Episode 257: How To Be Bold In Business

Episode Transcript

Erin Aquin  0:03  
Welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches, Steve Haase and Erin Aquin, where business owners like you learn tools that help you clarify vision, clear up static and overcome challenges, you are listening to Episode 257: How To Be Bold In Business. Hello and welcome. It's just you and me this week, Steve and I just had a live session about this very topic inside the superabound collective, but the audio just was not up to par. So I decided that I would pop in and sort of recap it for you here in the podcast. But if you love live sessions, and you'd like to hang out with us in real time, please do come and join the superabound collective over at be superabound.com/collective. We have events periodically inside of that group. It's a place where you as a business owner, or a leader can come and ask questions, get support, and be part of member only exclusive events. At the moment, the collective is totally free. So join that just in case it changes we never know. But for now, it's totally free, we would love to see you in there. Okay, on to today's topic, about how to be bold. In business. When Steve and I were talking about this. One of my favorite points that he made was that being bold, I think sometimes conjures up images of someone standing on a rooftop and screaming to the universe about their big vision. Or, for me, it's like an image of someone standing in the mirror, looking at themselves in a power pose and saying like positive affirmations about what they're going to do and who they're going to show. And so if that's kind of what you that conjures up for you, you're totally not alone. But what I want to talk about today is what it really looks like to be bold in your business. And the truth is often being bold, is how it looks on the outside. It's not necessarily how it feels on the inside. In fact, if you feel bold, but there's no action out in the world, then it's not bold, it's just like, feeling good and not doing anything. One of the big trends that I've watched around me right now is that people are doing a lot of things that on the surface, kind of seem superficially bold in their business. So one of the big trends out there in marketing is to be controversial and to be divisive and to be us against them. They either love me or they hate me kind of stuff. And I think this is really interesting, because when I see somebody following that playbook, I don't actually assume that this is some bold person, I think they're just working a marketing angle. To be truly bold, in my opinion, is to do what feels most authentic to you to do in your business, things in a way that aligned with your vision, which means your marketing is in alignment with your vision and values, the way you sell is in alignment with your vision and values, the way you treat your team, and your customer is all aligned. And that, to me, is bold. Because, first of all, it's very hard. It's really easy to put out a sleek marketing message. But it's not so easy to back it up with a really powerful product or service. It's easy to talk about how much you love humans and how much you love helping people and then not treat everyone around you with that same kindness and same respect. So I think to be truly bold, you have to have guts, you have to have heart, you have to maybe sometimes go against the grain of what everyone else is doing what everyone else is teaching, and actually do what feels most true for you. The most recent example I can use from my life and from Superabound as our business. I was messaging back and forth with one of my friends who is uber successful. You know, she has a business that is at least five times bigger than mine. And she said Listen, I love that you have this idea to put together a certification. And you basically, within a month have created something that now people are signing up for, it's real, it's something from nothing, you started with an idea, and now it's in the world, people are excited about it. And it's going to be a new part of your business. And of course, you know, it's always lovely to hear supportive things from people who are further along the path than you. But it's interesting, because when she said that, and I reflected on it with Steve, I thought, wow, it's it is kind of bold, it's pretty bold of us to say, Okay, now, we're not just coaches, but we're certifying other people to become coaches. But my internal experience of that very bold thing was not, ooh, I'm going to do this in like, disrupt the industry and make my place in the world and, you know, compete with other coaching, certifications, or something, it was actually none of that. The only reason that we took this bold step was because we saw that there's something missing for some of our clients. You see, in the Superabound universe, we mostly work with leaders and business owners, and I'm gonna be a little bold, and I'm gonna say we coach them beautifully, we do a really good job at supporting them at being not only coaches, but thinking partners. I do a lot of deep emotional work with some of my clients. And yet, the next sort of gap in what we can offer is that after we've coached someone, that leader, who now has this new set of tools and new perspective, what they don't have is a way of turning around and articulating it to their team. They don't have a way of turning around and using all the beautiful coaching that they've just got to then coach the people that report to them. So, to me, in my little strategic mind, I thought the next thing we need to offer, beyond coaching our clients is a way for them to apply the same tools we're using with them with their own people. So the certification idea came from looking at what are people needed, and responding to it. But I can totally see that from an outside perspective, it looked like wow, you're starting this whole new arm of your business. This is a really big deal, you're going to be giving people like your stamp of approval, you're going to be teaching them this art form the science of coaching. It seems like a lot. And trust me, it feels like a lot too. But But at its essence, this particular lantern, of certifying people to become Superabound coaches, is a natural mile marker on the path to the Big Vision that Steve and I share, which is to help people realize the life the universe is dreaming for them. We also have a book coming out in 2024. And with that book, we are going to need to have coaches in our world who we can easily refer readers to potential clients to cannot possibly help all the people who are going to read our book. But we'll have coaches who can. So strategically, it seemed like a really good move. And that was kind of the bold thing that we did. Now I want to ask you, what is the next bold thing that is coming up in your business that you may need to really dig into yourself in order to do how will you be bold? If you're not sure what the answer to that question is for yourself. One of the things that we always suggest you do is start with understanding what your big vision is.

