Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 179. You are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast. I’m your host, Christine Schlonski. And this is a wonderful variety Friday. So Happy Friday if you happen to listen in today, and I’m so pumped, you’re here because today I want to share something from my personal journey, how I really kickstart my business and made a big difference in many people’s lives. But also obviously a big difference in my own life because when we help other people, other people will help us and what we want to achieve.

I was just interviewed on an amazing podcast and the host asked me about how I found a way to grow my business so fast, to get revenue into the door in a regular level and not struggling like so many entrepreneurs do when they actually leave their jobs to become an entrepreneur. They’re setting out. They have all these good intentions and at the end of the day, they realize that clients are not lining up the door, that they really have to work hard to talk to people. To figure out how business works. To make their offers. And over time, they become insecure because they don’t get those clients into the door. Maybe they go and lower their prices, or the kind of become desperate and from desperate energy, you’re not really selling anything anyway, because people will feel it that you’re desperate. And that kind of repels people instead of calling them.

I just thought today I’m going to give you like my strategy that I used kind of by accident. It’s not that I sat down and well, I did sit down and did some thinking but the way it is now wasn’t planned from the beginning. So just know that when you pick a strategy when you follow a strategy, other things they’ll grow from that. So being open and really observing what’s going well, what isn’t going well, can really support you in making better decisions over time. Because I do believe nobody’s perfect. And we all make mistakes. We all invest energy, time and money into things that are not working out the way we thought they should be working out. And that’s where you actually learn and grow. And you learn from your mistakes you learn from bad decisions you made. And then you actually have a foundation where you can build success.

When I left my corporate job as a sales director, selling high ticket life events over the phone, being super successful making a ton of money, because I was so successful, and obviously a big part of it was commission-based. I did not really have that solid foundation. I started to build a side hustle, but it wasn’t where it really kind of replaced my awesome salary. I was thinking, “Well, I resigned, I definitely know I’m never gonna go back. I’m gonna make my things work.” That’s the mindset you definitely need to have before you jump into entrepreneurship. That you need to know you make it happen. you’re committed no matter what you will make it happen. There are lots of ups and downs and there were parts, there were times where I really thought, “Well, I don’t even know if I can make it happen.” When I focused back on other people, instead of pitying myself, things developed, things picked up and we’re having like this little, these little ups and downs, and challenges and everything worked out so I can highly recommend that when you are in a place where you’re kind of doubting yourself right now if you should go back to a nine to five if you need, you know, more support, just concentrate on who you serve, be really, really clear on who you serve, and then just make offers, work with those people.

What I actually did after I resigned, I decided, well, the best kickstart I could have for me, is doing a virtual online summit. And due to the relationship-building, I had done the years before, being in masterminds, being in programs, being coached, learning all these amazing things about entrepreneurship. I already had started to build relationships about two years prior to that, where I aligned with people who had already that great mindset. Who were very successful in their businesses, and who actually knew what they were talking about while I had an idea, but not really a plan.

I observed and I saw that there are these online summits. And I thought, “Well, that would make a pretty cool and big difference.” Because all of a sudden, I, you know, have an online summit myself. I provide a stage. I invite people to speak, and I interview them. It’s also branding by association, that you interview people who are highly successful, and other people will see you at the same point. So obviously, when you are totally a nobody in the market, nobody knows you. You don’t have any connections, starting with influencers is probably very, very difficult, maybe even impossible at this point in your career. So why don’t you start and check out people that you know. That like you. That trust you that know what your work is. What you’re bringing to the world and then interview them in an interview series. And what happened is I interviewed 27 or 28 people, including myself, and then I launched with, right after I actually left the job, I launched my summit.

So, everybody that spoke on my summit also promoted my summit. And you know, some people did a really great job telling their tribe about the great event, others, not so much. And this also teaches you who you can trust, who is holding true to their word, who you want to maybe work at a later time or cooperate. I mean, even though it’s painful in the moment because people have said they promoted and then they don’t really promote it. It will teach you about the future. Who is your tribe? Who is your support system? Who can you be lining up with? So I had the summit and all of a sudden, I went from, you know, people not knowing me to a couple of thousand people knowing my name, knowing what I did, aligning with my message, signing up for my newsletter, and really enjoying my content, giving me great feedback. And from that summit, you sell the recordings so I had people signing up for the recordings that’s how I made a little bit of money the first time around wasn’t that successful. Because I didn’t really know all the tools and strategies on how to promote it better, how to make the offer juicier, and how to really get this alignment with my message.

What I did is, I offered people a call with me, and once they were on the call with me and I delivered amazing value for them. And I figured they would be my ideal client. And they were open to that conversation, I just offered that conversation. And that’s how I picked up a couple of private clients. So I could, you know, kind of kick start my business and have the funds to not worry where the next line is going to come from, but kind of be in the place where I knew I had enough time to create the next amazing thing and to really find out what people wanted to buy from me. So everything kind of evolved. And the summit experience for me was such a great experience that I did another summit like half a year later, a little bit smaller, but same thing and I already knew better how to choose people to speak and I knew who would be promoting and you know, who I wouldn’t want to ask. And again, the same learning curve. How do you set it up? I could already see a slight improvement in the results.

