Ep #414: Attention All CEOs – You Need To Hear This

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The game is about the chase. It’s not even about the outcome because once you get to the outcome, there’s another thing. There’s another problem. There’s a shift in the market. Your audience needs something different. So your job as a CEO, the point is the work. The point is driving the vision and being adaptable to the change.

You are listening to the Not For Lazy Marketers podcast, episode number 414.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Happy week. We are going into quarter three in like two weeks or less than that. Can you guys believe that? I really think about that every year, because the year’s halfway over. Have you relooked at those annual goals that you committed to at the beginning of the year? How are you doing? Are you on track to meet those? What do you need to do to get there? And kind of having that conversation with yourself because we’re already halfway through the year, more than halfway through the year. And at least for me, this has been my experience. Some of what I planned going into the year, isn’t working out exactly how I planned, but by making pivots and adjustments, we’re still going to meet our goals as it looks right now in a different way than I thought.

And that’s a little bit what I want to talk about today, but this is somewhat of a follow-up episode from the episode that I released last Thursday. And I got a lot of really great messages and feedback on that, “can you keep talking like this?” More people need to hear this and keep going. And so I had a separate episode planned around this that I decided I don’t think it’s too repetitive. We’re going to talk about this a little bit more, go a little bit deeper in a different direction. Before I dive in, I want to remind you that tomorrow, June 22nd, at 4:00 PM Eastern time, I’m doing a live training. It’s not going to be like my typical webinars. It’s actually more like a very in-depth training, content training, teaching you how to do something, which I do on my webinars.

But this is less like that. And more like I could be charging for this workshop, but I want to give it all away. And what I’m teaching is how to create a cash infusion in your business. A lot, if not most businesses right now need to generate cash. You need to generate cash to be able to reinvest that back in your business, to be able to have that safety net. We are going into a recession right now and there’s a lot of fear around it. And I don’t want you guys looking at it that way, which is also what we’re going to talk about a little bit and I talked about on Thursday. So I want to show you my strategy that I’ve used in my own business. I’ve helped many clients recently in the last month do this, for creating a cash infusion in your business, utilizing the tools that you already have, your warm audience, and your offer.

It doesn’t matter if you’re just newly starting out. If you have an offer that stopped working, whatever situation you’re in, this is a simple strategy, but there’s a couple key things that you have to get right. So I’m teaching it live tomorrow. After this episode comes out and it’s at 4:00 PM Eastern time, there will be no replay. That’s the one catch as I was like, “if I’m going to do this, if I’m going to give all this away, you got to come. You got to show up. You got to give me that hour because the reality is when people

sign up for things and think they’re going to watch a replay, they don’t oftentimes, and then they miss out.” And so if you want to hear the information, you want to hear the strategy, you’ve got to be there live and you don’t even have to opt-in. I’m not even doing it for that. You can just go to hirshmarketing.com/infusion and add it to your calendar. No opt-in at all. You’ll get the Zoom link right when that comes or right when you go there and put it on your calendar and be there because it’s going to be really good.

Okay. Let’s dive into today’s podcast. I want to continue on the conversation in a little bit different angle today around the quote that I pulled from the book I’m reading right now which, you know when you read a book and you’re like, there’s a reason I’m reading this book right now. Like there’s a reason I wasn’t reading it three months ago or a year ago. There’s a reason somebody recommended it to me and I’m reading it right now and I needed it right now. And I just love when that happens. It doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you read a book and you’re like, it’s okay, it’s great, but

it’s not good. And sometimes because you need to hear things and you can read things at different times and they hit differently. Right?

So this book, I felt like it was exactly what I needed right now. The book is The Road Less Stupid, really good book, like clear business advice, great wisdom. And one of the things he said in the book was, “The only thing constant in business is change.” And I love this and so I want to talk about this at a different angle than I did the other day, because I want to dive into something and share something with you guys. So I started my business seven years ago and I very much have the solopreneur kind of story,

where I was doing everything myself and like super hustling, you know making it happen. I had a newborn baby.

