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You don’t need a perfect plan to hit 6 figures. In this episode, I’m talking about what actually matters to move the needle in business.

We talk about taking messy action, building the plane as you fly it, and trusting that you’ll figure it out. These are all massively important skills if you want to grow your business.

I’m also sharing how saying yes to something I had never done before led to 10,000 sign-ups at around $1 per lead, why that experience helped me get sought out by clients like Marie Forleo and Amy Porterfield, and the completely different shift required when you move from six to seven figures.

Key Takeaways

• Why you must take messy action and stop consuming
• How I actually got my first 10,000 leads
• The key trait to hit $10K months (and why it changes at 7 figures)

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

You can consume the information and listen to the podcast and go to the webinars and do all those things. still, where you’re gonna learn the most is through doing. my number one hack to growing a business is literally that. It’s not a marketing strategy. It’s not good messaging. It is the ability to take messy action and to build the confidence that you will figure it out no matter what. sometimes that means saying yes to things that terrify you we have to take action. We have to go from point A to point B. you can even manifest all day long dream of your future vision, but if you don’t take action, it’s not happening..

Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within. Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. I am batching a ton of content today and then heading out of town for 10 days with my kids. I’m so grateful. We always do a really epic summer trip because it’s so hot in Austin, and so it gives us an excuse to get out and explore.

And I feel like every year we’ve just kind of raised the bar. So this year I’m doing a big Pacific Northwest trip. We’re going to a bunch of different spots all the way up to British Columbia. And I told my kids like, “You better be ready because mom’s going big this time.” And I’m super excited because the weather is a high of like 62 everywhere we’re going for the whole 10 days.

So today I am inspired to talk about something because this theme came up this week in different coaching calls that I had or workshops that I taught and questions that were asked. And it’s something that I think stops a lot of entrepreneurs from making progress and moving forward. And that is this overthinking, I guess, perfectionist, this doubt, this need to gather information and like have everything to a good spot before moving into action.

And I feel really grateful that naturally I’m a very messy action person, which is kind of weird because in so many ways I consider myself as like a type A controlling person. But when it comes to taking action, I do take really messy action. Like I don’t have to have everything figured out.

I can very much build the plane as we fly. And I’ve watched a lot of entrepreneurs that I coach get into this state where they start doing a lot of research and a lot of learning before they take the action. So they have this story that they need to have a certain amount of information or a certain amount of, I guess, confidence is probably the deeper level piece of this.

So they buy the courses, they listen to the podcast, they go to the webinars, they consume, they consume, they consume, but it actually turns into this like false productivity thing. Of course, a little bit of that is great. Like sometimes you do wanna consume some information to help you because you don’t know what you don’t know, but you have to be aware enough to understand when that has crossed over into overthinking and actually stopping you from taking action.

So I was coaching somebody this week and I could tell they were in, you know, several coaching calls with me and I could tell that their personality was one to get a lot of information, to go compare what competitors are doing, to buy courses, to sign up for things and, you know, attend the webinars. And that’s great, but after a certain period of time, if that doesn’t turn, start turning into action, it’s actually slowing you down.

And the tricky part is your brain has convinced you that it’s still productive. So the story you’re often telling yourself is I just need this information, this framework, this plan, this thing organized before I can X, Y, Z. Launch the offer, start doing more content, launch the webinar funnel, whatever it is.

And so when you’re telling yourself that, then your brain thinks, okay, we’re being productive. We’re being productive through learning and consuming and, and looking at what other people are doing and like gathering information. But that should only be a short period of time before you move into action because you can do all the learning in the world.

You can consume the information and listen to the podcast and go to the webinars and do all those things. And still, where you’re gonna learn the most is through doing. And I, I really believe one of the most successful traits that I see in an entrepreneur is people who say yes to things and then figure it out.

And when I was in the beginning of my business, I was just telling someone this story the other day. They were like, “How’d you start your business?” And I told my story, you know, I was 20 years old and I had no marketing background. I didn’t even like, I wasn’t gonna go to school for marketing. It wasn’t even in my radar that this is what I was gonna do.

