MY BUSINESS WAS A DISORGANISED DEBT-FUELLED MESS FOR YEARS. THIS IS HOW I BROKE THROUGH
Sometimes it still surprises me that actually, yes, I DO have systems. I have structure. I have templates, standards, ‘go-to’ ways of doing things in every single area of my back-end, front-end, and any other end you can think of. I got motherfreakin’ PROCESS, girl! When I give a directive to my team I need to only say a few words and they INSTANTLY know what to do, and there is precise, effective and brand-aligned ways for them to do it. The machine WORKS, and sometimes we barely even have to press a button for it to do so!
It’s funny to me to admit or even notice all of this, because for years I made SO much fun of systems and strategy, and look – I’ll be the first to say that that ain’t gonna stop anytime soon! There’s a very good reason I have avidly spoken up against being focused on that sort of shiz niz for years now, and will not stop doing so. Because here’s the thing –
1) For us? For the called ones who were born for more, who are natural creators, messengers, healers, leaders and who simply CAN’T with doing what the world, even the so-called rebel entrepreneur world, says? Systems just ain’t systems unless dey be soul systems.
and 2) If you think that the way to begin or even grow your business is by putting all your time, energy and effort, never mind money, into ‘what’s the right process to grow this thing?’, then you need a swift uppercut to the chin and I am more than happy to be the one to provide that for you.
What’s the right process to grow this thing? Which systems do I need in place so that I can spend my time doing what I love whilst also seeing revenue and audience growth taking place consistently? How do I set this bitch up so it prints money for me like the well-oiled cash machine I feel I deserve?
Consider yourself virtually smacked by me, and not in the fun way.
And then secondly – okay fine, I’ll tell ya how 😉
For years, at least 7 or 8 of them, as I grew what has now become this purpose-driven and soul-led online empire, I completely ignored anything to do with keeping shit organised, keeping track of money (or really, anything), and putting anything in place for structure.
I did literally nothing that I was ‘supposed to be’ doing as far as lead gen, marketing, sales.
I didn’t advertise.
I didn’t pre-plan anything.
And I sure as shit didn’t think in any sort of strategic fashion about how I was going to go to the ‘next level’. In fact, I never even heard of the words ‘next level’. Haha. Imagine!
Things were beyond chaotic. At the crux of it I had over 10,000 pages on my WordPress site. This is the actual amount, when I eventually hired a web dev company; about 10 years in, they nearly passed out in shock and told me I had more pages than pretty much any other site on the ‘net). And all of those pages were basically just thrown there. No order. No sequence. No proper filing of anything. And how I showed up each day? Was pretty much an exact reflection of that.
I didn’t look at numbers.
I didn’t attend to analytics.
I didn’t build any funnels or automated growth or revenue processes.
I had my head COMPLETELY in the sand as far as outgoings, and also chose to just cover my eyes and ears and la-la-la ignore my mounting debt.
I basically forged a path of mess and destruction through the not-especially hallowed halls of this here online world, and pretty much told myself every day for years that today would be the day I’d finally get my shit together and get all this stuff sorted out, plus start doing the ‘should do’ internet market-y growth things!
For years that day just didn’t come, and you know what? While there is a part of me who knows it could have been different, perhaps I would have grown faster if I had have ‘properly’ focused on growth and biz systems sooner, there is another part of me which knows fuck THAT –
But EVERYTHING –
As I kept my head down, my ass up, and did just 3 simple things each day –
1) Communication
2) Connection
3) Conversation
Which is to say that the more I wrote and spoke and listened to and truly madly deeply ENGAGED with my audience, the more shit just kind of grew of its own accord.
All I was doing was throwing my creativity and soul at the Internet, with no regard for the mess I was making or who was going to eventually pick up the pieces, and while I definitely felt guilty and a bit naughty (bad entrepreneur! bad adult! bad ‘trina! You get a smack!), I think that there was a higher self part of me which knew:
You’re focusing on what MATTERS girl, and everything else can wait.
To this day I only believe and teach that what you NEED to be doing, in order to hit your money and also soul fulfilment goals, is to FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS, and make everything else wait.
I could bemoan the fact that I didn’t organise SHIT for the better part of a decade and it truly was a yard-arms worth of tequila-requiring situation to clean up when eventually we started to do so, but because I ignored:
Marketing
Strategy
Selling (in the ‘proper’ way)
Advertising
Structure
Process
Funnels
Photoshoots
Fancy websites
Team or list or self management of any kind, aside from DISCIPLINE TO MY SOUL, BITCH –
Do you know what happened, do you KNOW what happened?