There was not really like a plan or a strategy. I didn’t go into it saying like, “I’m going to build a Facebook ad agency.” I just said yes, to a bunch of things. I took opportunities. I got experience. And one thing led to the next and that’s how I built my business. I didn’t go into it with this very clear, 5-year plan, and this is what I want to do. And I think that sometimes we think that’s how we should go into something. But a lot of times where the magic happens and where you come across things that you didn’t expect to come across is when you’ve said yes to opportunities or you’ve explored and you’ve gotten yourself out of the very narrow-minded, “this is how it should be” mindset. And then you come across things that were like, “oh, this opportunity” or “that’s why this happened”.

And then that led to that. And like, you never could be here if these three things didn’t fall into place or this other thing didn’t fall apart. Right? I started my business that way, very much hustling, very much putting in the long hours, do whatever it takes mentality. And over the years I’ve noticed that even when I have sought out some mentorship or heard from people who seem to be very knowledgeable at what they’re doing, there seemed to be this message that hated on the… I don’t want to call it hustle because I’m not for hustle.

I am for balance, but hated on having to work really hard. It was almost like… You guys, I’m saying this and this is one of those things where you could all not resonate with this. And I’m just going to put it out there. But I feel like I got into a place for several years where my goal, for some reason, because people were telling me that’s what it should be, was to create a business that I didn’t have to work very hard in. It was like, you were doing it right, if you didn’t have to work really hard. And I think that it’s very important that you design your life in your business. And so if your goal is to work five hours a day or three days a week, and that’s why you started your business, that is 100% fine.

But for me, I love working. It is my passion and I don’t want to just work three days a week. I want to have freedom absolutely, and flexibility and I love to travel. And I love the fact that I can travel and I can work and I can change my schedule like I just did because my kid has a field trip and I want to be there all day. So I can easily move all my meetings because I have that flexibility, but I don’t want to not work. I don’t want to not be in my business. And I think there has become this shift where you’ll still be a lot

about the hustle and the grind and building your business and do what it takes and show up and that messaging. Right? And then I think there became this shift of like, that is the anti, don’t do that.

We hate the hustle. You know you shouldn’t work hard, you should build a business that runs without you and it should be easy and you should have one funnel working for you. And if you have to change a bunch of things, it’s your fault. Right? And I think that’s really hurt a lot of people because you’re feeling like you’re doing it wrong. And I’ve reflected a lot over the last couple of months because I got into this place where I was like, why am I, why am I doing this? Like, why am I trying to build it so that I’m not in

the business or that I don’t have to work hard because that’s not really my goal. Right? And I think that is a very unrealistic goal because unless you have the capital to hire, let’s say a leadership team that is all on multi-six-figure salaries like corporations do, then you’re not going to get a team that can just run without you in a month’s time or a couple of months, or even a year’s time.

And this saying that the only thing constant in businesses is change, I think that we are naturally wired to sometimes be against this, right? Because we’re trying to chase that outcome of, okay, once I launch that strategy or I finish that product or I change this in my business, then everything’s just going to run. Right? And we’re trying to almost chase that outcome and chase that kind of final destination. But you guys, the game is about the chase. It’s not even about the outcome because once you get to the outcome, there’s another thing. There’s another problem. There’s a shift in the market. Your audience needs something different. And so your job as a CEO, the point is the work, the point is driving the vision and being adaptable to the change. And I’ve watched so many businesses in the online space specifically be so against this.

I don’t think it’s coming from a place where people are like, “well, I don’t really want to work hard.” I don’t think it’s coming from a place of laziness. I think it’s from a place where they think that is wrong and bad and they think they are doing something wrong if they have to work really hard or pivot or adapt or change, and they feel like it’s just them and they don’t have to do that. But I started thinking about all of the really successful business owners I know. Like all the 8-figure ones, the friends that I have, the people that I know, I used to be in an inner circle mastermind too, actually, that had way more successful business owners than me. And I started thinking “okay, are they in this place where they don’t have to work very hard, or they don’t have to change a lot?”

No. I just talked to one of them who is, I’m not going to say the name because it was a private conversation, but a very, very successful business owner who is multi, multi 8-figures.He’s still hustling. He’s still working hard. He’s still launching new things. He is still changing things. He’s still doing and pivoting his offers and pivoting his marketing. And so what I think is really interesting is people chase this because there are certain brands and influencers who teach it. But then actually when you look into it, those people are not even doing that when you see the behind the scenes of their business. And so what I want to say in this podcast is, what I challenge all of you guys to do is ask yourself and give yourself some thinking time.

