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Before You Plan for 2021, Do this 2020 Review with Betsy & Jen

4 - marketing & sales Dec 30, 2020
 

We're coming up on the end of the year and it's time to review what worked and didn't so we can come up with plans for 2021, right?

Wrong!

If 2020 has taught us anything, we don't always have control over all the things we put into typical annual plans, complete with SMART goals and actionable strategies. That type of planning is OUT.

What is IN is cultivating smart habits that keep you in tune with your market and allow you to respond to them with ease and confidence.

This was our big learning for 2020. 

In this video, Jen and I walk you through the ANTI-planning and business development best practices we gained through trying to merge our companies while adapting to the global pandemic which resulted in our most profitable and happy year ever.

If you want to say a big, fat "buh-bye" to the craziness of 2020 and a big hello to having 2021 be the year where your results are totally in FLOW, this video is must-watch.

You'll learn:

  • Why falling in love with your clients is the fastest way to accelerating your success
  • How strategic planning is as much about what you say "no" to as what you say "yes" to
  • The reasons why owning your strengths is a powerful act of humility
  • And how to accept the reality that engaging with worry is a lot like sitting in a rocking chair - it keeps you occupied while you go nowhere!

As you'll discover, "If it’s your superpower, it feels like play, it feels like joy, it feels so light and just natural, why not get paid for it?  That’s actually the goal. "

So go ahead and hit play and watch our conversation now.

Take Action...

If we have inspired you to avoid planning in 2021 so your results can get into FLOW - Do this:

  • Think about what is NOT working in your business as much as what is. What's not working is clearly something to stop. Don't throw good money and time after bad. Cut your losses and free yourself to new possibilities.
  • Choose to be happy in your work. Leverage your best-at strengths. Stop doing what sucks the living daylights out of you. 
  • Pursue passion for your clients as your starting point in everything you do. If you don't know who your ideal clients are, let's chat. Book a call and let's chat about what it looks like for you to get clear and confident about YOUR most profitable niche.

About Us: I'm Betsy Jordyn and I build strong and powerful brands for remarkable consultants and coaches and their unique strengths. Simply put I design consulting and coaching practices that position you as a thought leader and sought-after expert by helping you find the words to describe the value of what you do and use them on your website and in your marketing. Check out my roadmap to success and mentoring and website design programs at https://www.betsyjordyn.com.  

Links:

Our website :https://www.betsyjordyn.com

Schedule a consult call to talk about creating your brand messaging and positioning and online platform: https://www.betsyjordyn.com/schedule

Connect on LinkedIn:

To Read the Full Transcript:

Betsy:  Hey everyone, it’s Betsy Jordyn and in this video, what I want to do is have a conversation with my brand-new partner Jen.  Say hi Jen.

Jen: Hi Jen!  I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.  (laughs)

Betsy: (laughs)  We want to talk about 2021 planning and I think what’s so interesting is you see a lot of people talking about planning and if 2020 taught us anything is you really can’t plan.  One of the best things that we got out of 2020 is not planning.  We have done so many things to our business, to reshape it from the ground up.  The pandemic has been horrible in some ways but at least from a creative standpoint, we’ve been forced to pivot and so, what we want to do is offer some ideas around planning that takes into account everything that we learned about the anti-planning.  This is our anti-planning guide for 2021.  Jen, anything you want to add on that one?

Jen: I think part of what you said Betsy that’s really powerful is it forces us to be creative.  That’s our commitment is to bring the creative to our business and hopefully out of this insight and this anti-planning, you’ll get creative too.

Betsy:  The whole idea here is you guys are consultants, you’re coaches, you know the drill.  You know how to set goals.  You know how to have strategies.  You know how to measure them.  You’re really good at that.  We just want to give you perspective on being in FLOW in 2021 that captures what you might have learned in 2020.  We’re going to share with you our acronym, that we came up with that we think is super fun.  I’m going to start off with the first letter in the acronym to give you some ideas on how to think about 2021.  

The first one is, F for Fall in Love with Your Ideal Clients.  Fall in love with the people that you serve because that’s the starting point.  If you really want to grow your business in 2021, you really need to be connected to those ideal clients.  Jen, would you want to share anything about what we learned?  Because one of the best things about our partnership is, between the two of us, we’ve talked to boatloads of consultants and coaches and this whole time period really forced us into new levels and we want to continue on.  Share with them some of our ideas that we have for the future around this.