It really helped me to kind of get over my first year in business to make it a success. Not being very about the finances because leaving my job kind of made a big hole in my income, because I let go of this big fat paycheck that I had every month. So starting out from scratch, and then figuring out after two summits, I thought, “Well, you know, a summit is such a big effort.” You have months and months of preparation, and then you launch it, and it’s going either one week, two weeks max, or anything in between, and then it’s over. This also means that people who have signed up to listen to the summit once it’s over, not everybody is interested in staying. So a lot of people also leave your tribe and you do not have a chance to market to them. And I asked myself, “What can I do to deliver value on a regular base? What can I do to keep up these amazing conversations that I had with those people with the other experts and influencers?” And the names became bigger and bigger. Also, I learned so much from every single interview, I was inspired. And it really helped me moving forward when people talked about their failure, and how they overcame challenges. And whenever I was in such a situation, just interviewing somebody totally lifted me up, because I knew if they had done it, I can do it.

So the next idea was, “Well, why don’t I just start a podcast?” Hello, you are listening to it right now. So I decided I’m going to start a podcast. And it’s such an incredible journey because now you know if you have subscribed, you’re listening to the podcast every single week, and you hopefully get a ton of value out of it. And over time, you probably get to know me, you probably get to feel the energy, the vibe, you understand how I’m teaching and advising people. How I help people to build their businesses, from the heart-centered way, with love, with excitement, how to create the freedom they want, the travels they want, and everything is just an alignment. So that’s basically the strategy. So speaking now, Heart Sells! Podcast just turned a year in November, the end of November 29 to be exact 2019. So we are just a little bit in over a year. And every week I have connected with an amazing influencer, who then you know, draw other influencers because all of a sudden, I had a stage, all of a sudden they aligned some message heart cells, and they wanted to be part of it. Not every influencer, obviously promote your podcast. And we do everything that you know, they look amazing and they get promoted in the podcast and with the promotional material we provide.

But it’s just learning from everybody. Having that network and growing, brings in other people into your network. All of a sudden, from being the best-kept secret. You are out there in the world because you created your own stage. In this case, you don’t even need to travel. Oftentimes, you can, you know, you can go and have a presentation somewhere or you are invited to speak on the big stage, oftentimes It’s paid to play. People want actually money that you are on stage. When you create your own show, or your own summit, or whatever your own interview series, then it’s yours. You don’t need to travel, you don’t need to spend time going to places, you don’t need to spend money on plane tickets, train tickets, transportation, hotel, whatever. You can just be in the comfort of your home, and deliver amazing value to people all around the globe, that would not have the opportunity to meet you if they weren’t at the conferences speak.

I highly encourage you to find a way that is an alignment for you, for your business to show up. May it be that you say, “Well, I’m going to run an online summit”, which right now we are running the Heart-Centered Lead Generation Summit, which is amazing, by far the best summit I’ve ever done. It’s my fourth summit number five is already in the planning, and because I have all these relationships, and I created these relationships with those amazing people, I got the support. And people recommend it, highly successful people I did not know in certain fields of lead generation to me so that I could line them up as speakers. So everything I invested into time and money to go to conferences, to be in masterminds, to have a coach, to be in coaching programs, has basically kind of come full circle, where I’m now in the position that I can reach out to people and people want to join what I’m doing because I take great care of them. I help them to promote their services. And you know, I give them the stage. And I think that’s key. If you do something, don’t do it from the point of, “What can I get out of it?” You will always get people coming, that are coming your way. So no worries about that. Think more of it as a way, like, “What can I create to give amazing, amazing value, that people want to connect?” And if it’s a podcast, that’s not a solo show, but you are interviewing people, or you’re going for the summit, you really want to be mindful of how can you promote your guests as a superstar that they are. And when you give, they will give as well. It’s not just to grow your list, which lots of people think, well, I just do a summit so I can grow my list and everybody supposed to promote. That’s not how it works. And that’s also something I learned from my first summit, where my mindset obviously was more like, “How can I build my business fast?”, to have this big kickstart in my business and thinking a little bit less of a How I could promote the other person and how I could make them shine. Just because simply, I didn’t think about it, I didn’t have the knowledge. And I didn’t have the creative ideas, because I felt I don’t have time.

So looking back today is really amazing because relationships will always support you. And that’s the most important thing you can do in your business is forming relationships. The more people that know you, the more money you will make. So be sure and get out there with your amazing gifts and services. Just find a way to interview people, to connect with people to build relationships, from a place of love, being heart-centered and making sure they’re taken good care of, and then everything will thrive. So I hope that really helped you when you look at your business as maybe a strategy you might want to consider starting a podcast, just an FYI, is probably not something I would take lightly. Also, the summit as a ton of work. By far podcasts, you have to show up on a regular level. And that’s a totally different ballgame. A summit, usually, it’s done within like two months, three months, maybe four months, depending on how much time you will give yourself. But for a podcast, if you don’t have seasons, it’s an ongoing thing. And you kind of drip out the content. You have one guest at the time. If you have one episode a week, it just takes way longer to get where you want to go if you compare it to a summit. Whatever you decide, I mean, let me know, give me your feedback info@christineschlonski.com. I’m always happy to hear from you or sent me a pm on Facebook or a message on LinkedIn. I want to know where you are or what your challenges are, and how I can be supportive, especially for the variety Fridays, where I do share resources, my knowledge and answer questions. So thank you so much for tuning in. I really hope this helps you in getting ideas about what you can do to kick start your business. And yeah, thanks for being here. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. And I’m saying bye for now.