I’m all about that. Thinking time on here, I’m always telling you guys like sit down and brainstorm this. Think about this, reflect on this, and just think, in your business, especially if you’ve been in business for a long time like I have and I think that’s why I’ve experienced this, I realize I’m just doing the same thing year after year. Why am I doing that? Why don’t I change? Why don’t I adjust? Why don’t I question things more? Why don’t I think more creatively? Why am I just going through the motions?

Right? That’s trouble if you’re just going through the motions. I felt that way for the last 2 years and in the last few months, I’ve come out of that and realized like, holy crap, like I feel way more alive.

And in some ways I feel like I’m rebuilding my business. And I actually think that’s how it should feel. You almost have to feel like you are rebuilding your business constantly because whether it’s changes in the market or changes in the economy or changes with your ideal customer or changes in your business itself. Because when you build to a specific level, you everything’s going to break and you have to rebuild. And so the work never goes away that you have to show up and do that. So my question for you guys is to reflect on where in your business, whether that’s your marketing strategy, your delivery, your offer, your systems, the way you’re setting things up, where are you just doing something because you think that’s how it should be done? Or because that’s how you’ve always done it? Or because you are resistant to change? Because the human brain is wired to be resistant to change because change is risky.

We want to be in our routine. We want things to be predictable, right? That’s safe. And there’s a lot about entrepreneurship that is actually against how we’re wired, which is why I think entrepreneurs are wired differently really. Because I think we have to go against so much of what is just normal wiring and push ourselves outside of comfort zones every single day. And so I’m calling this attention all CEOs, because I think that especially in the online business industry and business in general, there is a

negative connotation with having to get back in your business and get back in the weeds and work hard and change things. And if that means that you have to blow up this one offer to launch this new one, or you have to completely change the way you’re doing something, you will know if it’s right if you feel it in everything in you.

And that’s kind of what hit for me is I realized in some ways it was like, okay, when all these things came together and I can’t announce everything that we’re doing, but there’s a lot, it’s why I’m working so hard right now, but it just felt like such alignment. And I shared this in the last episode, but if everything feels really hard and draining, that’s probably a symptom that you’re not in alignment with your business. What does that actually mean, right? Being in alignment with your business. I think it means fully being in flow, being in flow with what you’re offering, who you’re serving, the way you’re doing it, the values, the mission. And sometimes that has to shift a little bit.

I don’t think your core values ever shift as a business, but sometimes how you represent those values can shift and how you represent your mission and accomplish your mission absolutely will shift. And so right now, I really believe and know that CEOs have a massive responsibility. I started to notice this in my own business, that my team was looking to me for like what are we going to do? Like, what are we going to do to solve this problem? What do you think about the economy? What do you think about the

industry? Like what does Emily think? And it can be a lot of pressure, right? To fill those shoes. And I started noticing my team kind of turning to me for that. And I think that to be a true leader and successful CEO right now, it is so critical that you show up like never before, because our job is to pave the way forward.

But I would guess the next two years are so important. Like so much is going to change. I think a lot is going to change in the tech industry, just so much, right? And the people who are going to say here’s where we’re going, are the leaders. And I noticed this kind of two different types of people. There are people who are very afraid of where we’re going. They’re very hesitant. They are very paralyzed by it and stuck in that place of fear. And then there are the people who are like, “I determine my outcome and

I’m going to do whatever it takes to bring success even if that means changing everything. Even if that means completely rebuilding my company, I will be successful.” And that’s something that thankfully I have instilled in me since the beginning is failure, which there’s kind of two different failures.

There’s like something doesn’t work one version, but complete failure of like, you completely fail. It’s not an option. You just get back up and you create the success. And what I’m trying to say is, tying it back to the beginning, you don’t have to know every single step of how you’re going to get there. All you have to do is know what the next step is and that next step might not work and so you just do the next one after that. And you learn from that one, and then you do the next one and you, and nine out of 10

of the things that you do may not work. But one out of 10 that does work really well, that’s what’s going to keep you going. And so our job as a leader right now is to show up, but not show up in a passive way.

