[00:00:00] EMMA: One of the biggest traps in business is trying to do things the way someone else does them, their content strategy, their sales approach to their morning routine, their launch formula. You see it working for them, so you copy it and then you feel like a failure when it doesn't work for you. I see this constantly.
[00:00:15] Women who are brilliant at what they do, completely capable, smart, experienced, and they're tying themselves in knots, trying to follow someone else's playbook, we've all been there. What if the answer isn't finding the right method?
[00:00:31] What if it's finding your method? That's what I wanna talk to you about today. Some of the biggest breakthroughs I've seen in my clients haven't come from learning a new strategy. They've come from giving themselves permission to do things their own way.
[00:00:48] no good podcast episode happens without a story. So I'd like to tell you a story. I had a client who invested in a content writer to help her with their LinkedIn posts and her newsletter. Smart move. She knew [00:01:00] she needed to be visible and she knew that content mattered and she brought someone in to help.
[00:01:05] Tick, tick, tick, except it wasn't working. Hosts didn't sound like her. The process felt clunky. She'd sit down to write a brief stare at a blank page and think. I'm paying someone to do this and it's still painful. She was starting to e question the whole investment. I see this all the time. People hire someone to help with content in this instance, and they try and work the way the writer works.
[00:01:34] The writer says, send me a written brief. So the client sits down to write a written brief, but she's not a writer. She doesn't think that way. That's literally why she hired someone, and now, now she's stuck trying to produce the thing that she's supposed to do to make the other thing happen easier. It's backwards.
[00:01:54] The breakthrough came when she stopped trying to write and started talking instead. She'd [00:02:00] record an audio brief, talk through her thinking, share a story verbally, let the writer turn it into a post. Let the writer do her job suddenly. Ah, the content sounded like her. The quality went up, the collaboration started working.
[00:02:16] The problem was never the writer. The problem was trying to fit into someone else's process, I talk about this on one of my podcasts with Be Stenner. You know, be be's a social media manager. She's my social media manager, and she said something that stuck with me. Record voice memos to yourself.
[00:02:33] If you jump off a coaching session or a call and three key points come up, voice message yourself or me right then and there. Don't wait, because those thoughts will come and then they will go. So voice note it. I just voice note it and send it to her. Perfect. You'll be walking along the beach as I do, and suddenly you go, oh, that's a good one.
[00:02:54] Gotta capture that. That's a process that works for people who think out loud. People who process by [00:03:00] talking, not by sitting behind a keyboard. And there are a lot of us, and if you've been beating yourself up because you can't write a. Snappy brief on demand. Maybe the issue isn't discipline. Maybe you just need a different input method.
[00:03:15] While we're on content, let me tell you what happened next with this client. She went to a retreat, came back, fired up. Committed to posting three times a week on LinkedIn. She had the energy, the motivation, the plan, three posts in a week, easy, and then life happened. She didn't hit the target and she spent the weekend feeling guilty about it.
[00:03:38] Guilt's so overrated, isn't it? Now, I've been in business long enough to know that guilt, guilt is one of the most useless emotions in entrepreneurship. It doesn't produce anything. It just makes you feel terrible and then you avoid the thing that you feel guilty about, which, which makes it worse. You can see how, where this goes, right?
[00:03:57] So we had a conversation about [00:04:00] realistic commitments. I suggested that she reduce the number of original posts and instead spend some of that energy sharing and commenting on other people's content. You still build authority, you're still visible, but the pressure just drops a little bit, you know? This is the thing I want you to hear.
[00:04:18] A content plan you'll actually stick to beats an ambitious one you abandon after two weeks. Every single time. Bec and I also talk about batching content. She's a big believer in it. I love it because when life happens, when life gets in the way, when lifes, there's still consistency. Yeah, having posts done, scheduled, ready to go means you can keep showing up even when things get hectic.
[00:04:46] I'm all for batching. That's a system that works with real life, not against it. even batching only works, if the volume is realistic. If you batch 12 posts for a month, that might feel doable. Brilliant. [00:05:00] If you try and batch 20 and it takes you an entire weekend, you won't do it again. Know thyself.
[00:05:06] Set the bar where you can actually clear it and I'll share my own experience here. When I first started my business, I genuinely felt like I had nothing to say. Those who know me know how ridiculous that actually sounds. Right. But at the time, I was just like, who's gonna wanna. Talk to me, hear from me, blah, blah, blah.
[00:05:25] All the boring things. So you know what I did? I went and worked with a copywriter and she grilled me solid for three hours until we had a solid communications plan. Some people would pop that in the drawer, never to be seen again. I didn't. I committed. I dedicated an hour a week to writing. I put it in the diary, and I spent that hour writing, not procrastinating, not looking at emails, just writing.
[00:05:50] And I did this consistently for 18 months. These days, I could kick out a blog in 25 minutes. I know, I know I could do it easier with ai. I like my own thinking [00:06:00] okay! But this is the bit that matters. There was a process, an hour each time, each week, each day in the diary. Non-negotiable. Someone else might need to batch once a month.
[00:06:12] That's okay. Someone else might need to dictate it into their phone while they're walking their dog. Cool. You do you boo. Someone else might need a content manager who pulls ideas out of them on a fortnightly call. There is no single right way to create content. There's only the way that you'll actually do, and that's the way that works.
[00:06:31] I wanna give you another example. Networking. I love networking. My client went to some awards, networking awards, and instead of doing the great to meet you, let's connect on LinkedIn routine. Boring She did something completely different. She recorded short videos of the award winners and then sent it to them.
[00:06:51] How thoughtful is that?
[00:06:56] Won an award, you are buzzing and someone you've just met [00:07:00] sends you a video without it being stalk alike of your moment. It's super generous. It's unexpected, and it's memorable and it works. She got responses from senior leaders all over the place, doors opened that wouldn't have opened with a standard follow up email, nice to meet you at, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:07:19] Right now, would that approach work for everyone? No. Some people would feel awkward pulling out their phone in an awards night and filming. Some people would overthink the video and then have to edit it for the next five hours and then never send it. The point is she found an approach that matched her energy and her natural style of connecting with people.
[00:07:43] She's warm and brilliant and funny and generous, and she thinks on her feet. The video thing played to all of those strengths. Compare that to the advice you read in most networking guides. Prepare your elevator pitch. Have your business [00:08:00] cards ready. I've never even owned a business card. Follow up within 48 hours with a personalized email.
[00:08:06] That's fine advice and it works for some people. But if it feels like putting on a costume, you won't do it consistently. And consistency is what builds relationships. I talk about this in my business development. Sprint day one, I get people to reach out to their current clients just to check in, say thanks for the business.
[00:08:24] Tell 'em how awesome they are. How's it going? It could be a phone call. It could be a text message, it could be a voice note. It doesn't matter. Whatever feels natural to you. The point is to reach out. The format matters less than the fact that you're actually doing it. Some of the women in my sprint are phone people.
[00:08:41] They pick up the phone and they call people. Others would rather eat glass than make a phone call. I get it. So they send a text message or a voice message, both work, the reach out happens either way. I actually had a potential client once who told me she didn't, couldn't, couldn't do [00:09:00] phone calls. She was anxious about them and I was honest with her and I said, look, conversations.
[00:09:07] Are a big part of how I teach sales. If that's not something that you are willing to work on, probably not the right coach for you. And we parted ways. Beautiful. 'cause it's all about relationships, right? It's all about relationships. And I would rather be upfront about that than take her money knowing we're about to hit a wall every single time I suggest that she reach out to someone.
[00:09:27] That's just honesty. It's just acknowledging that my approach and her comfort zone. Didn't really match and that's okay. And she'll find someone whose approach will work with her and that's okay.
[00:09:38] I wanna talk about goals and money for a minute because I think this is another area where people like borrow someone else's that blueprint and then feel terrible about it. So for some people. Hearing aim for a million bucks is totally motivating. It lights a fire in their belly. They can see it. They want it.
[00:09:59] They're [00:10:00] going after it. For others, that number is paralyzing. It feels so far from where they are that it shuts them down instead of firing anything up. And one of my clients had a really interesting experience with this. She joined a room where million dollar revenue targets were completely normalized.
[00:10:19] People were talking about those numbers the way you and I might talk about what's for dinner, and something shifted for her. The number stopped being scary and started being possible. She went from, that's impossible to, I could do that in three years. And here's what I loved about how she handled it. She didn't just get starry-eyed about the headline number.
[00:10:46] She got specific about what the number actually meant. She wanted 40% profit after covering all expenses, including paying herself a proper salary because revenue is a vanity metric. [00:11:00] If you're not keeping enough of it, don't you reckon? And I give all of my clients that same target, 40% profit after all expenses, including paying yourself.
[00:11:11] That's the number that means you have a sustainable business, not just a busy one. And the way you get there will look. Completely different depending on your business model. Some of my clients have multiple revenue streams, each making a hundred or $200,000 a year. Others have won one core offer and they're scaling it.
[00:11:34] Some wanna grow to a million. Others wanna grow to 300,000 and have Fridays off. Both are valid. And I had a conversation with a client once about what success looks like. I asked her, how do you wanna feel as a business owner? What do you want your days to look like? What personal goals matter as much as your business wants?
[00:11:56] And her answer surprised me a little bit. She [00:12:00] realized she'd been chasing a number that someone else had told her that she should want, and it wasn't actually aligned with her life. She was trying to build on the other side, so she recalibrated, ' cause we get to do that. She set a target that was ambitious, but also matched her values and suddenly the goal felt energizing instead of exhausting.
[00:12:21] That's what finding your own way looks like with money. You don't ignore the numbers, you get really clear on them, but you define what they mean for you, not what someone else told you they should mean at this stage, et cetera, et cetera. What they mean for you. And I just wanna add in something here because I think, I think it connects.