It’s actually wild that I’m here. I was gonna go to school for like health. I wanted to do naturopathic medicine which is also a passion of mine. But anyways, and I said, you know, I found the online world. I had a baby, so it allowed me to make some money from home. And I started as a virtual assistant.

And I was doing everything. Like I said yes to everything. Any opportunity, any client, I said yes to them. And I would oftentimes be like, “Yeah, I can totally do that.” Knowing that I would figure it out. And actually so many times I took on a project that I probably spent way more hours than was even worth it for what I was getting paid, but I knew that I was learning in that moment.

So it was worth it for me. Like I was getting paid to learn while also doing the work. And, you know, that has just built on each other. So like the very first, I don’t know if I’ve told this story, but the very first client that I ever did ads for, I was a virtual assistant. I was probably making like $22 an hour working for this, this entrepreneur.

And she had a big online summit. And this was 10 years ago. So these were all the, remember when everyone did summits? And she had these big speakers. She had Alanis Morsett, Dan Siegel, like some big speakers in the child development industry. And she was doing a summit and she said, “Will you run the ads?”

And I was honest and was like, “Yes, I can figure it out. I can run the ads. I don’t have a ton of experience doing that, but I know I can figure it out.” So I did the copy, I did the ads, I did the creative, I did the targeting, I ran the ads. And she got like, it was 10 years ago, like a dollar cost per lead.

And it was crazy. We had like 10,000 people sign up for this thing. Granted, I had never run ads before. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I figured it out and I learned. And I, and in that moment, I, yes, I consumed information, right? I would look things up. I would go on YouTube. I think I bought a really like inexpensive how-to course, but I’d also learn it through like figuring out how to do it, setting it up, doing the targeting.

And so I learned the most through actual lived experience. And that was the start. I ran her ads and then guess what? Now I had the credibility of I ran ads for this summit. I forget how much it made. I, it was a lot. She, she did sales on the back end, she had affiliates, but I got 10,000 people signed up and made all these sales.

And so now I had that credibility. And guess what? I brought that to the next piece. And then all of a sudden within like two years, I was working with Marie Forleo because I built all of this experience and I was actually getting sought out because of the experience and the results I got. The point being, I learned 100 times more through doing and actually implementing.

And I think I also ran some ads. I did. I ran some ads at the time for my husband’s business because that was our money that I could play around with and then I’d have something work and I could bring those strategies into my clients. But I learned through doing. There’s no way I could have gotten as good as I did and the results I did by watching a single course or waiting until I had all the information until I went and actually took action.

I was getting hired by clients like Marie Forleo and then soon after that, Amy Porterfield, because of my experience and my results within my experience, which never would have happened if I was like, oh yeah, you know, I did, I watched a course and I know how to run ads obviously, right? So when I was speaking with this entrepreneur and she was on my coaching calls, I, I called, I answered her questions and then I was like, I’m getting this I say, sometimes say this when I coach, like I’m getting this kind of like intuition basically to tell you that your challenge is actually gonna be to consume less and do more.

I can tell that you’re somebody who consumes a lot of information and you wanna feel confident. And I think, you know, a lot of people, they care about what they do. So they have this story of like, who am I to actually go and say I can do this, go and say I can help somebody do this and get this result.

But the reality is you have probably way more experience than other people. And the fact that you care that much is in and of itself enough. And you gotta go and it’s like you bite off more than you can chew and then you figure out how you can chew it. That is literally a strategy. And I still do that today.

I still 100% do that today and I have never once not figured it out. And I understand that that takes a confidence and a trust in yourself, but I’m telling you the only way you’re gonna build that confidence and trust is by doing it. So start small. And what I encouraged this entrepreneur to do was every week, every day, just kinda check in and question herself and say, am I taking more action than I am consuming and researching and planning and strategizing?

Because I am telling you like that only does so much. So that was one example. And then I had another example from another entrepreneur I was coaching who’s at more of the beginning stages of their business. And they asked me like, I need, they said something to the extent of, I need a, a whole marketing plan.

Like I wanna have the whole plan. I wanna have the system before I go and like start doing things. And I said, you can’t have the whole perfect system before you go start doing things because you don’t know what’s gonna work. And when you’re at the beginning stages of your business, it is equivalent to throwing a bunch of darts at the wall and seeing what sticks.

