Ep. 084: A Framework to T.H.R.I.V.E.

Often we are so obsessed with monetary success that we end up falling victim to slick marketing that sells us on courses and programs that keep us more busy, rather than profitable. In my 15+ years of experience I've come to learn there are 6 essentials that are required to run an ethical business that can sustain you for the long term, and won't lead to burnout. In this episode I touch on each of these six. When you know and implement them (you probably already are with several of them) your weeks become more enjoyable and your growth is inevitable.

LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED TODAY:

• Your Next Big Thing Intensive: http://bit.ly/nbt-intensive

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  Welcome back to the podcast. If you have caught the recent episodes, you know, I was talking about, um, you know, living your truth in your business and my episode on politics. And then I was talking about, uh, really, you know, prioritizing rest and not glorifying productivity. As well, and these are actually two parts of my thriving business framework.

  So I wanted to share all six of them with you and the time that this is going out, uh, very soon, starting in this December, I'm going to be kicking off a new group program called rebellious success, which is really founded on doing a deep dive into these six things. Now chances are enrollment will be closed, but if you listen to this and you're like, Oh my gosh, I would love Eric has helped with this.

  This is speaking to me. Go ahead and reach out. Find me on Instagram at Erica Tobin's consulting and just see, because maybe, maybe there will be room and we can get you in. Or when I reopened enrollment, I can be sure to get you on a wait list. So I have a framework. It's the acronym, the word thrive. I've turned it into an acronym because I really love to think about not just having a successful business, but having a thriving business.

  That's what's really important to me. And you might wonder what the hell is the difference? Well, at least for me, I view the difference as thriving is more holistic. It's not just that the business is successful. It's that you aren't on the brink of burnout. You aren't doing anything that feels like it goes against your values and you are getting to work with people who, who light you up.

  Right. So it's just this more holistic view because I think sometimes success can just. You know, look at the business and say like, Oh, is the business successful? And I'm sort of like, yeah, but is, is the whole thing successful, right? Cause that is really what you need in order to have sustainable success is you, you need to have a business that works for you and not just, Oh, what you're making good money.

  Right. Because anyone can hustle really hard and make a lot of money. But if you can't sustain that for the long-term, then really what's the point, right? So, uh, the framework I have broken down, um, easily for you with this acronym. And I think that these are six things that are truly essential in order to have long lasting success and a thriving business.

  So first step T stands for truth. So for me, that is like everything I spoke about in the episode on sharing political beliefs, right? It is living out your truth, the truth that your business speaks to, and this doesn't have to be, you know, all of your personal truths, but the truth that your business speaks to live it loud and proud.

  Don't worry about fitting in. Don't worry about not ruffling feathers. You likely, if you were here, if you were in my orbit, you don't just want to make money, right? Like you want to make a difference. You want to, uh, have a business that positively impacts the people that you work with and, and possibly even your community and the world with, you know, making enough money that you can.

  Give back to the organizations that you really care about and how you can do this more easily is by speaking your truth. So whatever that thing is that you're like, you know what? This is, this is how I view. My industry, right? Like this is there's this problem in my industry. And with the way that people approach this thing I do.

  And I actually think it can be done this other way. Right. That is a truth. That is something that makes you stand out that makes you different from the crowd. And it doesn't mean that you have to be super negative or anything like that. I just mean, you know, whatever that thing is that you're like, Yeah.

  I, I actually, like, I disagree with that, or I think that there's a better way, put that in, put that in your brand, you know, let it, let it seep through, into all of the areas of the outward facing parts. Of your brand because when you are different, uh, I know there's the book, um, Seth Godin's purple cow, which, um, talks about this in more detail, if you want to check that out.

  But basically what that is is, you know, if you're driving past a field and it's just a bunch of black and white cows, you're just gonna be like, Oh, it's just it's cows. But if you're driving past a field and there was a purple cow, you would notice the purple cow. So it's important when you speak your truth, it naturally allows you to be a purple cow.

