Note: at this time transcripts are automated and unedited, which means errors may occur. But we hope you find them helpful!

[00:00:00] Viv: Welcome back to another episode of Marketing Without Social Media. Now, before we dive in, I wanted to let you know that if you are a service-based business, think coaches, consultants, therapists, who wants to get to $7,000 plus recurring months, yes, every month, but needs help with growing your audience, maybe with generating regular leads or landing paying clients, then I’d like to invite you to a free.

[00:00:26] Viv: 15 minute leads. Game plan call. Yes, just 15 minutes to work on your marketing plan. This is a super fast pace call and in this call we are gonna take a look at your current situation to see what is and isn’t working for you right now in your business. We’re gonna figure out and identify what’s possible for you and your business in the next six months and beyond.

[00:00:48] Viv: We’re gonna uncover the number one. That is restricting your growth and holding you back right now. And finally, we are gonna develop a three step action plan. [00:01:00] Yes, three step action plan that will get you results in your business. A S A P. Now the session is, Free. It’s 15 minutes and all you have to do is head on over to viv guy.com/game plan.

[00:01:15] Viv: Yes, that’s viv guy.com/game plan right now. Pick a day, pick a time that suits you, and let’s chat. In today’s episode, I’m diving into the number one thing that I see holding people back from growing their businesses and getting fully booked with clients time and time again. Ready to find out what it is.

[00:01:38] Viv: Let’s dive in.

[00:01:44] Viv: You’re listening to Marketing Without Social Media with me, Viv Guy, the podcast for people who want more clarity, connections, and cash in their business. I’ll be sharing with you proven techniques from leading entrepreneurs and experts [00:02:00] from across the. To help you to market without social media and to grow your business in a way that actually feels good to you.

[00:02:17] Viv: One of my favorite phrases, or maybe it’s a quote from a coach of mine, previous coach Gemma Gilbert, was Choose your hard. And it stays with me all the time, and it is so, so true, and I use this so often. Now, choose your hard, make the decision which is harder, okay? And we’re gonna dive into what I mean by this right now.

[00:02:42] Viv: So what I find as entrepreneurs and in life, we are quite happy to stay in the status quo, even though status quo is not necessarily our happy place, our financially abundant place, there’s a point where we go, I’m not suffering enough [00:03:00] to want to change things. Okay? It’s, it’s okay. But there comes a point when we make that decision of, you know, I don’t want to go on like this any longer, which is.

[00:03:11] Viv: And we wanna make change. But change can, can feel hard. And making those changes can feel hard. And so often, you know, if you think about weight loss, quitting smoking, drinking, Caffeine, any of those things, you know that you do well, you make a commitment, but then actually it feels really hard and so you quit.

[00:03:33] Viv: You give up, you stop and maybe you go back and start again. And I love this. Choose your hard because it’s like, which is harder actually? Is it harder to stay the course and make that commitment to stay alcohol free, to do everything that you can to, to kind of quit whatever it is that you’re trying to quit or implement, or the habit that you’re trying to build.

[00:03:54] Viv: is it harder to do that or is it actually harder to live with the consequences of continuing [00:04:00] to, for example, overeat to smoke, you know, and, and the impact of that to drink excessively, whatever those things are. Is it, you know, let’s talk about business. Is it easier to just stay where you are, kind of, uh, maybe an income plateau where you’re kind of just getting by.

[00:04:18] Viv: You’d like to be making more, you know, you’re kind of hand to mouth living. Can’t really cl ahead, but you are. Okay. You’re making off. Is it? You know, do you wanna just keep going like that? or do you want to, you know, commit to making a difference, like making things better for you? Kind of getting to that point where you go, I can plan ahead.

[00:04:40] Viv: I’ve got freedom, I feel good, I feel secure. My anxiety about money and the stress that surrounds that has gone because I know that I can get clients, for example, on a monthly basis, which is harder to just stay in that, that state of kind of, Feeling anxious and worried and wondering where your next client and [00:05:00] where your next paycheck’s coming from, versus kind of doing some of the things that don’t feel so easy because they may be new, they’re unknown, and feel hard.