[00:12:42] I've talked before about choosing the room that scares you most, and I absolutely stand by that. Bigger rooms bring bigger ideas, they stretch you. And when I started making money, those first rooms started to feel smaller and I had to go looking for [00:13:00] rooms where I was not the leader, biggest fish. Where I knew everyone at the very least, and that was really hard.
[00:13:07] And while I have zero need to run a $10 million business, the ideas that come from those types of achievers are gold. Sometimes overwhelming, yes, but gold nonetheless. And you don't have to adopt everything you hear. You take what serves you and you park the rest and that's okay. But even being exposed at that level.
[00:13:30] Changes something in your thinking, the way you see what is possible, the people that are making it possible. And here's where the finding your own way kind of comes into it. You can be in a room full of people doing things completely differently from you and still get value. You don't need to copy their model.
[00:13:50] You need to let their thinking expand yours. Take the principle, but leave the prescription. If someone in a mastermind says they grew their [00:14:00] business by running webinars every week, and you hate running webinars every week, don't freaking run webinars every week, but maybe the principle underneath, which is consistent visibility to a warm audience.
[00:14:13] Yeah. Is there something you can apply in your own way? Maybe that's a podcast. Maybe that's a breakfast event. Maybe that's a lunch. Maybe that's a monthly newsletter. The vehicle is yours to choose. Absolutely yours to choose. So how do you actually do this? Great question, Emma. How do you figure out what your ways Well.
[00:14:38] If nothing, I'm practical and I've got four things I want you to think about. Number one, I want you to pay attention to when things feel easy and effective versus forced and draining. This is data. If you dread writing, but love talking, that's telling you something. If you thrive at in-person events but will turn zoom, it's also telling you something.[00:15:00]
[00:15:00] If you're great at deep one-on-one conversations, but terrible at group interactions or group presentation. That's also telling you something. Stop fighting your natural tendencies and start building around them. Number two, test things in Teny. Don't doses before committing to a rigid plan. Don't sign up for a year of weekly webinars because someone told you that's how you build their list.
[00:15:26] Try one. See how it feels. See if you're any good. See if you like it. See if it converts, and then decide. Use it as an experiment. I tell all my clients all the time, if it's a new offer, test it. Put it to 10 people you trust and say, would you buy this? Would you pay for this? Get data before you go all in.
[00:15:44] Number three, ask yourself, how do I naturally communicate, sell, or connect with people instead of how should I, the word should is a red flag in every business. Every time you catch yourself saying, I should be doing. Reels, or I [00:16:00] should be doing TikTok, dancing on TikTok. Don't even get me started, or I should be networking more.
[00:16:06] Stop and ask who told you that? Is it actually relevant to your audience and your business model, or is it just noise? And number four, give yourself permission to drop what isn't working, even if everyone else swears by it. I had a client years ago who was running herself ragged, trying to maintain. Five different social media platforms because a marketing guru told her she needed to be everywhere.
[00:16:34] We stripped it back to one LinkedIn. That's where her clients were. She put her energy there, the content got better, her leads increased. It's not magic. Sometimes I wish it was sometimes less. Really, really is more, and. Guilty. I've had to learn this lesson myself more than once. When I first started my business, I looked at what other coaches were doing and I thought, how can I replicate it?
[00:16:59] What [00:17:00] do their funnels look like? What are their launch strategies? What's their content? What's their calendar? None of it worked, but, but a lot of it felt like. I was just trying on someone else's clothes and they didn't fit properly, and so over eight years, I've stopped following all of those. I figured out what works for me.
[00:17:17] I write a blog every week because writing is how I process my thinking. I record podcast episodes because I love talking through ideas, and I'm better at that than my writing. I run group programs because I get energy from a room full of women who are doing the work. I do one-on-one coaching because that's where the deepest transformation happens.
[00:17:35] I don't do webinars every week. I don't dance on TikTok. I don't have a complicated funnel with 17 bazillion email sequences, and my business does just fine. Does just fine. The path I took to get here involve plenty of trial and error, plenty of investing in things that didn't pan out. Plenty of moments where I [00:18:00] thought. Everyone else seems to have this figured out but me and I'm just over here making it up as I go but that making it up as you go, feeling, that's actually just you experimenting. It's also entrepreneurship by the way. That's what it feels like when you are building something that is genuinely yours.
[00:18:21] Your business doesn't need to look like everyone else's. The way you create content, the way you build relationships, the way you set goals, the way you show up for your clients, they are can be entirely your own. The work is figuring out what that looks like for you and then backing yourself to do it that way.
[00:18:43] You way don't borrow from other people's blueprints. Build your own. That's the work that needs to be done, and if you want help figuring out what that version looks like. That's exactly what we do in our one-on-one coaching. I love working with amazing women, helping them [00:19:00] get focused and get results, and that is my sweet spot.
[00:19:03] I do that through some serious content, some playfulness, and not taking myself too seriously. So if you wanna talk about that, jump over to Emma McQueen and uh, let's have a chat. That's it for now. See you next week.
[00:19:17]