That is the first like six figures of a business. I think, you know, getting yourself to the first $8,000 a month is throwing darts and seeing what sticks. And that’s okay. That’s, that’s not gonna be forever your plan. And I said to her, you can’t build an automated system and a big foundation off of something that doesn’t even work yet because you don’t know what you’re gonna have to change.

And so you’re building something on top of something that you have no idea if it’s strong and you’re not gonna know if it’s strong until you go start putting yourself out there. And so how do we do that? Okay, we focus on the number one thing is sell your offer. She had an offer. I said the number one thing is sell your offer.

So it’s your offer, it’s your messaging and your positioning, and then it’s, I want you to go have as many conversations as you can with your ideal customer about your offer, but also about them. You have to get better at talking to your ideal customer, at connecting with them, at understanding them, at using their language.

And the only way you’re gonna do that is through doing it. And it is okay to take messy action. It is okay to take steps and then as you do that, figure it out. We do this all the time in my company and it doesn’t ever lead to a negative client experience or a failed launch. We just get better. One of our core values is strive to be better than yesterday.

So for example, I need to talk about this on this episode anyways. For example, our challenge. I’ve run our challenge 25 probably times. Every single time it gets better. We ran our challenge back in July and that was the first time I had done it this year. Amazing launch. I did the whole recap on here.

Guess what? I have like five things we’re doing to improve it this time, to get even better. I never would have known those things had I not done the last challenge that gave me feedback, feedback both from audience, but also my own feedback at areas that I know I can improve. So we are doing the challenge again, September 15th, it kicks off.

And just as a kind of recap if you haven’t listened to my podcast, this is my number one most popular experience that I offer. It’s a free three day challenge where we actually launch ads. We launch ads live on day two. We give you the tutorial video on how to launch the ads, how to create the content for the ads.

Like it’s a very interactive implementation heavy challenge. It’s the most popular thing that we offer for free. I mean, we’re going to do it again because it was so successful and people love it so much. And we’re doing it September 15th. So embodymarketing.com/challenge, you can sign up for that. And I have some really cool improvements and additions that we’re bringing to this one, including giving special, like high, high value gifts each day of the challenge if you show up live.

Point being, I would never have come up with the ideas that I’m bringing into this challenge had I not done the last challenge. I can only learn that from doing. I couldn’t learn that from a coach. I couldn’t learn that from, you know, any strategist or looking at what other people are doing from their challenge.

I can only learn it by being in the arena. So for you, if you are number one, at the beginning stages of a business where you haven’t sold your offer before, you cannot create a robust plan and a robust system and an automated system if you haven’t validated it yet. You have to first do that. Then you build on top of what’s working.

So very much the beginning of business is messy. It’s supposed to be messy. It’s supposed to be you saying yes, you being open, you seeing what opportunities come your way, you’ve seen what, how a conversation turns into this. It’s the unknown. You don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know what’s gonna work yet, and so you have to be open and you have to try a bunch of things and then see what sticks.

That’s okay. But you also can’t do that forever. And that’s where the scaling from six to seven figures is like a whole different game. And I love h- helping entrepreneurs at that stage because you have to go from this scrappy, I’m throwing spaghetti at the wall, I don’t have a system, I don’t have automation, I can’t scale this to now, I have a system.

I, I need to build this to scale. I have to double down on what’s working. It’s like you literally are a totally different entrepreneur. Now I think sometimes people go into business where they want to be the seven figure entrepreneur before they’ve even earned six figures. Or you have people who are super scrappy who do throw spaghetti at the wall and, and figure it out and say yes and like are able to take messy action, but then they have to learn how to be the more structured, systemized, focus on what’s working, stay locked in entrepreneur, scale your business, you can’t do everything, et cetera.

Two different entrepreneurs, two different reasons to be those entrepreneurs, you’re probably gonna lean one way or the other. If you are somebody who is a perfectionist and you lack confidence when you haven’t done something before, which makes sense, our brain is like, “What are you doing?

We don’t know how to do this. We’re gonna fail. We’re gonna be rejected.” When you lack that confidence, the only way to build the confidence is through doing. And you have to actually be so aware of this that you can hold yourself accountable to this. And we all have areas where we tell ourselves the story, “Once I have X, Y, Z, then I can do this.”

