Most entrepreneurs try to grow their income and achieve bigger goals with the same mindset that they started their small business with in the first place. But that mindset will just keeps them stuck at the level of success they have right now. With a CEO Mindset, an entrepreneur can level up their decision making and focus so that they spend more time leading their team to achieve great success.
Listen in as I share how a few simple thoughts can be sabotaging your growth -- and how you can elevate your mindset to achieve bigger success.
Key Takeaways
1:00 Think about what your biggest goal is? Is it to grow your income into six, seven or even eight figures? Get clear on your goal so you know what mindset you really need.
3:21 A sign you are using the wrong thinking to grow your business is you never seem to have time to work on your “bigger goal” projects.
4:23 Multiple Train Syndrome: When you have multiple projects you are trying to move forward, but since it’s just you, you have to get off one train to drive another. Projects move forward REALLY slow!
5:50 Write down the answer: What would the leader of a six [or seven or eight] figure business do differently? Train your mind to think through this question.
7:37 Employee thinking keeps you playing a small game in your business. When you think more like a CEO, you play a bigger game.
10:17 The first of five CEO Mindset Shifts is to Have a Clear Vision of where you want to be in your business. Whether its 6 months or 6 years, have a clear vision.
13:20 The second CEO Mindset Shift is Time Mastery. As a CEO & leader, time is often what you have the least of but having a mental mastery to prioritize is critical to sustain higher levels of success.
15:30 Knowing your Personal Productivity Formula will help you make better decisions for what you say yes to.
19:30 The third CEO Mindset Shift is Delegating Profitably. Whether you are afraid to let go or you don’t know how to pay for the team you need, if you aren’t delegating enough, this can become a huge bottleneck. Melanie covers 3 ways you hold back from delegating properly that end up costing you time and lost opportunity.
24:24 The fourth CEO Mindset Shift is Making Better Decisions. Your decisions are your success fuel since every decision drives your actions, strategies and growth efforts.
26:18 Decisions and your comfort zone go “hand in hand.” When you stretch into CEO Thinking, you’ll make better decisions that are in alignment with your definition of success.
27:34 The fifth CEO Mindset Shift is recognizing you need to Invest to Grow. A mistake many entrepreneurs make is using the “top line revenue” to make investment decisions instead of knowing the real numbers. Don’t get stuck on what things cost. Look at how the investments in your future success can pay off.
Mentioned In this Episode:
This week’s episode of Amplify Your Success Podcast is a coaching session with Lori Leyden, founder of The Grace Process and a key transformational healer working with Rwanda Genocide survivors. Lori has been immersed in healing work in Rwanda and with the Sandy Hook families and is now ready to elevate her impact with other leaders. Melanie guides Lori through identifying a fast path to cash as well as a longer term lead-generation technique where Lori can leverage her many strategic partners and fans
Key Takeaways
6:28 Lori shares how influencing the influencers is how she helps leaders to do the inner work to be able to sustain the energy for big transformation work.
8:46 Lori reveals how she discovered an online business is much harder than she imagined, and she wants a new direction to expand her income and impact.
12:22 Melanie helps Lori design a $2k package that will help her generate fast cash in her coaching business. An important shift in thinking is surfaced – the clients that can’t pay your new prices may not be your best clients.
16:14 Melanie discusses how a sale on an entry level offer can help drive new leads – as well as help prospects take advantage of current prices before the price goes up.
20:45 Melanie digs into how to leverage the right podcast interviews to gain exposure and clients.
23:45 Lori asks, “What should someone do if they don’t have a big enough list to partner with other big players?” It’s a common obstacle for many heart-based business owners and Melanie shares a couple of solutions
28:41 Melanie shares a simple technique to create win-win strategic partnerships that help open doors to new prospects and clients.
32:24 An important step in finding your best strategic partners is to create a list of traits, characteristics and values of your ideal partner. Melanie shows Lori how to prepare an “ideal partner profile” to identify and approach strategic partners.
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Inside this week’s episode, Melanie delves into five of her favorite time-saving, automation tools that boost her productivity and helps her team be more efficient. Plus, she shares a few bonus tools and compares a few popular technologies and why she isn’t using the cool kid’s choice for task management software.
