Transcript of Ep 48-The Exact Steps I'd Take If I Started A New Business What I'd Focus on First

Welcome to Episode 48 of the Mothers of Enterprise Podcast. I'm your host, Suzy Olivier, mama of three, military wife and successful serial entrepreneur of 16 years, now turned business mentor and mindset coach for women who want it all, minus the hustle and the overwhelm. This show is for the woman who wants to build a wildly successful, high profit, heart-centred business and thriving lifestyle, all while raising a family. It's time to harness your feminine superpowers and join me as we dive into all things mindset, business strategy, wealth creation and motherhood to support you in building the business and life of your dreams. Welcome to the Mothers of Enterprise Podcast.

Hello, hello, good morning or afternoon or evening when you're listening to this, clearly it is morning for me. I have just fed little Gabriella into a deep slumber and have her happily in her cot with the monitor with the nanny. So I get to be here with you for the next 25 minutes or less if I can speak really fast and keep my information concise and to the point, which I realize I'm not doing right now. So I really wanted to do this episode because I heard someone else do it. Yes, I'm mildly copycatting and I hugely disagreed with what she was saying. Not in this moan about anyone or throw shade at anyone, as the cool kids say.

But just because I think this person who had an episode of this nature has been in the stratosphere of success, that she's at multiple seven figures. In fact, I think she might even be eight figures for such a long time that I don't think she remembers what it's like to be starting out with very limited resources and limited funds because she kind of went at from the angle of like, I would create an amazing offer and I would hire the coach, and I would hire the support and the team and the resources and the courses, and I would go and interview all the people to make sure offers completely dialed in. And then I'll decide my single marketing platform, which I agree with.

And I would hire the coach and the experts and I'll go find the best people in the industry and I'll go work with them. And like, what a beautiful, idealistic way to approach it. Wouldn't that be nice if everyone starts their business with all the funds in the world to go and invest, to work with the very best in whatever arena niche industry that you are working in? So, I mean, if you've got the funds to do that, please, beautiful lady, go and do that. You will fast track, shortcut your success exponentially and you'll actually enjoy the journey a whole lot more because you won't be constantly hitting your head against brick walls wondering why the hell things aren't working or why it's so hard. And quite frankly, you don't know what you don't know.

And so having experts alongside of you will be immensely helpful, obviously. So whilst I will talk about getting support in my version of what I would do now if I started my business again, it's not the be all and end all, and I don't think it's the number one focus here. I think it's a really important would be nice and I think it's a really important yes, make it a priority and do whatever you can to get support. But at the same time, I don't think I got off their podcast episode and in my head I'm like, wow, you just wouldn't start a business based on that advice unless you had multiple five figures to invest in not only the business, but support for a business. So anyway, that rambling on here is what I would do.

Now, before I actually get into my list, I have got a full business roadmap for starters, PDF, which has a whole let me scroll all the way down 23 steps that I would take right now if I were to start this specific business all over again. Now, we'll get some pointers along the way. As I'm talking, that may be a bit more relevant for my product based ladies, but you can get your hands on this PDF. I'll pop in the link below. It's actually kind of a combo deal. When you download my what to do with a business idea guide, which is free, you will get the business roadmap for Tajas for free as well, which contains tons of links and kind of free resources and free support to support the various steps. Anyway, so now this might be a no brainer.

If you are used to listening to me and you followed along with me for a little while, is I would do whatever I needed to do to develop an almost completely unshakable mindset and confidence in what I was going to be doing in that business. Now, I'm not saying like I want you to only start your business or I wouldn't start my business if I wasn't feeling 1000% confident. Because something I talk about a lot is normalizing impostor syndrome. Normalizing the fact that you're not always going to feel good enough, you're not always going to feel amazing, you're not always going to feel deserving, and that's absolutely okay. Nothing's wrong with you, but I would be doing what I can so that the majority of the time I felt like my success was inevitable and I really felt like I could do it.

Like, I'm Here for this, I'm made for this. I'm capable, I'm more Than capable, I'm deserving. This is going to be amazing. And so I would prioritize that which couples in nicely with kind of I would get really clear on the vision I have for the business. Something I see a lot is clients come to me and I go, right, what's the big vision here? Where do you want to use Business? And like, oh, I just want to get a couple of grand in the bank a month. I'm like, no, that's not really A Clear Vision. I mean, it's very easy to get a business to a couple of grand a month. It's very not difficult, but it's a different ballgame and requires some very deep intentionality to design a business that puts a couple of grand in your month and then some.

But actually you get to enjoy the process of running that business. So it might be like, I want to get to five K months working 10 hours a week only during school hours doing X, Y and Z because these make me really happy. So Get really Clear on the Business that I wanted to start, How I wanted to run it, How I wanted to Work and the Money I wanted to earn. Obviously that can be incremental. Like my first goal will be like, right, let's get you those consistent five K months by the end of the year. I want to be on consistent ten K months and then looking at how to scale that going further.

