Ep. 004: The REAL Secret to Success
A lot of people online will tell you they have "the secret" to success, and you can have it if you're willing to pay for it.
Realistically, the secret is not in the their "swipe file," it can't be "funnel hacked," and it's not in some super bodacious email marketing sequence that's going to bring you six-figures in 30 days.
The people who peddle that are just modern-day "snake oil" salesmen, and I hope you never fall for that nonsense.
It's something much more subtle and simple to overlook. But time and again, I've realized the people I work with who succeed do one thing, and the people who don't do another.
Tune in to learn what will actually get you closer to your goals!
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Erika Tebbens: Hey and welcome back to the podcast. So I know that business, we would love it. If there was one super secret special thing that we could do that would just propel our business and secure our success and just make everything easy peasy and wonderful and perfect all the time.
That does not exist. I mean, really, you know, when we think about it, no matter what different marketing gurus will tell you, there is no one magic formula. But I will say that in my years of working with many, many, many, many women on helping them with their own businesses and helping them with success, whatever success looks like to them, I will say that there is one thing that absolutely is the indicator over whether somebody is going to succeed or an also have long-term sustained sustainable success, or if they will just fizzle and burn out and give up and say, "This doesn't work. And I hate it and I'm done." And all of that.
And that is really a success mindset and a willingness to look at challenges in a way as something that they can overcome rather than succumb to. So what I mean by that is I'm going to use a story and I'm going to change the names and some of the circumstances, because I, I want to protect the person's identity out of respect for her and her family. But I used to lead and mentor a woman that we are going to call Rachel.
So she's awesome. She has several kids. This was a few years ago, so they were all pretty young and she's married, her husband worked and she worked part time and just an awesome person, really, really awesome woman. So she was with me and my direct sales business that I had, and she was very, very determined.
She actually was a friend of a friend of mine. She had been with a different network marketing company. She couldn't go to my friend's party and she reached out to me and she said, "Hey, I, you know, I love the products that you sell. Um, I've had this one bag for years. I absolutely love it. I'm kind of not too jazzed with my current company. Can you tell me a little bit about joining your team?"
And I was like, "Whoa. Hold the phone." Like this, this is a rarity in the industry where somebody just reaches out to you out of the blue. They don't know you at all. And they're like, "Yeah, tell me about it. Like, I think I'm interested."
So right away. I was like, this woman is different and I'm loving it. Like she knows what she wants. She's going after it. This is awesome. So she started her business. She had a lot of success, uh, and, and I will say again, like success is all relative, like to you, success might mean six figures a year, to someone else success might mean paying for their kids' dance lessons or something, you know, so it's all relative.
But she was having success in the way that she wanted success. And it was super inspiring and she was, uh, having people join under her. And she was really great working with them and, um, just the phenomenal person. And then she got very sick. So again, I won't go into what she had out of respect for her and her privacy and her personal story, but she got very ill for a long time. So not only is this scary enough when you have multiple kids and you're busy running your home and everything to suddenly not be able to do all the stuff that you were normally doing, but it's also one of those where you go, "Okay, well, you know, something's got to give. And so if, you know, she needs to scale back on her business, I'm going to totally understand and be here for her and support her. And whenever she wants to come back, that will be great."
But no, she had been on this track of selling thousand dollars or more in product every single month. So that was her personal goal. She was determined, uh, no matter what was going on, she was going to make sure that that was going to happen. But then suddenly she couldn't leave her house really to party. So it was like, "Okay, well, you know, how are we going to do this? Like what what's this gonna look like?"
And cause it's, you know, it's a lot easier when you are out in your, in front of people and you're showing them the products and you're talking to them and you're giving them a good time. It's a lot easier to make those sales.
It's a lot harder when you aren't physically there in front of people. But she was hell bent she was going to hit her thousand. So we came up with a plan and she was very unwavering. She was going to do online parties. She was gonna do catalog parties. She was going to make it work. And so the whole time that she was in treatment and in recovery, she kept hitting that goal. And it was astonishing to me. Like, again, at any point, if she was like, "I just cannot do this anymore."
I would have been like, "You know what? I, I totally understand. You're amazing. You have had such a consistent track record. I get it. I'm here for you. It's all good."
But no, she was not giving up. And then, meanwhile, on the flip side of it, I had other people who had way, way, way, fewer roadblocks, way, fewer challenges in their life who were struggling to sell $200 in product a month. Now I didn't care, whatever somebody wanted to sell, they could sell. I was no pressure on what anyone on my team wanted to do. However, I am someone who will support you in your goals. So if you tell me, "I want to sell a thousand dollars in product every month, because I want that level of income that comes with it."