[00:05:09] Viv: but they’re gonna get you to where you want to go. So heart, heart is something we have to deal with in life and in business, and I really love this. As I say, choose your heart because it is a choice. Everything we do is a choice in life. So if we are stuck, if things aren’t going according to plan, then we have a choice to make a change.

[00:05:31] Viv: and the thing I see most in, in the line of work that I do in helping people to get fully booked with one-to-one clients to learn how to do that. So they have consistent revenue, have consistent income, have predictability, you know, have some level of certainty, are able to plot. You know, think about booking holidays, buying a new house, paying for their children or your children to go through [00:06:00] university debt free and to graduate debt free.

[00:06:02] Viv: All of those kinds of things. Retiring early, retiring, your partner, any of those things that you are passionate about doing. This is what being fully booked within your business. Whatever your business, if you are a service-based provider, obviously that’s my jam then that is. We want to get to, and it isn’t a smooth journey.

[00:06:22] Viv: You know, there are hard times in there because what happens is when you start getting clients in, , there’s always a natural lull that comes after that because you are now, you know, you get a nat a, a natural influx at the start, and that’s what we do within my program. We put something out, so we get you sort of paying clients in, but then what happens is, depending on the length of your program and how much time you spend, uh, getting yourself out there.

[00:06:49] Viv: Then there can be a law that comes as you’re building in those systems where you haven’t taken on a new client for a a few months, and that feels hard. You start to doubt yourself. You start to doubt what you’re [00:07:00] doing, but it changes. Okay? It does change and it gets better. For anyone there that’s kind of go, oh, that sounds hard.

[00:07:05] Viv: It gets better for anyone that’s been in business a long time, you’ll have been through that. You totally get what I’m talking about. Okay, because you’ve gotta figure out, you’ve gotta put in those, those things. The processes, the systems that enable you to then onboard clients on a regular recurring basis, and that that takes time.

[00:07:22] Viv: There is no overnight success. Quick fix marketing. Okay, sustainable, real, authentic marketing takes time. So what is the thing, okay, that I see the hard that most people don’t wanna step into? Well, this is visibility and showing up. So I talk a lot. The fastest way to grow your audience. The fastest rate, obviously, to grow your business is to borrow other people’s audiences, to leverage other people’s audiences, okay?

[00:07:54] Viv: That is the fastest way to grow your audience, and we know why do we wanna grow our audience? Because we know there is a direct [00:08:00] correlation between the number of leads that you bring in i e email subscribers versus the number. Clients that you generate the number of sales that you make each month. So we know we need to be bringing new people in, building that email list up.

[00:08:15] Viv: Okay? But this is what I see people struggle with and avoid the most because it can feel hard. But visibility is the number one thing you need to be focusing on in your business, okay? Especially in those early days as you building up your client roster and getting to that point of, of, of building up your email.

[00:08:36] Viv: And getting known so that, you know, you become fully booked and then we have to continue with that visibility. But in our early days, you know, showing up like 25% of your time is not enough. If you are struggling in your business, I want you to be showing up way more than 50%. You know, if you don’t have many clients, then 75% of your time, you know, Three, at least three out of [00:09:00] five days a week.

[00:09:01] Viv: Visibility. And I don’t just mean showing up and posting on social media, that is not enough. Just po like emailing your email list is not enough. I’m talking about getting out there and making connections, going to networking events, going and collaborating with people, connecting, having a coffee, zoom, chat with people you know who could be.

[00:09:21] Viv: um, people you could collaborate with, people you could do swapsies with, people you could guess speak with, you know, what are those opportunities? And this is the hard that most people struggle with. But the reality is, guys, and I’m really sorry to say this and be the bearer of bad news, but it’s the reality, you know, clients don’t grow on trees.

[00:09:42] Viv: They don’t clients just because you’ve opened your doors and said, I am here. I am wonderful. You know, come and be coached by me. Come and let me transform your life. It people don’t just suddenly know you exist and flock to you. I so wish business [00:10:00] and marketing was like that, but that isn’t how it works when you’re start.

[00:10:04] Viv: That isn’t, it’s not even how it works. When you’re established, you know, , look at all the multiple seven, eight figure entrepreneurs out there. They still market the shit out of their business. Yeah. They get more selective with where they’re showing up and things in person, but they are still marketing.