Jen:  What I think is really powerful about the conversations that I’ve had in the past and conversations that you’ve had in the past, which are hundreds, no exaggeration there, we started to hear some of the same complaints and the same reasons that people would get stuck.  It was from truly listening to our clients where they were finding success and where they weren’t that had us get creative.  From that, we grew into new services and it truly was founded in listening to our ideal clients.

Betsy:  What are some tips that you would recommend in around how do you listen in?  I know that you’ve guided our clients through a whole process on building their marketing system.  What did the group come up with that you think those who are watching this video could apply to 2021?

Jen: I think the biggest one is don’t hesitate to ask for help.  Ask questions.  Start to get curious about where your ideal client is and what is working for them.  What are their challenges?  What is it that keeps them up at night?  Just get curious.  The more you ask and the more people you ask, you’ll start to see patterns and connections between them and it becomes very, very clear where you are needed.  And how to speak their language is something that we’ve been talking about with our clients around the marketing system, is have them feel like you’re reading their mind.  That you understand them enough and the only way you can do that is to ask questions, be curious and find out enough about what they’re thinking and what they’re wishing they had, what they hate that they’ve had in the past.  Just really understand where they’re coming from.

Betsy: I think that’s such a great point too because we’ve changed our business model in so many ways, from soup to nuts over this year but one thing has not changed is our client and who want to help.  We know we want to help those people who are at those crossroads, who have these great careers and they want to turn it into a business but we really had to figure out where the gaps are.  What’s cool is that, even if there’s different economic challenges, if you know who they are, you can just know a little bit more where they’re at, at this exact moment but you don’t have to kind of revamp your entire business model. 

You were sharing about one of the things that one of our clients said the other day about her big ah-ha about the ideal client, can you share a little bit more about that one?

Jen: Sure, I think what was really been critical - not only to our business - for our clients’ business is that your business is all around who you serve.  It is the “who” it’s not the “what”.  It’s not what you do, it’s not how you do it, it’s the who you serve.  And for her, going through these 12-weeks in our Marketing System Mastery, she realized that each step of the path is truly around the ideal client.  If you can understand who they are, what they need, where you uniquely can provide that service that truly gets to the need that they have and transforms what hasn’t been working for them, everything falls in place.  It was really fun for her to see that, yes indeed, it really is about the ideal client.

When her lightbulb went off about, oh my gosh, I get it now, I get how my entire business is centered around my ideal client, she’s like, it just—it just gets easier.  It’s easier to write.  It’s easier to know who you’re speaking to.  It’s easier to know what to put in your proposal, what to price, everything becomes easier.  

Betsy: That’s a perfect wrap up for our F and our acronym around FLOW is that, if you fall in love with your clients and you know who they are and you empathically connect with them, then everything else that you need to do to grow your business becomes easier.

Now let’s talk about the next letter in our FLOW acronym and that is Lose Everything That You Hate.  One of the big things, when Jen and I came together to partner, is we really inventoried first, all the things we were passionate about and then we took a really hard look at all the things that we did not like to do.  We decided to let a lot of those go.  I think that there’s so many of us who start our own businesses and we build it on what we think we should do rather than what we really want to do.  It seems like, yeah, that makes more sense, it will make us money but what’s interesting, when you lose all the other stuff, it’s like all this space is freed up to imagine all the possibilities of what you can do. 

We wouldn’t have been able to reinvent our business model to the extent that we did until—for me personally, to come to the realization like, I’m really good on the front end.  I really like helping people find words to describe what they do, draw it out of them and package it.  That is my sweet spot, that is my superpower.  That’s what people really love.  I’m not necessarily great in some of the other things, which is how Jen and I came together as partners anyway.  I had to lose what I didn’t enjoy and similar for Jen.  I’ll let you speak for yourself though.

Jen: You like the front-end, I like the backend.  (laughs)  For me, I really am committed to people taking action and implementing the plan.  Once they have that clear understanding of who they are, what their business is and who they serve, that’s just the beginning.  The beginning of the journey of actually putting your business into action, into tangible assets like a website, into routines and actions that will cause your clients to find you and attract those clients. 

For me, I like to do sort of the nerdy backend and make sure that the tech is in place, the steps are in place, the process is in place, the routines are in place, the metrics are in place to make sure what your doing works.  For me, it was nice to have Betsy be able to handle more the creative, more the visionary and be the art, if you will, of not only for our clients but of our business because that’s something I always struggle with.  I can take an idea and put it into action, so it was a really wonderful release of what I didn’t like and a wonderful combination of our partnership came from it.

Betsy:  We’ve talked to so many of our clients as we work through the branding and they’re in the same boat.  Is like, yeah, here’s the things I should do and it seems like, there’s—I don’t know, just like an energy gain when you get rid of all of that stuff.  It’s like, I’m dragging it around, I’m dragging it around. 

Our recommendation, for 2021 to be in the FLOW is lose the stuff you don’t like to do.  If you’re not happy in your job, you’re not going to get happier.  It’s just not going to happen for you.  Also, if you’re doing part of products and services that you have or you’re serving clients that are not completely bang on for you, it would be better just to let that thing go and just trust that we’re in this abundant universe that there’s more than enough.  And when you’re not in the zone, you feel it. 

The other thing too is, we realized for our stuff, we’re using ourselves as an example, there’s things that are outside both of our wheelhouses that we don’t really enjoy or are we not great at.  We’ve been able to expand our team, so don’t be shy to think that you have to do everything in your business.  There’s certain things that you should be doing and there’s certain things that you don’t have to be.  It would be best to minimize it. 

I know we all know this.  We all studied Marcus Buckingham.  We all know that we should discover our strengths and lead with our strengths and all of that kind of stuff.  For so many of us, we have a hard time just staying there because we feel like we should.  That is a big one is lose everything that you hate because it’s not going to get better.  Jen, anything you want to add before we move onto the next one.

Jen:  I think part of it is and this has been a bit of a struggle for our clients but once they get it, it’s a huge weight off their back is just because you did it before and you were good at it doesn’t mean that you have to keep doing it.  Being skilled at something doesn’t mean you have to love it.  I think that’s part of looking at what you’ve done before and what you’re good at is also something you’re allowed to lose.  You don’t have to keep doing it if you don’t love it.

Betsy:  You brought up another point on this whole thing too is, sometimes the things that you don’t like to do aren’t always the profitable things either.  What was really interesting for us this year is we evaluated all of our offerings because when we came together—she had offerings, I had offerings, we were looking at all of them and then we were both looking at it holistically saying, what is making money and what’s actually not.  What was interesting was the stuff that we weren’t that excited about was also not profitable at all.  Like, we were losing money on the things that we weren’t that excited about it but we felt like we should be doing it.  That’s the beauty of having the opportunity to take a look at it is, we will make more money.  I really believe we will make more money when you’re not doing the stuff, the drain.

Jen:  And a bigger impact which is why you make more money.  We are really able to impact our clients in a much more powerful, much more effective way, much more long-lasting, then some of those things we gave up, that weren’t profitable as well.  They make more money, we make more money and everybody is making more impact.

Betsy:  Now we’re on to the O in the acronym.  O is Own Your Superpower.  I cannot tell you how many times I sit in front of a client and we get to the zone of their genius and right when I always know it’s happening and I know I’m there when they start getting really annoyed with me or they have to hang up because they feel like they’re going to throw up.

Here’s the reality.  We have our superpower, we all want to live in our superpower but then we have that imposter syndrome that comes up.  What’s interesting, the more you own the superpowers, the more excited your clients will get.  We had a conversation with clients yesterday, we were talking about their experience through the brand building process.  If you saw what they were like at the beginning and you saw their excitement now, around what they’re all about, you’d be like, oh yeah, I see exactly what you’re talking about.  Well, we see it all day long is like I’m not really sure I—you know, can I really do this and then when you go on the other side of, all right, I will overcome this feeling of shame and vulnerability around all these things I really love and what I know I’m really great at and when you own it, it changes everything. 

When you’re in the zone, how I know you’re in the zone of genius is if I compliment you on it and you’re like, uh, it was nothing, that’s probably a clue that we’re in your zone of genius and you need to own it.  If you want to be in FLOW in 2021, you cannot, cannot, cannot play small and apologize for your natural God given gifts.  Own it.  When you own it from here, this is the power of the brain messaging and the positioning and when you put words on it, it drops from here to here, but no matter what, it’s like, you need to let it drop. 

I’m off my soapbox.  Obviously, this is a passion area for me.  I’ll let you go in Jen and share your thoughts. 

Jen:   One thing that a client yesterday was saying too that’s really powerful is that she felt like because this is what she loves to do, it’s like, supposed to be a hobby.  This is not where you’re supposed to be making money and this is a huge miss.  I think the goal should be the opposite.  We’ve talked about this too.  I love the idea of being paid to play.  If it’s your superpower, it feels like play, it feels like joy, it feels so light and just natural, why not get paid for it?  That’s actually the goal.  I think that’s why we were put on this planet.  That’s self-actualization in its best form possible.

For me, I think that’s—that’s where you know you’re also in your superpower when you feel like, I shouldn’t be paid for it because it’s so much fun. 

Betsy:  Right.

Jen:  No, actually, that is what you should be paid for. 

Betsy: That brings us to the final letter in our acronym and that’s the W.  That is Worry Less.  If you are thinking about starting a consulting business, or you have a consulting business or a coaching business and it’s just not as successful as you want it to be, or you feel like you’re supposed to take your whole experience to a whole new level, you’re aspiring to be a thought leader and you feel fear, I would just say, first and foremost, you’re normal.  These are indications that you’re a normal human being because the neuroscience of change means that our brains hate change.  We hate change and we know that we need it.  Your fear, your imposture syndrome, all those things are indications that you are moving into new levels. 

Jen has been a huge help for me in learning how to make exercise a part of my daily routine.  I have this new program and I’m lifting weights and my program has a lot of encouraging phrases throughout the whole thing, but she keeps saying, are you feeling it?  Are you feeling it?  And if I’m not feeling it, I’m not getting any stronger.  The anxiety that you feel around like, oh my gosh, where am I going to get the money?  This is the path.  This is the indication that you’re supposed to be doing this.

I think about some of our clients who waste so much time in this worry and fear.  Every time, it’s like, I should already know how to do this and then they beat themselves up when they’re learning some new, rather than just applying it.  I think that’s one of the best things about working with you, Jen, actually is, we have gotten to the point where we’re ripping everything apart from the seams.  We’re keeping what’s good and we’re trying out all kinds of new things.  I don’t even remember how many things we’ve experimented with this particular year, but there was something about the FLOW of like, all right, we’ll put that out there, I’m like, oh that was a bust.  We put something else out there, I’m like, well that was a winner, that was good.  You worry less because if you put it out there, see how the market responds, then you know, all right, this isn’t FLOW, this is a good idea, I know you’re nodding your head, so you’re remember all of the things that we tried this year.

Jen:  Absolutely.  I think when you do find something not working, it’s not a failure. You fail forward would be more, how can I learn from this?  Where can we get better?  What did work about it?  So, we would get deep with the questioning and figure out, it’s not just throw out everything if something wasn’t working, but what is it specifically that wasn’t working so that we can tweak going forward.  That, I think made a huge, huge difference in truly landing on things that are causing transformation faster than anything I’ve ever seen, potentially anything you’ve seen. 

The way that clients are really taking on what we’re working with them and seeing the results, it’s just—I’m loving it.  It’s so amazing and it just feels like we’re birthing babies all over, like oh my gosh.  There they go, they’re flying the nest and they’re launching their business.  It’s so exciting. 

Betsy:  Except we’re not—we’re bittersweet when they fly the nest.  We’re like, we’re so happy for you but we’re going to miss you.  We’re so happy but we’re gonna miss you.  Just like our own kids.

Jen:  Exactly.  It’s very similar.

Betsy:  Yes.  Let’s wrap up what we were talking about with being in FLOW for 2021.  #1 that we want you to walk away with is if 2020 taught us anything is that we can’t plan all the time in the way that we think because we don’t have all the control over our circumstances.  We don’t have control over the economy.  We don’t have control over pandemics.  We don’t have control over more things that we think we don’t have control over.

What we do have control over is our own attitudes, our own creativity, our own opportunities to pivot and be in that moment.  We’re going to let all the other business mentors and other marketing agencies talk to you about the traditional goal setting.  Here’s your goal, do more of this and all that kind of stuff.  We’re not going to do that.  We’re going to recommend, we take the lessons that we all learn, everything that we’re talking about here, I’m sure you’ve experienced in your business.  We just want to remind you of this so that you go into 2021 in a sense of FLOW.

