Do You Actually Want to Get Better?

Or do you want a "yes man" to tell you that everything you do is perfect? If you're not improving, you're sliding backwards, especially in this economy.

Links:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/make-money-in-business.asp

Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/ 

Transcript

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Transcript by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I want to ask you the question, do you actually want to get better? Whether you are working with a coach or an advisor, or you're not, whether you own and operate your own business, you're a freelancer, or you're more of an intrapreneur, you want to work inside a company and build something there under the auspices of someone else, you want to be able to move up the food chain, get a better sexier title, get a fatter paycheck, it will still boil down to this basic question of do you actually want to get better? There's an old cliche that you're either moving forward, or you're going backwards, there's really no such thing in life as standing still, I think in the business world, that's especially true. And I would say it's probably truer now than it ever has been historically. When you think about the pace of the world. You think about the short attention spans that people have now we basically have the attention span of a gnat. There's all always breaking news and one story after another after another. Something that was popular on Monday is forgotten about by Friday, you have all of these technological advances, you have the onslaught of AI, if you are not making a commitment to improvement, self improvement, business improvement, professional improvement, et cetera, you're going to get left behind, in my opinion, I don't think there is such a thing as, okay, I just want to be status quo, I want to get to this spot. And then I'll just stay here, that is a delusion I find sometimes when I am working in a coaching or an advisory capacity with entrepreneurs, is they get this idea of I will build this business, I will work really hard, I will hustle my tail off. And then I will get to just sit back and collect paychecks. And it will all be mellow, cool, chill. And I'm like, I hate to be the bearer of bad news on that. But if you think that you're gonna get to sit back and be chill and be mellow. And you're not going to have to reinvest anything in terms of time, money and energy back into that business. You're not going to be in business for very long. And I don't think that this is talked about enough. I mean, I'll give you an example. Over on investopedia.com They have an article titled how to grow a successful business and the byline reads starting a business requires more than just a great idea. Yeah, I mean, no duh. Common sense is not common anymore. So silly. Believe me, I shouldn't be expecting anything different. But at the same time, I feel like these articles are pervasive. How to start a business, you need to have more than just a red hot idea. Here's the stuff that you need to think about. People don't always get into the mindset issue. And they also don't get into what happens after you have the business. And thinking of Ben Franklin, a republic if you can keep it. You've got a business if you can keep it. So there are nine bullet points here. Get organized, keep detailed records, analyze your competition, understand the risks and rewards, be creative, stay focused on your goals, provide great customer service, be consistent and be prepared to make sacrifices. Okay, but like what if you've already done all of that and you're trying to figure out how to move forward. We're already at the point to use a gym analogy. The people who are new year new me, they joined gym on January the second. I mean, like the closest gym to where I am. I drove by. I was out running some errands. I'm gonna say it was like the first weekend after the New Year. Holy cannoli. You could not have squeezed another vehicle in the parking lot of that gym. There were even even people parking across the road in a field area and walking I mean it was just cram jammed full. Now. There are cars there Yeah, but nowhere near what it was at the very beginning of the year. Statistically a lot of people drop out by Valentine's Day and then the overwhelming majority of the new year new me crowds are gone by St. Patrick's Day. So the gym rats that cringe and tense up and having their gym invaded by Johnny Come Lately he's in January and February by Valentine's Day, a lot of those people are gone by St. Patrick's Day. The majority of them are on. And so you may have two to three people that actually decide to stick with it for a longer amount of time. But not many, when we think about a parking lot being so crowded people are parking in a field across the street and walking. And then now it's like, maybe 20 people in there, that says it all. The same thing can really be applied to your business. People sometimes start out rah rah, and they're ready to make their goals. At the beginning of the year, here's how much money I want to make, here's the type of clients I want to work with, here's the type of feedback I want to get. And then it just loses momentum. People get pulled into the day in and day out the mechanics of just being present inside the business, and they can lose sight of the goals that they set at the very beginning of the year, some people don't even set goals. One of the challenges that I have is when a client, an entrepreneur thinks that, okay, I'm just gonna get this business to a point, I'm going to, I'm going to hustle, I'm going to work hard. And then after that period of time, I'll be able to just sit back and collect paychecks, and it will all be fine. No, that's not how it's gonna work. To go back to the gym analogy, that would be like somebody saying, I'm going to work really hard, I'm going to put on massive amounts of muscle. And then after that, I can just sit back and stop working out and the massive amounts of muscle will just like stay on my body. I hate to break it to you. But that is not how it works. What did it were. So those of us who have a strong commitment to trying to take off body fat and put on lean muscle mass can tell you, if it were that simple, if all you had to do was put in the initial grunt work of lifting those weights and pumping that iron. And then boom, voila, you get to keep it for the rest of your life without ever going back to the gym. Oh my god, sign me up for that all day long. That would be blissful. So it is in business. If you've just surrounded yourself with sycophants, or you've got friends, that's, that's another I think pitfall that people get into, they may have friends and family members that they are trying to use as a sounding board. Whether those people know anything about their line of work, or they don't. The thing of it is, our friends and our family are typically not going to give you the kind of gut check that you need. If you tell them, hey, I'm doing this and this and that. Does that sound reasonable to you? Yep, sure does. Take a look at my website. Does it look like it's up to snuff? Yep, sure does. Looks great. How about my headshot? Does it look professional? I mean, do I give off the vibe of really, like I went to a studio and had this done by a professional photographer? Yep, looks great. Your friends and family are typically not going to run the risk of making you mad by saying your headshot looks like crap, or your website has typos all over it. Your plan sounds crazy, and I don't think it's going to work is good to have somebody on your side that can call you out on your stuff and challenge your BS. So what are some ways to start this process? If the answer to the question is yes, I do actually want to get better. I don't give you advice. I don't tell you what to do. I sit here and I opine for your entertainment only. And that's it. If it were me, here's how I would start out. Number one, you have to acknowledge the desire, yes, I do want to get better. I'm out of my fantasy that I can just sit back and be status quo, I can work really hard. But then I can stop working hard. And my business as if through magic will just continue to grow. I'm going to acknowledge that yes, I do want to get better. And I'm committed to taking some steps towards doing that, too. For me, I'm really committed to continuing education and to market trends. I like to keep my finger on the pulse of what's going on in the job market. Not only because I run a blog, like the job market journal, and I have really carved out this area of expertise and understanding how the job market relates to the broader economy and vice versa. In order for me to be successful at what I do to be able to advise clients to be able to know what kind of challenges we're going to have in filling a position or running an HR project. I need to know those things. Do you know your market? Do you understand how it relates to the broader economy? When was the last time that you took continuing education? Where you tried to learn something from somebody else with more experience? Or are you sitting back saying well, I'm just kind of been letting this thing run on autopilot? I haven't really thought about continuing ed. That's important. Three, what does your new client acquisition what does your business development process look like? Sometimes freelancers, in particular will get overly dependent on freelancing websites. And they expect all of their clients to come to them through those websites or they want to be able to bid on proposals on those websites, in terms of actually having people coming into their funnel that have nothing to do with a freelancing platform zippity doo da, that's a dangerous position to be in. As I've said on the air before, if you don't hold it, you don't own it, you're not running those platforms. At any point in time, they can kick you off, they can change the algorithm and suddenly you don't show up anymore. And some of them, hold your feedback score over your head like the sword of Damocles. And some Billy, the backstabber client can come along and do something awful to you and have very little recourse.