And those are the dangerous stories that you have to, you have to catch, you have to have awareness around. So I want you to kind of take inventory. What I would do is take inventory in the last 30 days and ask yourself when it comes to your marketing, when it comes to content, when it comes to your, you know, generating leads, making updates to your offer or launching your offer or those things that you’re like, “I know I need to put this out there.

I know I need to take action on it.” And you haven’t taken the action. Are you telling yourself the story that you need to gather information and that that information is gonna give you confidence because that information is never gonna give you the confidence that actually doing it is. When you go and do it and you also realize that when something doesn’t work, you’re okay, you build confidence.

And confidence does not come through learning. It doesn’t come through a coach or a therapist or an ad strategist or anything. It comes through you. And you can only build confidence from showing up and taking the actions yourself. And, and then the second thing is kind of take inventory of where in your business are you so focused on the plan and the strategy and needing that to be quote perfect that you’re not doing.

And, and for a lot of people, I think this shows up in content. I think they know they need to create content, but they keep telling themselves they gotta learn how to do it. They need to get it perfect. They need to have their pillars. Like just start creating, just start doing it messy because I guarantee you that no matter what, you’re gonna suck and then you’re gonna suck less.

That’s the way it works. You know, you go do anything new for the first time and you suck and then you suck less and that’s just life. So where are those areas that you are not doing that and figuring out how to flex the muscle and build the skill because it is a skill that can be learned of flying the plane and building it as you fly.

And I think, I think I did a social video and like my number one hack to growing a business is literally that. It’s not a marketing strategy. It’s not good messaging. It is the ability to take messy action and to build the confidence that you will figure it out no matter what. And sometimes that means saying yes to things that terrify you.

Like look at you know, Jessie Jean, I love, I love watching right now. You know, she blew up so quickly. And so she’s getting asked to go speak on big stages. I’m sure she’s terrified, but she’s saying yes and she’s trusting she’s gonna figure it out and she’s gonna do it scared and she’s gonna do it anyways.

And if we just continue to do the things that make us comfortable and safe and feel safe, we will, you will stay in the exact same place and you will not grow from there. And that’s a choice. But in order to get out of that, you have to hold yourself accountable and be like, “I got you. We’re okay. We’re gonna post the content.

We’re gonna talk about our offer. We’re gonna put it out there. We’re gonna launch this thing. We’re gonna do this. We’re gonna try these things. We’re gonna know that if we go try 10 things, eight of them might not work.” That’s part of the process. So I wanted to bring that encouragement to you guys today and just get you thinking about where you have that false productivity of I need to gather more information, I need to do more planning or where you have told yourself, “I can’t do that because I don’t have the experience, I don’t have enough information or I won’t be able to figure it out and you’re just not taking action.”

And how can you move into action? Because us as human beings, that is how we learn and that is how we build in this 3D world is we have to take action. We have to go from point A to point B. And you can even manifest all day long and, you know, dream of your future vision, but if you don’t take action, it’s not happening.

Like you have to do that in our world. So, all right, you guys, would love for you to sign up for the challenge, embodiedmarketing.com/challenge. It kicks off on September 15th. This is going to definitely be our best one yet. Our last one was our best one yet, but I’m bringing some cool improvements to this one, including some upgraded trainings on how to set up your ads and how to find your targeting.

Like we literally give you those for free. We could charge for this so easily. We give you the full on trainings A to Z of how to set up a visibility ad that is gonna attract what I promise is in the three days, it will attract a thousand or more people to your business, a thousand or more ideal customers.

Visibility ads are an amazing way to build into your strategy to not be so reliant on organic social media to grow. It’s you getting in the driver’s seat and saying, “Here’s really good content, which I help you create. Here’s my ideal customer targeting, and now I’m gonna put that in front of my ideal customer so I can build audiences that then turns into leads and sales.”

So definitely register for the challenge. You have to be registered to get access to the material. And we take this material down after the challenge. So register, come participate in the challenge. It’s my favorite thing, getting thousands of you launching ads in a few days and seeing the potential of marketing.

All right guys, I will talk to you on the next episode.