My guess is that your business right now needs some pivoting. It needs some shifting. It needs some adjustment. It needs some thought going into why are we doing this? Why am I offering this? How could I do this better? How could I do this differently? What could I do to meet the market where they’re at right now to be the best? Because here’s the reality, as long as you are building an audience of people and generating leads, you will be fine through anything because people always need help and so all you have to do is solve a problem. And those problems might shift and change and adjust a little bit in the next couple of years, and that’s never going to stop, but you have to just solve the problem, that’s your job. And it’s not asking them exactly what they need. It’s your job to figure that out and to solve it for them and to be as cutting edge on that as you can.

And I think that we’re going to come back from so much messaging out there that’s like, “don’t work hard, build this business that you don’t have to work very hard. And you shouldn’t hustle and you shouldn’t do this.” And I’m not saying to hustle to the point where you are not healthy or your relationships are not taken care of. But I am saying that it’s okay to work your ass off. It’s okay to show up when you don’t want to show up, and you’re tired. And I think there’s this balance of like, you have to create where… I’ve been working my butt off the last month, not really working longer hours, but working really hard and having a harder time to unplug, but I still get my workout in every day.

I still get my unplugged time with my kids every day. And the thing is that what I do is not necessarily exactly what you have to do. You have to define what success looks like in your own life, in your own business. But once you define that, you can just go and achieve that for yourself. And whatever that definition is, is really custom and unique to yourself. So listening to other entrepreneurs and people tell you what is right or wrong is where the problem lies here. I think the businesses over the next 2 years, who are willing to show up and do the hard work and push through the hard and get up when they don’t want to or get up when it’s like, man, everything’s riding on me, but I still have to show up, like I’ve been in that place multiple times.

And I could have said like, I just want to go back and get a job, but I could never imagine that. I think the entrepreneurs willing to do that are going to be the only ones still here in 2 years. So right now you have a decision to make, are you that entrepreneur, or are you going to be the passive one? Are you going to be the one who doesn’t show up when you need to, doesn’t show up when your team needs to, is against and not for doing the hard work. Because right now the ones who do that are the only ones who are going to survive. So I want you to sit down in your business and sit down with it and just ask yourself, are there things that I am doing that I’m just doing because, or because I’m resistant to change and see if something comes up for you that’s like a light bulb moment of like I knew…

Is there something in the back of your mind that like, I’ve had this on my mind for a long time, I’ve pushed it away because I didn’t want to make a big change. I didn’t want to make a big pivot because those big changes and those big pivots are scary. They’re supposed to be, that’s where the growth happens. That’s usually where the success is found. And sometimes the failures and the missteps. But if there is something there that it’s like you haven’t done because it feels too risky. It feels too big. It feels too much work and you’re like, it’s supposed to be easy. And everybody showcases this, lean into that and ask yourself that. And then the second thing is, decide what type of CEO you’re going to be because there are two types.

And I really believe the one willing to show up and do whatever it takes. Like success is not an option. It is already done. That’s how I see it. I don’t even care if I have to change my entire business over the next five years, the way I structure it, what I offer, all I know is I’m going to keep serving my customer and my audience. And however I have to pivot and adapt. I will do that and we will be fine. I know that because I won’t give up. And so decide if you are that CEO or not, because you’re going to need that. And if not, you should really question why you’re in it truly, which is hard to hear. But I have a feeling that most of you guys on here are those CEOs willing to show up.

But I think there’s going to be a lot more people who end up talking about this because it is the only way you’re going to get through and think about those business owners too, that maybe even teach the opposite. It’s like, are they really doing it? Because the ones I see that are successful, and especially right now, they are hustling and they’re working hard and they’re making pivots and they’re making adjustments. All right, you guys, I hope to see you at my live training happening tomorrow.  

hirshmarketing.com/infusion. If you want to add it to your calendar, it’s at 4:00 PM Eastern time. If you go there, the Zoom Link’s there. You just get on Zoom. There’s no opt-in. Save the link, be there. There will be no replay. And I’ll talk to you guys on Thursday.

Thanks for listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers Podcast. Each episode is brought to you from the trenches of Hirsh marketing, where our team of industry-leading copywriters, marketing strategists, ads, managers, graphic designers, and tech wizards use their unique genius to help our clients profit more and scale faster than they ever dreamed possible. Want to see what happens when we unleash our experts on your brand? Head over to helpmystrategy.com and apply for a free strategy audit with team Hirsh. No matter where you are in your marketing journey, we have solutions to take you to the next level and beyond. So apply for your call today and discover what marketing magic we can create for you.

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