So make sure that you know what your process is to get new people coming into your funnel, and not just randos. But people who make sense people who are ideal prospects for you that you would want to have a conversation with. The fourth thing I would say is, do you have somebody not a friend, not a relative, but some objective person with some expertise in your field, who can be a sounding board. As I said, your friends and family, they're not going to want to kill your dream, they're not going to want to be rude about your website, or your headshot or any of that, in my opinion, you need somebody professional, who knows what they're doing. Who can push back who can challenge you, it's not the coach's responsibility to play the football game or to run the race, it is their responsibility to give the players the best possible advice, the best possible guidance so that when they go out to the football field, or when they get out on the track, and they're ready to go, they have the tools that they need. Friends and family can't always provide that those things for you. They may mean well, they may send a lot of positive vibes to you, but they can't always help you to move forward in your business. They don't know what they don't know. The fifth and final thing that I would say is always take a look at your own mindset issues. I don't agree with Dan Locke on everything. But I do agree with him that 70 to 80% of business problems are actually mindset problems in disguise. People get up in their own heads, they get in their own way. I don't think that I should try this because I would probably fail. I don't think that I need to master other ways of business development, because these freelancing websites are working for me so far. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't want to borrow trouble by thinking about a negative scenario. I don't want to prepare, I don't want to wargame anything out. I just want to keep everything going. And then one day, if it all goes to hell, I guess I'll prepare for it then. Yeah. Okay. Having been someone who went splat at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, hoped their parachute would open after they jumped and it didn't, and it almost ruined them. I don't really recommend the not preparing the not knowing what you're doing and hoping it all works out fingers and toes crossed, hoping it all works out. It sure didn't for me, and I've seen a lot of other people that have also gone splat. Some people recover from that and some people don't. It all boils down in my mind to do you actually want to get better. We're coming into this economic cycle. You've already had some elites calling in a new supercycle, we're going into this new economic cycle where I really think you're going to separate the wheat from the chaff. I think we will see a lot of small business owners wipe out I hope I am wrong on that. I pray that I am wrong on that. And I think for some of them, it will boil down to this idea that they thought they were going to be status quo. They didn't think they needed to improve. They didn't think they needed to do anything to grow to learn more to adapt. They just thought they could stand still and everything would stay the same. I mean, my God, even just think about a decade ago, look at how different 2024 is from 2014. For that matter, think about how different 2014 was from 2004. How different 2004 was from 1994. I mean, it's almost like dog years. When I think about the things that we were doing when I very first started out in staffing and recruiting and juxtapose it to what people do now even that is miles apart. stuff that happened in the 90s and the odds and the cloak and dagger and oh, I can't tell you my client. It's super secret I need to vet you first people in today's economy don't put up with that crap and rightfully so. The genies out of the bottle, people know it's a joke. You're either gonna move forward, or you're gonna go backwards. I just don't think we live in a world where it's possible to standstill, especially in a business context. So ask yourself that question, I would challenge you to ask yourself that question. Do I actually want to get better? Stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next episode.

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