Key Takeaways
2:25 Melanie starts with her most favorite time-saving, productivity boosting tool that helps her manage her team and stay focused on time sensitive project deadlines.
4:39 A good task management system helps an entrepreneur eliminate foggy thinking or feeling lost with what to do next. Melanie gives some examples of how this kind of online software works with routine tasks as well as tracking project deliverables.
7:29 A sanity-saver for Melanie – having a task management system that emails reminders to the team and business owner so that you know if something is falling behind.
9:23 Melanie’s 2nd favorite tool is a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) system that allows us to integrate automatic follow up with email management and online sales.
13:21 This tool offers a lot of integrated online forms, surveys and segmenting options for advanced marketing analytics and documentation.
15:36 One of the simplest tools to increase productivity (and its FREE) is Google Calendar. We use it with an online scheduler to allow our clients, partners and other parties to schedule easily.
18:00 This tool can actually save you money by freeing up your assistant’s time from chasing down appointments and having automated appointment reminders.
19:38 There’s now a cool plugin that links our CRM with our online scheduler Acuity to automate our follow up steps after an appointment is confirmed.
21:24 Another productivity tool, especially if you collaborate, is Google Drive (and its free!)
25:30 A newer tool that Melanie and her team are transitioning to is Zoom for live video teleconferencing (and she uses it to record for guest podcast sessions too!)
30:58 This tool is not normally a productivity too, but this one is a time (and cost) saver for anyone who creates a lot of online websites and landing pages.
33:06 A favorite app that saves a ton of time – and has helped boosted Melanie’s creativity is Canva for Work. Most people know the online tool but the iPhone app is amazing!
Mentioned In this Episode:
TeamWork Task Manager Software
Acuity Online Appointment Scheduler (Free 30 Day Trial Available)
As a leader or visionary entrepreneur, chances are you’ll go through a dark knight of the soul. Today’s guest expert, Rhonda Britten, author of Fearless Living, shares how a dark night is like a rite of passage and how to harness the gems inside of a challenging time.
Founder of the Fearless Living Institute, Rhonda Britten is an Emmy-Award winner and repeat Oprah guest. Rhonda was the first Life Coach on reality television in the world on the first-show of its kind, Life Doctor (Second Season the series name was changed to Help Me Rhonda). Next, Rhonda changed lives on the hit NBC reality show Starting Over and named its “most valuable player” by The New York Times and heralded as “America’s Favorite Life Coach” by TV Guide.
Key Takeaways
4:52 Rhonda gives a definition of what a dark night of the soul is, including what triggered her dark night that lasted several years.
6:42
7:00 Melanie talks about how important it is to have these kind of authentic conversations and how her dark night shattered everything that her defined her version of success.
8:50 How not taking care of yourself can propel you into a dark night, as well as trigger chronic illnesses.
11:22 Rhonda offers insight into how to handle really dark thoughts, such as surrounding yourself with friends, to help you emotionally recover.
13:55 Melanie shares how your mind is not going to solve the dark night and what to do when you are stressed out about how to keep your business going during this phase.
16:56 It’s important to remember that a dark night purpose is to go to a deeper, truer part of yourself and to learn to use skills that you haven’t yet developed.
20:49 Fear can control us by needing to know how to move through a dark night (or any challenge.) The way to experience true freedom is to let go of the addiction of needing to know.
26:24 One way to move through a dark night is to be willing to honor your truth, even if it’s not matching what the popular advice is.
30:01 A paradigm shift is that experiencing a dark night is a compliment, and a sign that you are ready to go much deeper in order to serve on a greater level.
35:45 During a dark night you may have to make your goals smaller and easier. Don’t let competition drive you in this phase. Your number one job during a dark night is to take care of yourself and heal
39:00 Melanie talks about how eating habits and certain foods can trigger worse symptoms. It’s important to know if you have food sensitivities that are trigger emotional swings or chronic illnesses.
43:00 If you are willing to let go of what you have now, you can make space for something more fulfilling, more aligned and a greater expression of your true talent.
Mentioned In this Episode: