[social_warfare]

SHOW NOTES

I am sick and tired of seeing a certain BS mentality being promoted in the digital marketing space.

One that will only slow you down, make you feel like you’re failing (even when you’re NOT), and KILL your business and marketing.

Too many lower-level business owners and entrepreneurs fall into this mindset trap because the ultra-successful entrepreneurs and influencers at the top aren’t always transparent about what it really takes to attain their level of success…

In today’s episode of the Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast, I’m calling them out and letting you in on the reality that NO ONE else seems to be sharing.

I’m also challenging you to step up and shift out of this tragic mindset so you can start working towards creating real, sustainable success in your business.

Tune in to discover what this mysterious mentality is and make sure you’re NOT jeopardizing your business and marketing because of it!

Shoot me a DM on Instagram (@emilyhirsh) if today’s episode was one you needed to hear!

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Emily Hirsh:

Hello everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are doing so well and having an amazing summer. I say this so much, but it feels like when I record it goes back to I’m like, “okay, the date will be this when this podcast comes out,” and I’m like, “how are we almost to August?” I don’t understand time. It makes me sad. I have to stop myself sometimes from going and looking at old videos of my kids. The other day I was looking at videos from two years ago of my two bigger kids when they were two and four, and now they’re four and six. They’ve changed so much and it makes me so sad. I know you parents out there probably get this, but you start feeling like, am I enjoying it enough? Am I working too much? It’s hard. In the moment of each day I feel like I’m enjoying it, but then when I look back, I’m like, did I really enjoy it enough? I wish I could just go back one day and experience that. It feels like time is just speeding up right now and it’s crazy. That is my one goal is to just be present more, always, because it’s actually a constant effort to do that. Life just pulls us in so many ways and makes us think that so many things are urgent and need attention that really don’t and in the big scheme of things, don’t matter. The simple things matter. 

So anyway, I can’t believe it’s almost August and I hope you guys are having a great summer. We are going to be just starting our remodel. When this episode comes out our house will be all packed up. We’ll be going to California and then Colorado six weeks away, and then come back. Hopefully all goes well, we always know it doesn’t all go perfect, but hopefully all goes well and we have our new house. I’ll definitely be posting before and after. It’s going to be an incredible transformation. We’re basically redoing the entire downstairs of our house and I’m so excited. One of the things I’m getting is a floor to ceiling bookshelf with a ladder in my office. For those of you guys who know how much I love to read, I literally cannot wait for that. I think I might be most excited for that. 

So I have, I guess it’s a little bit of a rant today to talk about because I have been in this industry now for about six years and I’ve seen a lot of transformation. I’ve seen what I came into the industry what it was like, and I know I wasn’t the first in the online course and digital marketing industry by a long shot, but I feel like it’s changed a lot over the last six years and has gotten more saturated. One thing that is killing me right now when I see it on, I saw this specific thing I’m going to share on Facebook that’s just killing me is, is this idea that business and online business should be easy. What I saw was this post of this person, I actually don’t know who they were. It was somehow on my feed because I do have connections. I don’t remember. I really don’t go on Facebook very much. I’m very intentional with my time, but I do sometimes scroll just to catch up on trends and things and it gives me ideas for content like this. 

I saw this post that someone put where they’re like, “I’m celebrating my client who is making XYZ money and is working four hours a week.” Here’s the problem with that. If the six years ago Emily saw that post, I would have 100% thought that’s true that that is an accurate statement and that’s possible that you can build a business and work only four hours a week. I think what they were making was like in the high six figures. So it’s not like they had a $20 million business and were doing that, because I’m going to talk about that and how that could be possible if you choose that at that level, because you have a team working for you. But this was like one, the way they made it sound at least, obviously I didn’t talk to them, but the way they made it sound was it was one person. She was in the high six figures business and she was only working four hours a week. Again, the problem with that is that… so if six years ago I saw that post, I would have taken that as truth. Right now I see that post and I’m like, come on. I know what it takes to build a business and I know what it takes at that level of a business, and that is BS. That’s not a fact and I know that because I’ve been there and I’ve never seen someone be able to do that. 

Now, the only way you could do that is if you had a team and processes fully running everything for you, which takes years to build, which takes capital to pay for. I mean, I am four and a half years into building my team and I can’t work a four hour week. I would be a terrible leader if I was just like, “peace out guys, I’m going to work a four hour week while you guys all work and I’m not available to answer your questions.” I could work a three-day week, absolutely. I can go on vacation easily and my company runs without me. But I can’t just work a four hour week, and I have a team of 27 employees and I have pretty killer processes and things built out that have taken me four years to build out. 

So this is what I am sick of and this is the problem is that person is doing that post because it looks cool, right? People are like, “oh my gosh, I want that. I want to make money and not have to work. I want to have that freedom.” I think a lot of times people get into business and realize maybe they’re not actually as free as they thought they would be and so that’s so enticing to them. What needs to flip the switch and needs to be talked about more is the fact that business is hard. You didn’t get into this because it’s easy. If you’re coming into this with an expectation that you are going to work a four-hour week and make a million dollars, you should quit tomorrow because that is not possible. 

Like I said, if that is your goal, if for some reason you’re like, “I only want to work four hours a week and that’s my ultimate goal,” it is possible to build that, but what should be talked about is all that would have to go into that. Processes, the teams, the systems, the leadership team to be able to make decisions for you, the structure, the boundaries you’d have to have. If that was really your goal, you could make it possible, but it’s not a matter of just, “oh, well I’m making money now and now I only have to work four hours a week.” Which is, again, I didn’t talk to this person, but I saw this post and I’m highlighting this post, but it’s all over. It’s all over the online industry of online business equals. We do a lot of work and we are so intense with the clients that we’ll take on. If they’re not willing to come in and honestly be a partner with us and when we say, “hey we need this video or we need you to update your webinar or we need you to make sure you can provide guidance for us on who your ideal customers are so we can pull out the details from you for the success of your marketing,” we expect our clients to do that because that is what you have to do to achieve success.

It comes in so many forms where, right now especially, and it’s been here all along, but I think six years ago I thought it was real. Maybe even I was guilty of being like it’s so easy once you get here, like you’ve made it. Now I have so much more perspective to know how hard business really is and what it would actually take to only work four hours a week. It’s just not that easy. So we need to stop making it sound that easy and really stop making it a goal when you’re not even at a million dollar business yet. That’s not right. You’re not going to ever be in that reality at that level. You’re still hustling when you’re at six figures and that’s normal because you don’t have a team, you don’t have processes, you don’t have systems built around you yet, naturally. And so you have to show up and hustle. 

But I see this show up in many ways where people want the easy fix and you know what? This as humans, we want this. We want the quick fix diet. We want the quick fix to our finances. We want the quick fix the overnight success. That’s natural for human psychology to want that, but you need to push against that with your mentality and know that it’s not possible and be willing to do the things that are not the quick fix, because that’s where the success comes in. People sometimes tie, maybe it’s, “I’m going to just go run Facebook ads and that’s going to fix everything for me, “ or “I’m going to hire this one single team member, this magical unicorn, and then everything will be better,” or “I’m going to stop offering this and offer this new offer, new product ,or a new funnel,” whatever it is we convince ourselves. I’ve been guilty of it, but I know how to catch myself. We could maybe convince ourselves that this one thing is going to fix our entire business, or is going to be the answer to not having to work as much, or to achieving the four-hour workweek while making six figures or seven figures, whatever it is. That does not exist. 

That mentality, if you’re chasing that one thing, if you’re constantly looking for that next thing that’s going to be the solution to your current issue, which will change tomorrow or next week, it will kill your business and your marketing. You will not be successful. How you will find success is by pushing through when things are hard and fixing the foundation. So if your marketing isn’t working and you think launching Facebook ads is going to magically start working, it won’t. What you need to do is figure out the foundation, the messaging, the strategy, the positioning of your offer, and then anything else you do, whether it’s Facebook ads or YouTube ads, or any form of marketing, will amplify that foundation. 

What so many of us have a hard time doing is that hard work, that boring work that’s just grinding, right? We have to have the grit to stay in it, to get that done. I just get so upset when I see posts like this and, and really it’s like posts like this are a symptom of the industry as a whole having this expectation, which actually comes from bigger influencers and leaders trying to put out this idea that it’s easy. I just said this on an Ignite training the other day too. I was talking about people’s warm audiences and I said if you look at any large business owner or large influencer, successful influencer, that you follow and you think they’re making it look easy, it’s because of all the years of work that they did before and the warm audience they have.

If let’s say Russell Brunson, or Amy Porterfield, or Marie Forleo, tomorrow they could launch a product that’s total crap honestly, and I’m not, I’m not saying their product is crap, I’m saying they could launch a product that’s total crap and people would still buy it because they’ve spent 10 years or more building a following of people who believe in them and trust them. That’s how they make it look easy. Anytime somebody is making something look easy, you just need to tell yourself, I’m not seeing the whole picture because we’ll get into this loop of going on social media, seeing the highlight reel that people are highlighting and thinking that’s the full picture.

I disconnect so much from social media. I delete it from my phone. I don’t look at it for weeks at a time. I don’t go on it very much. So I think I have this different awareness than I used to because if you’re in it every day, that becomes reality. You’re like, “oh, you know what that business owner is doing, that’s the full picture, they’re being transparent and they’re telling us everything.” Now when I see something like that post where it’s like, “I’m so proud of my client, they’re making a hundred thousand dollars a month,” or whatever, I don’t remember the amount. It wasn’t even like an incredible amount a month, and they’re only working four hours a week. I’m like, yeah right. That is not the full story. But again, other people are going to see that and think that’s the reality and want that to be their business.

