to do that and catch up, you’ll have access for a month. And there is the live q&a on Friday. So you’ll be able to come on and ask any and all questions that you have. So one more time one step outside.com. Forward slash breakthrough. And just to recap on what we’ve been talking about today. So the first thing is to have your clear vision on what it is you want.

Big picture but also concretely, what is that breakthrough that you’re looking for? The second is to have the right strategy in place. And of course, that’s a big thing to say so much more, we could dig into that. But really to have those building blocks that are going to ladder up into that vision and not take you off on some other cause of success. The third piece is mindset, having the confidence, the conviction, the resilience that you need. And finally, the planning. And I know it’s not the most exciting piece, but it actually is exciting, because that’s what’s going to you know, what you do every day is actually what, what gets you the results. So I hope that’s enough to persuade you. That is a really important piece of the puzzle. And so I’d love to see you over in the breakthrough challenge. And if not, I hope this has given you at least a bit of a structure, maybe you can see where the gap is, maybe you do have a clearer idea of the breakthrough. But you’ve got a few self sabotaging beliefs going on. Maybe you’re just missing the tangible planning piece. Or maybe you are doing all that busy work, but you don’t have the big picture, picture strategy. And so again, join us in the challenge. You can reach me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever we’re connected, if you have any questions about this, about joining the challenge or about working together, so I hope that was useful. I’m looking for my own breakthrough. So I’ll be joining you in this process as well. And I look forward to working with you. Hopefully see you soon. Bye for now.

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