  This is not something fake or manufactured, uh, as like a gimmick. This is your truth. It's it's your, it's your deep belief. It's the. Thing that you want to bring to your industry and you want to bring to your, to your people, right? So live your truth, live out loud through your, through your brand, um, and know that it will attract the right people and repel the wrong people.

  So next step H so this is health. So a lot of times, unfortunately, We do not look at our personal health or personal health challenges or obstacles or the health of people that we might be caregivers for. Right? So our kids, maybe if we have older parents, anything, you know, our, our partners, anything like that, this is essential because there's a difference between I've had this conversation with a lot of friends.

  There's a difference between something being. Uh, a mindset issue and excuse as thing being a real obstacle. So I've had this conversation with a friend of mine who has four kids with special needs. This is not something that she made up. This is not a limiting belief or a mindset block or whatever. This is her real life, right?

  She, he needs to have a business that is structured in a way that. If shit is hitting the fan and she needs to step in and help her kid that she can do that. Right? This is important. Same thing, you know, if you win with anything, right? If you have a health challenge that could potentially impact your business, like let's say you have an autoimmune disorder and you never know when you're going to have a flare.

  And when you have a flare. It's going to be really hard to do one-to-one client calls. Right? Well, you can structure your business in a way that doesn't necessarily have one-to-one client calls. Right. And this is, this is doable. This is possible. And I think that far too often, people just give this prescriptive advice.

  That's like, Oh, we'll just do this. And then, you know, you'll make all this money. And it's like, yeah. But if that doesn't work for you, you're not going to have long-term health of your business. Right. So be mindful of that. So there's personal health and then there's your business health? What do you mean by business health?

  I mean, look at the health of your business. Look at the numbers. Look at the data. It's so easy to get wrapped. Our emotions wrapped up in this, right. It's so easy to be like, I don't want to look at my money. I don't want to look at my numbers because I'm going to, I'm going to have judgment around it.

  Right. That was me for years. Right. I would, I, in my past business, I sucked, I sucked with my finances and my business. It was the worst, I think about it now. And I'm like, wow. What the, I can't even believe I had the success that I did because I would spend like a Saturday in January bitching and moaning doing all of my expenses for the whole past year to prepare my taxes.

  I would do this to myself every year. And it wasn't because I didn't know how, and it wasn't because I was lazy. It was because I didn't. Want to look at the health of my business, because I was telling myself stories instead of just looking at the truth and making decisions from there. When you look at the actual data and you look at it objectively, you get to be proactive instead of reactive, and you get to make better decisions because you are making decisions based on truth and not.

  A fairy fairytale. You've told yourself not a fiction, right? So if you keep saying, I am exhausted, I hate doing all of this, all of these tasks of my business week after week, these are not zone of genius tasks. They are tiring. I absolutely despise doing them. I wish I could have a VA. And then you're like, but I can't afford a VA.

  Right. Where is that coming from? Have you looked at the data? Do you know how much a VA could cost? Have you researched, do you know the amount of money coming into your business, going out of your business? Like what is going on? Right. And the truth is maybe you can't. Right. But at least when you know, then, you know, then you can go, okay, right now I can't.

  How much would a VA be? Let's see, $250 a month. Perfect. What can I do to make an extra $250 a month? Right? You can make better decisions. All right. So next step is are, so this is rest. Build yourself a business that prioritizes rest. This does not mean that you have to only work for two hours a day and lay around the Horace the time because some people.

  Honestly, like my friend Tasha, who's been on the podcast. She loves working 40 hours a week. She loves it. She does it doesn't matter to her. She's not aiming to work less or, you know, work fewer hours. She's talked about it on podcasts, episodes and stuff. You might be somebody who has the time and the space and the mental energy to work a 40 hour.

  Workweek and you might love it. It might, you know, make your heart sing and somebody else might be like, I really only have the bandwidth or the space or the current situation. 15 hours. That's fine. Either way is fine. One is not better than the other, because again, we are not robots, right? We are not cookie cutter versions of each other.

  So it's, it's going to be different for different people. But I would say that, you know, it's good to give yourself boundaries and parameters and, and all of that. What like what we would, you know, do for other people and what we would suggest that our clients do and everything we need to do it for ourselves.