So really clear on where I wanted to take the business, how I wanted to experience running the business, the income I wanted from the business, and then couple that with really intentional, prioritized mindset work to develop the confidence and the self belief around that, then I would actually make sure that the market wanted what I wanted to do. Now if you are a coach, for example, and you want a life coaching business, you didn't really have to go and validate the fact people want life coaching. I think it's very clear from scrolling Instagram, people want life coaching, people want health coaching, they want business coaching, they want relationship coaching, they want mindset coaching, they want wealth coaching, they want energy alignment coaching, success coaching, career coaching, leadership coaching. I mean, I could probably keep going for another couple hours with all the different coaching.

So if you know full well that people are buying what you want to be doing, that's absolutely fine. What I would do is just, if you kind of wanting to take a unique spin on it, just go and ask a few people, not your mum, not your siblings, not your husband, partners, best friends, someone may be detached from you. Maybe this kind of the school gate mums, if you're in a great Facebook community, go and do a plug for the Mothers of Enterprise Society on Facebook. Go and ask there. I'm not saying you have to kind of get super detailed. Like, this is the business that I want to start and these are the offers I want to create. And here's all the details.

I mean, you can, it'll be helpful, but you just want to get an idea of what people will be willing to pay for the service you want to do. And is there an actual, real, genuine need for the nature of the offer that you want to create within your industry? So again, I'm going to apply it to me. If I was starting mothers of enterprise right now, today, I would go and join some entrepreneurial mums in Business Facebook group. And I will say, right, I want to create these types of coaching containers. I think the investments are going to be in the ballpark of this amount. This is how I want to structure it. This is how I want to offer my support. Feedback, what do you think?

And also you're going to get some people going, oh, it's far too expensive, I'd never pay for that. Or I like to get mine off. Whatever my advice, off Google, you're going to get some people like that and they aren't your people. That's fine. So actually, with that point, if you're posting a Facebook groups, make sure the Facebook groups actually got people in that you would want to be your clients and customers. If you're going for a high ticket coach, don't go and post it in like a bargain coupon cutting mum group because you might not have your target market there. A bit of market research just to validate the idea and the offer that you want to put out to the world. I would then go in and just do a little bit of market research into who my competitors are.

I love the book Blue Ocean Strategy. Please go and read it. Listen to it if you haven't already. But it's a notion of looking at your industry and looking what's out there and creating your USP, your unique selling point. How can you kind of take the norm and flip it on its head so that you create a blue ocean for yourself and not a red ocean, which is essentially kind of where everyone's fighting to win and fighting to succeed. So go and read blue Ocean strategy. Whether you are ten years into your business or whether you just want to start, it's a really helpful book to make you realize that you've actually got the power to do what the hell you like in your business.

Just because she's doing it that way and she's successful, or he's doing that way, he's successful, or they are doing it, you don't have to follow that path. So I'm all for looking at what's in the industry and what's working and being inspired by that and kind of making your own model of that, but also just give yourself all the permission in the world to turn it on its head and do what you actually think is best. So yeah, market research from a competitor's perspective, what's out there, how is it structured, what the price points are, how successful do they appear to be? I feel like there's a podcast episode brewing in me about profits because so many businesses are in their eyeballs, up to their eyeballs rather in debt, or are just about making ends meet.

So don't get too swayed by what you see on social media or websites because the story behind the scenes might be completely different, but that's a conversation for a different day. Then I would get so clear and defined as to the purpose of my business. What is the mission of my business? I know it's tempting if you are a multi passionate entrepreneur or a multi passionate coach. I had a conversation recently on a discovery call with a beautiful new potential client who was saying like, oh, but I want to serve these people. And I want to serve these people and I want to serve them from a life coaching perspective and I want to serve them from a health coaching perspective. And that's all great and wonderful.

And yep, you can definitely have that kind of wider spread offering nature on if you are just starting out, be laser focused. If you imagine kind of having a torch shining on a paper like the whole paper is illuminated, that's great, but not really kind of making any impact on that paper. If you've got a high beam laser at the paper, you're going to burn a hole in it. And that's the approach I want you to have when you are starting a new business.

Certainly the approach if I were starting Mother's mentor prize right now, today, I would go in with one core coaching program and I would sell it to ourselves and I would make it as efficient and streamlined and high converting and impactful and transformative as I could and then I would layer in and stack in other offers as I went along. There's the obvious ones like deciding the business name and check domains and check trademarks and check the handles are available on social media, so I'm not going to dive in too deeply to that. But obviously you want to choose a compelling, attractive, persuasive name that will magnetize your ideal clients or customers. Put kind of the branding elements, the logos, the fonts, the colours and everything like that. Again, not going to go hugely into this because you kind of know that already.

I would say don't kind of get too hung up on that stuff. But at the same time, you want to stand out, you want to attract your ideal people. The days of you can just throw some logo together that's a bit shitty looking on Canva and then have 29 different fonts and have colours changing all the time and think that's going to do it. I think those days are gone. People need to up their game with their visual branding, how their website and how their grids and how their social media post and how their emails are being presented. I think the days of winging that and doing a half past attempt are over. So get really clear on that. Again, I think you can still DIY. There's a Mustang. You have to go hire a designer.

I'm saying if you got the funds to hire a designer, do it. Otherwise, just do some research and put some effort and time into this to make sure that it looks beautiful and it's really designed to say magnetize and attract your ideal clients and customers. Okay, so we've got the co offer, we got a brand happening, we've got a business name happening. I would then start looking at creating my content plan for marketing this. So yes, I would head for social media. I would probably choose just one. Probably Instagram. Would I do Instagram? Yeah, I would do Instagram first and then I would layer in a Facebook community just because that's worked really well for me and I think it is still working. The whole Facebook groups are dead thing. You've heard me talk about this before. It's absolute BS.

When anyone ever says something is dead, it's just because they're trying to peddle something else or because they didn't have success. Like webinars are dead. No, they're not. I know plenty of people who are converting webinars like absolute hotcakes. Email lists are dead, no one opens their emails anymore. Absolute BS. It's just amazing. Mad. So I won't rant on that right now. I'll save that rant for a different day. For me, Instagram Facebook community would be my main focus. From a content perspective. I would really be thinking about what my ideal client needs to hear from me. Where they're at, where are their head? Sort of, where's their headspace? What are their thoughts? What are their worries, their concerns, their anxieties, their challenges, their desires. And I'd be talking to that.

I want them to come onto my grid and feel seen and heard and understood. I want to build empathy with them, with my content. So I really want them to go to communicate that I understand where they're at and I've been where they're at, and I'm on the other side with my beautiful, blissful, high income, high impact business. And that my desire is to help them achieve and experience that too. So I would create a plan around that. Again, perhaps that's an entirely different podcast episode of how to create a beautiful, compelling content plan. So hop over to Mothers of enterprise on Instagram. Send me a DM if that's something you want to hear about. With that content plan. It would be a very strong visibility strategy to go along with it.

I would be doing all I can to get in front of other people's audiences. I think so many business owners trip up here when they start coming into the market and they knew is they start posting and they think like posting and hashtags should just do it for them. Again, I think those days are over. You have to go and find your people. And the easiest way to find your people, the easiest way to grow your audience when you are brand new is to get in front of other people's audiences. So I would be pitching myself to anyone where I think they have some of my ideal clients in their audience.

So podcasts, Facebook groups, guest writer on their website, for a blog, maybe on their YouTube channel, on the Instagram Lives, collaborations, giveaways, my physical product, ladies giveaways, influencers, brand reps, anything to utilize and take loving, kind, integrity filled advantage of other people's audiences to attract them and bring them into my world. I would be doing that at full throttle. Even though it's offering my time up for free to offer coaching, live coaching sessions or whatever the case might be. I would be doing that all in to really build that audience up. Then at the exact same time of that visibility strategy doing its thing, I would be building up my email list. Please. Beautiful, beautiful souls, please. Hope you can hear the eagerness, desperation, passion, in my voice build an email list. Do not build your entire business on social media.

I say to my clients all the time, if your Instagram kicked you out tomorrow, which it happens, if you got locked out of your account, never to gain access again, if you could never get back to your Facebook community, if you could never get onto your TikTok or whatever you are posting ever again, what would happen to your business? And too many answer I would be screwed and I don't want that for you. Social media is rented land. It's amazing, it's effective, it works. It's still working again. Don't believe the BS. Instagram is dead and you have to go and build somewhere else.

Anything works if you work it. Go and listen to last week's episode for more on that. Build your list. You own your list. And yes, it's really hard to get your entire list to open your list. It's not impossible. 

I've got a client currently at 80% open rates, which is unheard of. I mean, I'm only at about 25 to 30 on a good day. So it's not dead. It's still highly effective. Even if your open rates are 10%, you've still got people opening and reading your things. So my goodness, please ensure that you are developing an email marketing strategy alongside of your social media posting. We want to get those people off social media and onto your list. So if social media goes tomorrow, you still got access to your customers or potential customers and clients, and your business can keep growing and thriving. So with that, I would probably have a really brilliantly well thought out lead Magnet to offer up to my beautiful new audience to get them onto my email list.

Now, I'm not saying a lead magnet has to be a free thing. It could be a low cost thing. But if you're just getting started, free is going to work better for you, in my opinion. But yeah, be a really good lead magnet. A little guideline here that I say to a lot of my clients is your lead magnet should be something that you're willing to sell for sort of 20 to 30 pounds.