That's awesome. I'm going to give you a plan. I'm going to tell you what to do. I'm going to cheer you on. I'm going to follow up. I'm going to do all of those things. So for every Rachel, I had many others who were saying that they also wanted to hit a thousand every month. And I would tell them what to do. And then when I would follow up or week or two later, I would just be met with excuses. "Oh, I couldn't do it because of this. I couldn't do it because of that. Oh, it's just bad timing."
This, that, and the other. Now again, I don't, you know, whatever they want to do, they want to do it is their business. I'm purely here as a leader and a teacher and a mentor and a motivator. Anything else, that is on you. But you can't, you can only motivate somebody who is already self-motivated like, you can, what's the saying, like you could drive a horse water, but you can't make him drink. It was very much like that.
And it felt very frustrating after a while, because meanwhile, I am watching Rachel, somehow manage recovery, manage a severe medical situation, keep on rocking with consistency in her business, making it happen no matter what. Raising her kids, you know, being a wife, like all of that. And I, I'm thinking like, "If this woman can do it, then there's no reason that you can't do it."
And the more people I've worked with over the years, that is what I have really seen is if you were to say like, "What is the single greatest indicator Erika, of who will succeed and who will not succeed?"
I would say it is the person who is willing to be consistent, no matter what and not make excuses. And I think sometimes we think, you know, consistent, or you might, you might think of that, you know, "Sell a thousand dollars a month."
"Like what?, you know, I can't."
But, okay. So just to, you know, it, if that doesn't make sense for you and what you do in your industry, whatever, that's fine. I will say in our company with our products and everything like that, our averages, our average customer spend and all of that, it really, um, it, it was a stretch goal, but it was not the stretchiest of goals, I will say.
So a lot of times for leaders, which I was w our minimum goal that we tried to strive to reach, not that we were required to reach, but that we would strive to reach, was double that. So selling a minimum of 2000 a month, uh, at the end, where before I left the point that I had really been striving to was the consistent, uh, 4,000 plus in sales every month, month after month, that was like a really good stretch goal.
So to put it in a little bit of perspective for you, if 4,000 plus was a really good stretch goal, you know, a thousand is still a, uh, good high goal, it's still something to be very, very proud of. Um, but it wasn't like, I'm, it wasn't like she was trying to say like, "I'm gonna run a six-figure a year business while I'm sick, and I'm just gonna, uh, work myself into exhaustion day after day, week after week."
It wasn't like that it was a, a goal that was a bit of a stretch, but it was more about the fact that she was being very intentional and very consistent. And meanwhile, there are a lot of other people who weren't even selling, you know, a hundred, $200 in product a month, and all I was met with every time was just more and more excuses and reasons why they couldn't hit that.
So, if I, if I could say to you or to anyone. What is going to be the single biggest indicator of if you will succeed, it will be setting a goal and working towards it on a consistent, you know, day by day, week by week, month by month basis. It doesn't have to be a big, hairy, scary goal. You know, you can always change a goal. But it's that showing up, it's that recognizing those excuses when they creep in, evaluating, is the goal still a priority? Do you need to pivot? Do you need to change something? But looking at your roadblocks as something to work around on the path to reaching that goal and on that path to the consistent action in your business and not as an easy out in terms of being like, "Well, I just, you know, I, I couldn't do it because X, Y, and Z." and then being a defeatist about it.
So to say, I'm going to have another episode about burnout and hustle and all of that. Don't work yourself into a burnout frenzy. That's not what this is about. Your goal should be something that you can take consistent daily action on and not drive yourself to utter exhaustion and hating your business, but really be very careful.
About how excuses sneakily creep in and hold you back. Because I'm telling you if a very busy wife and mom of multiple children, multiple young children with a major medical issue can remain consistent to her goals and, and do it for a long period of time, not just, we're not just talking like three months, but a long, you know, years and years, long period of time, then you absolutely can have consistent sustainable success in your business as well.
If you need help, figuring out how to do that, by all means, reach out. Find me on social media at @erikatebbensconsulting, reach out, I'm happy to chat with you and see, because it might just be a really simple thing that you are overlooking, and I am happy to help get you on the right path.
So, if you are ready to say no to the excuses, holding you back, be sure to post in your Instastories, snap a pic of this podcast episode, posted there, tag me,@erikatebbensconsulting, and let me know that you are committed this year to saying no to your excuses and being consistent in hitting your business goals.
All right. Enjoy and happy selling.