  So if you optimally only want a 20 hour work week 20 to 25 hours, which is where I'm at right now. Just figure out a way, like you don't build your, build out your business around that. Right. So that might mean, you know, a change in your offers or in your marketing or whatever. There's a lot of different things you can do, but build out your schedule from what's.

  The ideal is. And what would feel spacious? What would give you enough white space for the other stuff you love? Because even if you're not exhausted by your schedule, if you don't have time for other things that light you up, even if the other things that light you up are watching Netflix. Like if that just feels good and restorative.

  Then give yourself a schedule that allows you to do that right. And to do it without judgment. So prioritize, rest, build out your schedule around your energetic capacity, your energetic capacity. It could look different from week to week and from year to year and all sorts of stuff. I have other episodes where I talk about my weekly workflow and my CEO Monday, and all of that, my weeks are set up with intention based on my personal.

  Like energetic patterns. Right? So I strongly suggest that, uh, if for long-term sustainability of your business, really map out your energetic cycles and patterns and then frame out your business around those things. Okay. Next step is I impact. So this is how you have your impact, right? Through your offers.

  You impact people through. The paid offers that you have, that, you know, the ways that they can work with you. And again, it's important to be intentional about this just because everyone in their brother says, you need to have a course. Doesn't mean you need to have a course. If you want to have a course, you can.

  If you want to have a membership, you can. If you want to have a mastermind, you can do that. If you just want to do one-on-one work, you can do that. Or you can have a combo. There's all different things that you can do. But I want you to be intentional about the impact that you have with your work and the impact goes both ways.

  Your offers should positively impact your clients, but again, they should also positively impact yourself. They should be able to get your, to your goals. They should be able to honor that restful schedule. They should be able to lean into your strengths and leverage them and get people great results. All right.

  So we're almost done the, is your voice. So this is where you take everything I've already been talking about and you get it out there into the world. This is your content. This is your messaging. So how do you take your truth and how do you take the impact you want to make? And how do you look at, you know, your restful schedule and the health of your business and the health of yourself?

  And create a content plan that works for you. So whether this podcast or blogging or YouTube, or microblogging on social media or a combination. This is where you get your message out to the world, to your people so they can know about you. You can nurture them, you can build that know like, and trust, right?

  So you, you can change this all the time. My first year I did a lot of blogging. I don't do so much blogging anymore because I'm focused on the podcast. So use your voice, trust it, get it out there. You're perfect. People want to hear it? And lastly is exposure. I've saved. What is quite possibly one of the most important and terrifying things for last exposure is your marketing plan.

  It's how you get noticed by people who will be perfect clients, collaborators, or colleagues. But it also feels exposing. It feels vulnerable. It feels terrifying. This is where we worry. We are going to be judged. We are going to get it wrong. People are going to laugh at us. People are going to say, no, people are going to decline our offers.

  Right. We're going to make it mean something about all of those other things, about our truths, about our voice, about our health, about all of that. Right. But this is where people get stuff. W like, I want you to say really wrong, like, but they're just not doing it enough. And you might be thinking, what about sales?

  Erica? Talk about sales a lot, but the fricking podcast is called salat sister. And you know, what about systems? I've heard systems are important. Here's the thing, as you're building out all of these. Systems should be baked in systems are what allow you to have that restful schedule? What allow you to honor your health?

  What allow you to get help? You know, cause I, I view outsourcing is really helpful. Like we should not always just be a business of one forever and ever and ever it doesn't mean you have to have a huge team, but we should get help. But when you, when you. Are mindful and methodical about these steps and you systematize them along the way.

  It is easier to be consistent. It is easier to get help. It all like. So I systems are important. They're super important, but I feel like you can, you can set them up as you go. And here's the truth about selling? Most people do not have a sales problem. They have a marketing problem and sales are still very important obviously.

  And S like selling skills are extremely important, and that's why, you know, I love to help people with selling and feeling comfortable and confident with selling and doing it in a non sleazy way. However, usually the problem is not a problem of you're getting a million discovery calls and people just aren't saying yes, it's that you're not even getting discovery calls.