Obviously you're not going to sell it, but I just want that to be in the back of your mind when you are creating your lead magnets. Go, actually, if I could, would I be able to sell this for 20 to 30 pounds? Would people actually see the value and want to pay for it?

And if the answer is yes, you know you want to really a good and effective lead magnet. So that would be happening alongside of my social media content and my visibility strategy. Beyond that, I would pretty much just rinse and repeat those things until they work. Now there's more to it.

There's obviously get a website going, create more content for things like Pinterest. And I have got the list again on the business roadmap for starters. In fact, it's just a business roadmap. I don't even think it has to be, for starters, linked in the show notes that you can go and grab, which goes into a bit more detail, a bit more options of what you can be doing later on, like SEO and Facebook ads and kind of starting your own podcast, things like that.

But essentially I would do those things until they worked. So I would have my one core offer, I would have my one core marketing platform, and I would have a really brilliant visibility strategy which was geared and designed to get me in front of other people's audiences at the same time as having an amazing lead magnet or lead magnets. But one's a bit easier running alongside of that to capture those people and get them onto my email list, which actually would mean I would need a really good kind of email marketing strategy, a content strategy, because once they're on your list, you have to look after them. So I have a nice little nurture sequence, a little funnel mapped out to, again, build that know, like and trust, build that relationship with them.

And yes, sell my beautiful one call offer to them via an automated funnel, perhaps. So that way I am busy attracting with people in, they're coming into my world, they're getting looked after, they're getting automatically sold to. At the same time, I will be in the DMS building those relationships, replying to comments actually on Instagram as a user supporting people wherever I see they need support, I'll be in Facebook groups answering questions that relevant to me and what I do and just having relationship building as my number one priority. Because that essentially is your visibility strategy. It should be called the relationship building strategy because it makes it more clear to what it actually is. We're not just getting visible to get visible, we're getting visible to build relationships.

That is the absolute fundamental success variable for business is how good are you at creating, building and maintaining relationships, because that is where you make your sales. So that is what I would do if I were to start mothers of enterprise today again. And in a while it wouldn't be hugely different if I was building a product based business again. I would probably follow the exact same thing, validate their idea, get really clear on the vision of the business, the mission of the business, focus one marketing platform, build my list, get visible. So it's kind of a very similar mirrored experience. But just to say again, the full list of every single thing I would be going through if I was to build my business again today with little income is in the show notes. So go and download that.

I would say, and I haven't really gone too deep on this, is if I were to do it again, I would hire a coach from Mike Daydot. I wouldn't wait two years as I did, to hire a one coach or get into kind of a high ticket, high level mastermind. I say high ticket just because high ticket usually means you're actually going to be like one of few in the group, not like one of 300. I did that. That is exactly what I did when I launched Mazda Enterprise. I bought maybe two overpriced courses, which was absolutely rubbish and I got into a mastermind, but I was literally one of like 300 in the mastermind and the coach didn't even know who I was and it just felt crappy.

I kind of felt like you and this massive membership and it wasn't like a mastermind is not when you're one of hundreds. So yeah, I think if I could go back, not that I have regrets, but if I could go back and change anything, especially in this business, I would have had a one coach from day Dot alongside supporting me lovingly bitch clapping me, celebrating with me and making me see that my offers were completely off and giving me support to kind of rewire restructure the business. So it serves me, or serves me a lot better than did in the first two years anyway and probably would have gotten me to where I want to be a lot faster. And I'm still with that one coach that I hired two and a half years ago.

And I will be with her until she boots me off, which I hope she never does. So yes, prioritize support, even if that just means you are kind of getting a one off intensive coaching call. Most coaches, I'm not saying you have to work with me, but work with me. Most coaches will offer some sort of one off intensive, maybe a VIP day or maybe just maybe like a 1 hour call. Just try and get some insight into your journey and into your ideas. Just so you know you're on the right path and you're not wasting your time and your money and your beautiful energy. Okay. Beautiful soul, as I always say.

Come over to Instagram at Mothers of Enterprise. Let me know what your thoughts are of today's episode. If you have any questions come and let me know.

I'm happy to help, otherwise I will of course see you same time next week.

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode. If you know someone who'd love this podcast, I will be so grateful if you could share it with them because what the world needs more of our mothers stepping into their superpowers and creating amazing success because they're mothers and not.

In spite of it. 

If you've enjoyed this episode and found value in this podcast, which I really hope you have, please rate, review and comment. I will be so grateful and as a thank you we'll be selecting one reviewer each month who will receive a 1 hour business clinic intensive coaching session with me worth over 500 pounds. Thank you again so much for joining me. I appreciate it more than I can say.