being bold for the sake of showing people what you can do, doesn't actually hold a lot of weight. If you are just taking risks if you're just trying things out, and there's no real purpose to the experiment. This is usually when people quit, you know, they'll say I'm going to be very bold, and I'm going to post on social media that my new service is open and I'm booking people for it. And then if no one responds to it, they say well, I posted that one time obviously no one's interested Obviously, this is a terrible idea. Obviously, I'm terrible at sales or marketing. And I'm just going to shut it down. The only reason I think people quit on themselves so easily is because they gear themselves up to do a very bold thing. But they don't know why they're doing it in the first place. Steve, very, very kindly, over I don't know, kindly or unkindly shared, that one of the things he respected about me it was my ability to keep going even when nothing is working. So before he joined the business, a few years ago, I had racked up a good 40 Total failures. I went, I checked the numbers when I was, this is a few years old, so I'm not sure what they are. Now, I'm sure it's much greater. But I went into the back end of my sales platform one day, and I counted all of the packages, all of the products over the years that I had created, as a yoga teacher, as a new life coach, I counted them all up, and 40 of them sold less than five products, or five packages. And at that point in my journey I was making a couple $100,000 a year. And that few 100,000 came from three products, three products made up the majority of my revenue, it would have been so easy to shut it all down, when the first 10 things I tried didn't work, it would have been totally reasonable to shut things down when the first 20 things I tried didn't work. And I'm sure people were people who were close to me and knew what was going on. were whispering. In the first 30 things I tried didn't work. being bold is not a power post being bold is a commitment to your vision. Even when you're feeling knocked around. Even when nothing you've tried the last 30 Things haven't worked. It means believing that something's gonna work. Even if I get to 40 things that don't, or 50 things that don't. It means that you are willing to do the work to figure out the path forward. Because your vision depends on it. Which means you have to know what that vision is, I think far too many business leaders and business owners. They wait years before actually identifying and clarifying what their big picture vision truly is. And I understand why I was in this boat as well. I think it's really easy to say well, I don't want to blow things up too much in my mind, because then I'm just going to be disappointed if they don't work. You know, I just want to try some things out. And you know, maybe this will just be my like little side business. Pro tip. If you have a big vision, you'll never call your business. A side business, a side hustle a hobby, you'll never ever let other people call it one of those things ever again. Because you know that there is a direct link to the thing you are doing in your work in the world. The thing you are spending your time your energy creating, and that top of the mountain vision. So, if you don't know what your vision is, by the way, don't guess. Come and check out our grow smooth program over at the Superabound.com/growsmooth. clarifying your vision is one of the very first modules in that self paced program. And we talk about it constantly in the workshops, we will help you clarify it if you don't already know what it is or if it needs to be adjusted. As you as things grow, we will absolutely help you to do that. Next, I already shared that being bold doesn't always feel like it to you. Sometimes it feels like this is just the most natural next step that's going to take me further along my path doesn't mean it's always easy. So I'm gonna, I'm just gonna keep with the most recent example of our certification, because it's fresh in my mind. But there were definitely days where I thought this is not going to work. No one's going to buy this. Why would they do that the books not even out yet and maybe this is something we should wait another year for because when people read the book, they're definitely going to want to become coaches. They're definitely going to want to learn the skill of this way of coaching people. But maybe you know, maybe we're doing it too soon. I'm so glad that that came up for me because it actually helped me create some of the best marketing material. So another clue about being bold is, when you are being bold, you don't need to reject the fear the concern, the doubt that comes up for you. And I think a lot of people get this wrong. I think a lot of people think that, if you're being bold, you're just going to ignore all opposition, you're going to plow through and do what your you said you were going to do, and there's never going to be a competence dip, there's never going to be anything anyone can tell you. That, to me is more like stubborn. There's a place for that to in business, for sure. But in my opinion, when you are being truly bold, it again isn't about pushing through. It's about answering the inner knowing that you have and making space for all the doubt, because sometimes there's a lot of wisdom in there. I always say that fear and doubt are part of our marketing team. When I have a hesitation about doing something, it always gives me something to talk about in the marketing, because if I have the hesitation about it, probably someone else is gonna hesitation about it. Why would someone want to join a program that's never been tested before? Oh, well, let me tell you why. Because you'll be the first of many classes to come have superabound coaches, you'll be at the forefront of something before the book comes out. We are literally looking for people we can refer to because your company will be better your family will be better there were so many like marketing, things that sort of came out from listening to and responding to the doubt, the concern, the hesitation. So being bold does not mean switching off your human emotions, it means that you're actually more open to getting the internal feedback, maybe even being open to the external feedback you're getting. But standing so firmly in the possibility that this thing you are trying could be the next step to lighting that next big lantern. And finally, being bold in your business does not necessarily look like being loud. I am not into predatory sales, I'm not into high pressure marketing. First of all, I don't think it's ethical. And I have also known enough businesses because I'm a trusted person in my industry. I've known enough businesses where that has actually created a lot of mess. It's created a lot of unhappy customers and clients. Because if you have to manipulate someone or twist their arm, or push them into buying from you, that is probably not going to be the most amazing customer or client, because they might not really be sure. And now you've promised them the moon. So if you can't deliver the moon, you're gonna probably be in trouble. I much prefer gentle marketing. And this in a in the current trend of everybody trying to be controversial, and loud, and people screaming and getting people to love them or hate them all of this sort of stuff. It's actually very bold to be someone who says, I'm not going to be an authoritative coach to you, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I will be your thinking partner. And I will bend all of the rules that someone else told you in order to help you that is bold, especially, you know, if you come from a container, I learned how to coach in a specific way, early on. And one of the most bold things that I personally done is