So that’s what I’m trying to tie this into is that mentality of shooting for that. Shooting for easy will not work, will not work for your marketing, will not work for your business. This is my call out to you guys. If you’re not willing to put in the work to show up when it feels boring, or it feels hard, or overwhelming, or stressful, if you’re not willing to do that, you might as well quit tomorrow, literally. Because that is the reality of how you create that success. This idea that digital marketing is easy is crap because it’s not like… Sometimes I also think people think, “oh you work from home.” And people who don’t know me think I don’t have a real business. No, I actually have 27 employees and 50 plus clients. I do have a real business. 

This idea of working from home or having this digital business, digital product, isn’t like a real business. it’s a secret different type of business is just crap. It has its own struggles and it’s just as hard. You still have to follow the same rules of creating incredible messaging, knowing how to talk to your ideal customer, having an incredible product or service, building up year after year, small things and consistency of building up that following, building up those email lists, doing that work to create that following. Then things might get easier for you. Then you might be able to work four hours a week. But when do you ever see a full time, multimillion dollar business, eight figure business, saying I’m working four hours a week. They’re just not even on that level of talking about that because they care so much about their impact. They don’t want to work just four hours a week. They want to show up for their audience. They want to do that. You will sometimes see them promoting that it’s easy and that’s because that’s what humans want to see. That’s sexy for them. That’s what they’re going to buy, but I don’t do that. 

If you come work for us, I say it’s going to be hard. Marketing isn’t easy. It will work, but it’s not easy. Nobody’s in this because it’s easy. Go get a job if you want easy. Even then, if you want to move up in a job it’s not easy. Nothing’s easy. Nothing good is easy. We know that, but I’m just reminding you guys, because there is so much of this online of this easy way out, I want to sit back, let my team do the work for me, I don’t want to work. It happens at the lower level where people see that and then the lower level business owners are like, “oh that’s possible.” I know like six years ago, I might’ve seen that and been like, “wow, that person is doing so awesome and I am not. I’m failing.” The reality is that’s just not the truth. 

With your business, with your marketing, sit back and look at are you avoiding the hard things? There’s this saying you have to eat the frog, right? I think a lot of us put off the things that feel hard, or overwhelming or stressful, or it just feels like too much pressure, whatever it is. Whatever situation or phase you’re in in your business, you’re going to have a different thing, but if you can push through that and stay consistent with how you show up as a leader and as a business owner, you will make so much more progress than anybody else who’s not doing that. 

I would definitely contribute my own success to that, to the days like the saying of don’t quit on a bad day. When your marketing isn’t working, when your team feels like it’s a mess, when you’re not hitting your numbers or your goals, when things feel like everything’s on fire, we all have those weeks. Just because you’re not seeing that on social media and just because you’re seeing so many people promote this idea that you can sit back, let your business run for you, not work a lot, and everything will be great once you get to it that, that’s the finish line, or that’s where you should be shooting for, it doesn’t exist. Once you get to a certain level, there’s a whole new layer of problems.

Every single CEO, every single founder, every business, every brand has their problems. They mess up. They make mistakes. They have bad months. They have bad years. They have bad quarters. They have struggles. They have team churn. That happens to all of us, myself included. Just because you may not see that talked about very much doesn’t mean it’s not happening. What you need to do is know that that’s the reality that you signed up for and push through that and find the solutions. See the positive in the struggle, be willing to step up and say my goal isn’t to work not at all, my goal is to make an incredible impact, to have great processes, a great team and great systems. Then if you don’t want to work as much, that’s a by-product of all of that. But you can’t achieve that without putting the work in first.

With your marketing, there isn’t going to ever be one platform, or one strategy, or one new shiny object that’s going to save everything in your business. Throw that idea away because it always comes back to the foundation. Even right now when I see people who are like, “my ads are tanking, what do I do? Is it Facebook ads? Is it webinars?” I just saw this in another group the other day, and the actual true responses that are valid in there are like, “you’ve got to double down and have better messaging. You’ve got to fix your ad. You have to step up and have a better strategy than everybody else.” If things get harder, it just shines the light on where the gaps are.

So this is your calling. I know you guys can do it, to step up, but it’s also me saying, hey, if you’re having a bad week or a bad month, or you’re feeling like it’s just you, you’re not alone. Not enough business owners talk about it. I think, especially when people get to a certain level, they feel like once you get to that level, you never go backwards. That’s also not true. Once you get to whatever level that is, 7, 8, 9 figures, I have friends at that level and they absolutely have stress and problems. More money, more problems is seriously true. They may not talk about it out front because it looks like they made it, but you will never get to a point in business where you have no problems and it’s just easy. That doesn’t exist in marketing. It doesn’t exist in business. So don’t have that mentality because it will just slow you down. It will make you feel like you’re doing things wrong when you’re not. You’ll be comparing yourself to people’s highlight reels. So that’s my rant for today. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Have a great rest of your day and I’ll talk to you soon.