I woke up one day and I’d built a multi-million dollar per year consistent income which was based on me just being me, doing my soul work, ‘throwing shit at the Internet’, and dancing merrily on my way.
I KNOW that if I had have let myself get caught up in all the should and must-dos that all the experts were spouting off on, this wouldn’t have happened. Just in a practical time-sense, if my time and effort had have been going to building a business, I would not have instead built what I did build, which was absolute connectedness to soul and message, and the practiced ability to put that out into the world in the way that was right for me –
Every day –
Like this!
When I ask around, and I often do, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW AND BUY FROM ME, say it is because of my writing / speaking, because of how I reach in and grab them by the soul.
So yes. You could say I am passionate about reminding you of what matters, kicking your ass to keep your tunnel-vision focus on and JUST DO YOU BOO, while everything else implodes around you if need be! And for the love of God! Don’t go paying for websites and photoshoots shit if you haven’t built a thing and BECOME the damn thing who you need to be for people to actually give a fuck!
For me, I had nobody there who I could find who had built a thing based on soul and based on being a mad crazy creator and based on integrity to self, and so I am SO glad I didn’t give my attention to implementing shit that didn’t allow for all of that, because eventually I found a way to have it all, and I didn’t have to compromise on ANY of my truth to do that.
Which is why I am now ALSO so passionate about telling you this:
You don’t have to do it the way I did.
I waited over 8 years to even begin implementing growth structure or strategy, or process to save time and effort and make things SO easily repeatable and revenue-producing, because there were no examples which spoke to me and I instinctively knew that this was just my path. Mad manic mess first.
But if I knew then what I know now, namely that systems can (and only should!) come from soul, and in fact that they really really can support you to be more of you; in fact when you do it right even doin’ the damn process feels like soul unleashment and purpose work –
Well. Suffice to say I wouldn’t have waited so freakin’ long! I would have realised that I don’t HAVE to do everything the long and hard way. I wouldn’t say I regret that I did … it made me the woman I am today, and built some SERIOUS character … but would I do it that way again?
No fucking way.
Not with what I know now. The truth is that it was a constant drain and leaking-of-lifeforce, knowing that there was all this shit just mounting up all over the place, and suspecting that there probably WAS a way to have it all working for me to support me to do even more of what I love to do; just writing and speaking and hanging out with you!
When I have an idea, we have shit set up such that I barely even need to breathe a hint of the idea to my conscious mind or my team and there is just a way we roll out a launch in a matter of hours, and then run that launch race from flow and YEP as a well-oiled machine.
And that’s pretty representative of how I do everything now. I keep my head down and my ass up as I’ve always done, with 80%+ of my time spent ONLY writing and speaking and hanging with you, but what’s different now as compared with the earlier years of doing that, is that I know EXACTLY which buttons to push or bat to swing or needle move to activate in order to ensure that ‘me being me’ is leveraged over and over and over again.
I’ve grown a business online all the way from nil income for the first few years – side note this was largely because I didn’t sell anything the first few years lol … I was just blogging, not trying to make money – to (and I’m being rough with my numbers here but approx) 8k in year 2, 25k in year 3, 50k in year 4, 150k in year 5, 400k or so in year 6, 750k+ in year 7 and year 8, well over a million in year 9, and multiple millions every year since then. It’s now year 13.
I look back now and see that at every step of the way there were things moving together which I just wouldn’t understand until later. There was a LOT of time wasted, a LOT of inefficiency. There’s no reason it had to take so long, even though it’s fine it did; it’s still pretty damn good and I am cool with all of that! But I can also look back now and clearly see the key moves I made which did allow those income leaps, those leaps in soul tribe growth, and also those leaps into me being able to drop more of myself ONLY into doing what I love.
So I guess I just wanted to come on here today and remind you of two things –
1) It’s okay if you feel like you’re all over the shop, messy and mad as fuck and being a ‘bad entrepreneur’, and in fact if you’re not like that a good chunk of the time then you’re probably not really saying yes to soul
and
2) There is a way even for people like us to structure things so we can be more of ourselves and let things just grow alongside that. Keep your eyes open and start to notice what that is for you; the way will be shown as you step forth on it!
And finally, this –
Know that you’re in the right place. You’re on track even when you feel you’re not. You’ve got this. You always did. And you ARE figuring it out.
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