First and foremost, F, Fall In Love with Your Clients.  If you don’t know who your ideal client is, it’s really hard for you to fall in love with your business because your business is organized around your clients.  If you don’t know who they are or you don’t understand the world from which they see things, it’s going to be really hard for you to write marketing copy, create your website, create products and services that are going to jump off the shelves and make them super excited.  It’s going to make it really hard for them to hand over their big paychecks and want to work with you.  You’re not going to stand out. 

The first thing you need to do is fall in love with your clients.  The questions are, do you know who your client is?  Do you know the world from their standpoint?  If no, what can you do to start getting clearer?  How can you pay more attention to the people who are coming to you and what they are asking you about and what they’re describing.  If you’re picturing yourself overhearing conversations that they were having in the middle of the night, what might they be saying and how do tap into your own passion to them.  That’s that.

Jen:  With L, Lose Everything You Hate, just as a summary, do not keep doing the things that you feel like you have to do or should do, do the things you love.  Which goes into O.  

Betsy:  So wait, what’s the definition of insanity again?  Doing the same things--

Jen:  Over and over again and expecting a different result.

Betsy:  Yeah.  So, doing the things that you should do over and over again, you’re not going to love it anymore.  You’re going to still hate it.  What are some good indications, Jen, that you would suggest around how do you know these are the things I really should lose?  Is it just when things aren’t profitable or what would you say are the indications to say, cut those things off? 

Jen:  Profitability can be it, although sometimes things are a bit profitable and you still need to get rid of it.  It’s more that it’s the dread.  Maybe it’s on your to-do list but you keep pushing it off to the end of the day or the end of the week.  That’s a good sign that you’re not enjoying it, versus waking up in the morning and being like, yes, I can’t wait, I get to do this.  If it’s not a I can’t wait to get to do this today, it’s probably an oh god no and it shouldn’t be what you’re doing.

Betsy:  That’s great, thank you.  At the end of the day, this is what I would say makes us different than perhaps other business mentors or other marketing agencies is, this is our thing.  We’re all about helping you own your superpower.  To me, the superpower is those things that come so naturally to you, that you don’t even feel like you’re doing work.  I would say, pay attention.

My favorite exercise in figuring out what your superpower is to look at what you played with when you were a child.  Go back in time and remember, what were your favorite toys when you were little.  It’s so fascinating because every single time I’ve done this exercise, it always plays itself out for people’s brands in the future. 

One of our clients is Dave and he has a superpower today.  What he does in his business is he helps product-driven companies who have these really great product ideas and he helps them come up with the words and the technology and he creates websites for them so that they can actually win in the marketplace.  Dave, from the time he was little, his favorite thing to do is he liked to play samurai, samurai warrior and favorite thing to do was to make the sword and engineering the perfect sword for this warrior kind of thing.  What does he do now?  He gives these people who are athletes, the tools to succeed.  He’s still motivated by the same thing. 

Whatever you like to play with is what makes you amazing now.  Don’t be shy about it.  Own it.  I’m off my soapbox again.  You know I can keep talking about this one.  

Jen:  We just love people owning who they are and what are their natural talents.  Because that’s honestly what your clients need more from you than anything.

Betsy:   And W--

Jen:  Worry Less.  Wouldn’t we all like a little worry less?  I think after a year like 2020 that has been filled with concern and fear and the unknown, that’s what we wish for you and that’s really what is possible in 2021 is to worry less about, oh my gosh, is this going to work?  Where is the money coming from?  Where are the clients going to come from?  Have faith in the systems and the processes, is one of my favorite things to say but also have faith in what you know you are about to do.  You’ve done this before, you’ve had these experiences, you have these strengths.  You can do your business.  We know it.  We believe in you and it’s time for you to say, you know what, I may feel like an imposture, I may feel the fear, but I’m just gonna do it anyway.

Betsy:  And we’re not going to ask you to be like, all Stuart Smalley about it and just look at the mirror and say, "you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and gosh darn it, these clients are going to want to hire you."  We really want you to address your fears in a compassionate sort of way and just say, I’m normal, it’s cool.  Just recognize that this is the sign that you’re on the right track.

Our hope for you is that you have a wonderful holiday and that you are in FLOW in 2021.  If you need support, we are here.  We have so many amazing things that we’re launching in the new year.  We cannot wait, but we’ve taken too much of your time already so we’re not going to—we’ll save that for later and we’ll give you all the announcements in the new year. 

 

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