  You don't have enough eyeballs on you. Right. This is a marketing problem. And oftentimes content and marketing, just get lumped in as one and the same. So we spend a ton of time blogging and creating content. And all of this content is just a part of marketing content is where you know, where, when people know about you, then they can look at your content and go, does their truth.

  Speak to me. Does, you know, do their values, speak to me? Does they're like. Persona and mission and all of that. Does it speak to me if so, I'm going to hang around and pay attention to this person. But often what happens is, is we are not out there getting ourselves in front of enough people. And so therefore we're busying ourselves creating content, but it's going unnoticed because we just aren't.

  We aren't getting visible enough and I have some podcast episodes on visibility strategies. So you can definitely check those out and misconceptions and marketing myths. So definitely check those out as well. Uh, but those, those are the six. Those, you know, they spelled thrive, cap them, truth, health, rest impact, voice exposure.

  So that is how you thrive in business. And when you do all of that, the truth is the sales will come, right? When, when people are resonating with you and then they're bingeing your content and they're like, Oh my God, I know I can trust this person now. Like I want to work with them. The sales come so much easier.

  There's no convincing because you have shown up in a way that is perfectly aligned. With your perfect people and then it just flows and then it's amazing and wonderful. And this is stuff I've had to learn over the years of many different businesses and really excavate it in myself and lean into it.

  And you know what, sometimes, because I'm human, I get off track. Sometimes they get shiny object syndrome. Sometimes I get FOMO. Sometimes I get comparisonitis right. But I just always come back to. Like w in this framework, what, what you, I need, where, where is there an actual problem? Right. And then when, you know, when you know these six things, then you can go, where is the problem?

  Am I not, am I not clear on my truth? No, I'm, I'm hella clear on my truth and I'm, I'm putting it and using my voice to spread it right. Doing consistent content, putting stuff out there. I'm being authentic. I'm showing up. Uh, I'm not overworking myself. I'm, you know, not impinging on my own health. I am, you know, looking, I'm tracking of the data in my business.

  I'm doing all of that. Where is the issue? Oh, maybe it's an exposure issue. Maybe I need to be doing more, more mindful marketing. Right. And that's also where you can look and go, where do I need help? So it could be, you know, you are doing all of the things right for you and you're getting results, but you're like, great.

  Now I need, I want more. Right. I need help. Maybe you're like, yeah. You know what? My, my like, content, like I've got, I know what my voice is. I know what my truth is, but like, I don't want to, I don't want to spend my time. Creating content. I would actually like to outsource that I would love to have somebody else write blog posts for me and come up with social media content for me and do all of that.

  That's cool. You can outsource that. But then when, you know, when you, when you are certain, it prevents you from spending money on the wrong things in your business, because you might be like, Oh, my gosh, I don't know what's wrong. And I'm getting, you know, like this big influencer, this big name in my industry says like, I need to have a course or I need to have a membership or I need to have a Facebook group.

  So maybe I do. And I feel like I do. And they're showing me all these, all this proof of, you know, other people who've gotten these great results instead of being so swayed by that slick marketing, you can go, hang on, let me look at my six things. Where are the gaps? How do I want to fill them? Is it with a course or is it something else?

  And a lot of times you might realize it's something else. And sometimes it might be, you know, it might be that impact. It might be that, Oh yeah, I'm actually at capacity. And I would love to do a course. And this person is going to teach me how to do that. Beautiful. I'm going to invest $2,000 and I'm going to learn how to make a course phenomenal.

  Right. You're just empowered to make better decisions because you actually know where the gaps are, you know, where you need help, you know, how you want to get that help. And so on and so forth. So I hope, I hope you found this useful, you know, much like everything I do. I always want to lead with value and make things super valuable and actionable and helpful.

  If you have any questions by all means, reach out to me. And if you loved this, share it with a friend, tag me on Insta share in your stories. You can find me again at Erica Kevin's consulting and as always happy selling.