Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous, this is episode number 326. You’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast. I’m your host, Christine Schlonski. And it is Variety Friday. It is the last variety Friday of 2020. And I am super excited for 2021 to come up with the Heart-Centered Business Builder Summit going on right now, I am super, super excited. So if you have not checked that out, hop on over to christineschlonski.com/hcbb. So today I want to share with you the three things that really made a huge difference for me and my business in 2020, with all the craziness that was going on in the world, and was not being able to travel, and really sitting down and focusing.

Christine Schlonski [0:53]
So before we dive into the three things, this episode is brought to you by Heart Sells! Academy. And at Heart Sells! Academy, we work with heart-centered ambitious entrepreneurs who love what they do, but really have a difficult time selling. It could be that they just hate sales flat out or they are just very reluctant or they don’t even know where to start so that it feels good to them. And we show them how to sell with ease, grace, confidence, how to ask their price, how to be authentic in the process. So if you feel like this is for you, hop on over to christineschlonski.com and contact us, so we can have a chat to discuss how we can best support you and your amazing business.

Christine Schlonski [1:40]
So in 2020, the three things that made the biggest difference for me and my business, were actually focus, building a community, and really starting to embrace the concept that you know, you need to work on your business instead of in your business to get to the next level. And I’m gonna go into all of these three, really briefly, so I can give you some motivation and inspiration. As you know, I love traveling. And I traveled a ton in 2019 and 2018. And every time I traveled, I realized that I didn’t get as much done. Well, you might think well, no wonder if you travel you can’t, you know, but I had all these great intentions, like, I’m gonna get up earlier in the morning, and I’m gonna do this, and I’m gonna work on this, and so on and so forth. But at the same time, that wasn’t totally in conflict with going with the flow, and just being open to possibilities, because that is where the magic happens. So in October 2019, I decided that you know, going to Paris, meeting up this, John Lee Dumas and Kate Erickson from Entrepreneurs On Fire just for a weekend, I decided that okay, enough travel is enough travel, I really need to sit out I need to focus so I can deliver more value to the world.

Christine Schlonski [3:12]
Not knowing that this will basically stay the focus for 2020 in total. But I have to say, by really sitting down and focusing on what I wanted to create, writing it out kind of having a map and plan, it really helped me in making decisions. So it didn’t work out all the time to be totally transparent. But most of the time, I could just ask myself, well, is this thing, this shiny object? May it be the next course, the next something? Is that something that will help my business to grow? Is that something that fits into my goal and will that help my business? Or will it get me distracted?

Christine Schlonski [3:58]
And it was really, really good to have that clarity because it helped me to save a ton of money that I would have spent on products and services that I didn’t really need, but they sounded great. And also it helped me to create more products and show up in a different way. So what you might not know is that for the very first time ever, I even taught 2 programs in German, which I’ve never ever done before. And that worked out amazing. So people are just wonderful. And I’m so excited that I actually did do something for the German market. And I plan for 2021 to keep doing some things for the German market, but still, my focus will be on the international market and all most of my stuff is going to be in English. So the question I have for you today is how can you focus and what are the three biggest things you want to accomplish? So here is the thing you can combine it with.

Christine Schlonski [5:05]
We all know that nobody is really the self-made millionaire or the self-made whatever person. We all have people that support us, people that maybe promote us, people that help us grow, people that give us the right advice at the right time. So whatever it is, we never do it alone. And so building a community is also very, very important. So in 2018, I already had the concept of an amazing membership in my heart, but I didn’t act upon it, I was busy, I was traveling. And, you know, I mean, I could coach from all over the world, but I did not really sit down to get the concept written out how I wanted it. So in 2019, at the end of the year, I really thought, what could I do for 2020? And at the beginning of 2020, the membership came back up but didn’t come in 2019. But 2020, I realized, especially with the pandemic, breaking out that so many people are now trapped at home, so many people are losing their jobs, so many people don’t know what to do. And I thought it is so so so vitally important to help entrepreneurs grow. Because if I help someone to grow in their business to make more sales to serve more people to have a bigger impact, they also will help more people. Right?

Christine Schlonski [6:40]
That totally makes sense. So I thought, well, how can I tie that in with a community with the membership, by being totally focused and not getting distracted with all the other stuff that is, and so I came up with my membership idea. And it did take me a while to kind of execute it under the radar because I wanted to get a feeling I wanted to test it a little bit. So I basically had calls in July, August, September. And whenever I felt called that this could be a wonderful person for the membership, I just invited them. And guess what most of the people said yes because they too wanted community. Maybe they were at a point in their business where they could not afford working with me one on one or taking a group coaching program, maybe they were looking for community, maybe they were already working with me one on one, and they wanted the community aspect.

Christine Schlonski [7:39]
And so by bringing that together by creating a community, where people come together, to network, to exchange ideas, to have, you know, an accountability setting, to just, you know, figure out what are the other people doing, maybe they can partner up, maybe they can become each other clients. So there are so many possibilities. So by kind of getting the foundation for the membership and getting the feedback, now I’m ready for 2021 to launch it. So you should be kind of opening your ears and reading your emails and see when this is going to be launched in January. So this is something that was a focus that I have by not traveling by really sitting down by figuring out what does my tribe need? And what else can I give them that I can’t teach because, in the membership, we have guest teachers, that means each and every month, we have an amazing person who is wildly successful in their business, and they teach one strategy so that it’s not overwhelming? But people keep moving forward, they keep getting momentum, and that momentum will help them grow their business and make their lives better.