then didn't even break some of those initial rules. One of them because we work with business owners and leaders. There's this coaching guideline that says you should never have an agenda for your clients. In some ways it can mean you know, you shouldn't want with what they say they want more than they do. And you shouldn't think you know what they should be doing. You shouldn't be attached to their results. It kind of gets articulated in a variety of ways. As a business coach and a leadership coach, I am literally being paid to help my clients get a result. So I do have an agenda for them. I do have ones for them and In the superabound Coaching world, that's totally okay because no one, no leader wants to hear that. I have no agenda for you. I'm only here to show you your thoughts and show you what you're creating. And that's my only job. That's not our only job as business coaches. Sometimes I'm a thinking partner to my clients, sometimes I'm sharing information, techniques, personal experiences, sometimes I'm going through their sales, copy with them and telling them what I do and don't understand. In so many ways, this breaks some of the rules of what someone else might call coaching. And I'm totally fine with it. Because not only do I have generally very happy clients, but we get the results that are important to them. So being bold means you make the you make the rules in your business, that work for you and for the people you serve. And for me, that means going against the grain of all of this divisive marketing that I see out there. It means going against the grain of saying I can't have an opinion, when I'm working with clients, or I can't ever offered them support or advice or a thinking partner. being bold means I'm going to do what is needed to help the people who have entrusted their time, their money and their energy to work with me and I'm going to meet them and honor that. So I hope this gives you something to think about and to consider when it comes to being bold. To Be bold doesn't mean you're the loudest person doesn't mean you are following the trends in order to scream louder than the person next to you. It actually means doing what feels most authentic to your vision in your business and then owning those decisions. Like the boss that you are. I hope this was helpful and I hope to see you over in the Superabound collective at be superabound.com/collective

Take care

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