[00:10:20] Viv: They are still out there because they know that, again, that there’s a direct correlation between the, the list growth and their sales and their revenue. So choosing your heart. Okay. What is it that’s stopping you? What is, what is harder? Is it harder to get up, show up, get visible, and get to that point where you have consistent clients, consistent income?

[00:10:48] Viv: or is it harder to stay where you are kind of struggling, feeling crap, feeling anxious, feeling stressed, feeling like you, someone said the best line to me the other day, like, you’re a pressure cooker about to explode [00:11:00] because you just feel so frustrated, which is harder in the long run. You wanna spend the next 20, 30 years of your life in.

[00:11:10] Viv: I’m stuck. I dunno how to make more money. Or do you wanna just kind of go, ah, it feels a little hard and uncomfortable doing this because it’s new to me, but actually this is what I need to do in my business to make it successful. You know? And this is where I’m here to help. If you kind of go, I don’t wanna do it alone.

[00:11:26] Viv: It feels really hard. Don’t know what to do if this happens or that happens. Don’t really narrow to approach people in a way that doesn’t feel icky. And then I don’t really know what to freaking do with the whole rest of it, because that’s just one tiny part of our. Client clients in 20 engine, as I like to call it.

[00:11:39] Viv: So how do we get clients in just 20 hours a week and stay fully booked? Okay, that’s what we’re aiming for. We want to create this client creation engine. How do you do that? What are all the components? Well, as I say, one, one part of that is bringing in leads, but that is just one part of that engine. So, How do you choose your heart?

[00:11:59] Viv: And I just want you [00:12:00] to, to share with you, like several years ago, my hobby and I were having a really hard time in our marriage, and the reality is that it was getting to that make or break point. Yeah. We had really, really got to a, a difficult kind of crossroads in our relationship. It was really that point where I had to decide and we both did like what was harder, staying stuck.

[00:12:29] Viv: And we’d been in that state for a couple of years before like it, you know, always having like the same conversation around the same problem that kept coming up. And you know, it got to that point of going, I was kind of like, I’m done now, you know. What was harder for me was staying, staying in that relationship or this relationship cuz we’re still together.

[00:12:52] Viv: I’m gonna get to that or you know, cuz for me at the time, figuring out like a way to get, like, to figuring [00:13:00] out like, and having to go and get help felt really hard. Cuz I knew it was gonna be a long process, whereas I could just go, mm, I’m done. and that still felt really hard. You know, we’ve got kids, it was gonna be a really tough decision, but it almost, it almost felt less difficult.

[00:13:18] Viv: But actually for me it was choosing like what, which was harder? Well, the harder at the time was, was committing to go to counseling and therapy and really work through this. I think the, the harder in the long term would’ve been if I just cut and run and always doubted. Could we have saved this relationship?

[00:13:40] Viv: You know, and as my therapist at the time said, you know, there, um, if you do this, it’s just gonna repeat in your relationships over and over and over again. So that would’ve been harder staying stuck in that cycle versus going and getting the help, but it felt really, really hard at the time. Um, so yeah, so for me it was, it.

[00:13:59] Viv: It [00:14:00] was, it was hard. It was choose my heart, and as I say, sometimes it is. Sometimes it does sometimes feel harder to choose the solution. But in the long run, oh boy. So, so worth it. Because that hard is only hard for a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, because hard’s only hard. When you are unsure, you’re uncertain and you don’t know what you’re doing.

[00:14:23] Viv: As soon as you learn the skills, you learn what you need to be doing, it stops being so hard. But stay where you. You know, and, and kind of allowing that same stuff to be going on is, is definitely harder cuz it lasts for, well forever if you don’t deal with it. So I want you to just think about choosing your heart when it comes to getting out there, getting seen within your business.

[00:14:50] Viv: If you’ve enjoyed this episode and found this useful and you think someone in your, your world, your network would find it useful, I would be so, so grateful if you would [00:15:00] be willing to share it. And please do email me hello@vivguide.com and let me know what you’ve enjoyed about today’s episode. Thank you so much as always for listening, and I’ll speak to you guys soon.