Christine Schlonski [8:59]
So that is the piece of community. And also, the last piece that really made a big difference is growing my team, because I realized that my strings are actually in coaching, in teaching, in coming up as packages, in coming up with ideas that people can build their business on. And, you know, building community interviewing, partnering up like that’s like, that’s my genius zone. And so I started to build my team and to really outsource the tasks I did not want to do anymore, not because I couldn’t because they did not deliver that much value to my tribe because you care less if I actually write the transcript for the podcast, right? So I mean, I have been outsourcing this for quite a long time now but you just don’t care if I wrote the transcript or not, right, or if I set up the WordPress page, you don’t care, you care about the content in the podcast. So my job of interviewing, of finding the most amazing speakers and success stories, to share with you to inspire you to motivate you to go your own journey and to become a viable successful entrepreneur, by helping others by impacting others.

Christine Schlonski [10:25]
And by making your own dreams come true. That’s my job. So by having that clarity, and then really focusing in, and also having the support, obviously, I do have coaches. And every time before I actually wanted to invest in something, I talked to my coach, well, almost every time just to make sure because I knew by being tied to my desk, so to speak, by not traveling, I probably have moments where I’m looking for variety, that’s a human need, right, we have security, and we have variety. And it’s on when you see that kind of a scale, it’s, you know, both ends of the scale abundance, we want variety, so we don’t get bored.

Christine Schlonski [11:12]
The other one is we want security, so we feel safe. But you know, when you hang around in just one spot, then it gets pretty boring. So before I started, or before I did invest in two different programs, I always had a little chat with my coach, just to make sure that I did make the right decision that I saw the bigger picture that I did not lose track of what I wanted to achieve. So if you do not have a coach right now, or someone, like get an accountability partner, get someone who understands your business, and that deeply cares that you’re wildly successful. And then whenever something, you know, some opportunities come your way, and you don’t really feel it in your gut, like deep, deep, deep down. And that’s already indicated that it might not be right for you, but have someone you can talk it through, so that you understand, is this going to help my business? Or is this gonna take me away from my business? And will this distract me? So you have those choices, basically.

Christine Schlonski [12:23]
So in 2020, I think really the biggest impact was sitting down on my desk, being okay with focusing on getting the work done. And really connecting with my tribe and having wonderful conversations I talked to so many of you. Maybe you are tuning in right now you’re listening. Thank you so much for the conversations. And if you have not yet connected while I’m quite sure we will at some point. So thank you so much for being here. So what can you do to focus in to talk to your tribe, to really connect with your community? And how can you build your community, because when you build your community, amazing things will happen? Right, you can facilitate that place where people come together and were my new community basically, that is the Heart-Centered Members Community, which will launch in January as a regular membership, you will be blown away by what we have created in the background, and people who are already in it, they just love it. So what can you do to create your own community, right, so that you have people that remind you that your work is needed, that are there, that are kind of hanging around in your space, and that you can inspire and vice versa, they inspire you, I love my community?

Christine Schlonski [13:52]
All of these members, they inspire me, I love seeing the progress they make, and the beautiful gifts they give to the world. And I know when you’re listening, you are in this boat too. You want to give more of your gifts to the world, you want to have the impact. And you also know that you know money follows success. So you are here to make your dreams come true while you help others to make their dreams come true. And now when you look at all the tasks you are doing, is there something you already could potentially outsource and what I would recommend here is that you have an idea of what it is and how the task works. Because if you, for example, outsource something you don’t understand, you will not be a good communicator, you will not be able to tell the other person what your expectations are. And if you don’t know what the expectations are, how do you know that you have done a great job and outsourcing.

Christine Schlonski [14:50]
So if you’re thinking about outsourcing sales, I want to caution you don’t outsource your sales. Learn it first and then you can get support, then you know the quality of that salesperson and you know that they will sell the way you want them to sell. And that it is aligned with you, your goals, your company. So these are basically the three things. So again, I’m going to summarize that up, its focus, it’s build your community, and then know exactly that you need to work more on your business than in your business, and take the first steps that you can to work more on your business because then you will turn into an entrepreneur into a business owner and not someone who has just created another job. And most people actually create another job when they start out in their business. But that is not an excuse for staying in this spot.

Christine Schlonski [15:52]
So thank you so much for listening. I am so super excited, you’re here, I hope 2020 was a good year for you. And if it wasn’t good that it was at least okay. And maybe some of you, you had an amazing year. I had an amazing year, I just missed all the travel. And obviously, there was a lot of negative energy floating around and a lot of drama. So I really hope that we will get to a much better place in 2021. But I also realized that is so important, vitally important to really build your business online. Now, before everybody else gets the idea that they need to hop online because that is where the magic happens. This is where you will be independent of your workplace, where you can work from anywhere in the whole wide world, where you can support people anywhere in the world with your amazing gifts. This is the place where you will create your own freedom. So don’t wait, take action now.

Christine Schlonski [16:58]
Start off to an amazing 2021 by really getting your stuff together for an amazing online business. And if you need support, hop on over to christineschlonski.com and book your Sales Assessment Session. I’m more than happy to look over your sales process to understand where you are, where you want to go. And if it’s a great fit, I’m going to make you an offer. If it’s not a great fit, I can at least give you a couple of tips that you can move forward and that you can really make a difference in your life and in the lives of so many people you will be serving. Thank you so so much for tuning in. I wish you a wonderful rest of 2020 and an amazing Happy New Year and epic 2021 sending you all my love and I’m saying bye for now.