There’s a lot that happens on the journey to being a successful business owner, and I think it’s important to recognize what it takes to go from a shaky business owner to a stable business owner (which is when Profit Without Worry happens). 

I’m very familiar with what it’s like to be a shaky business owner, because I definitely spent a good amount of time there. It’s a place I call Business Owner 1.0. 

And just to be clear: EVERYONE starts out as a Business Owner 1.0. 

When I was in this stage of business — Michelle 1.0 — I’d go back and forth over the options in my head. I’d talk to anyone I could find who had a business and try to figure out how the heck they made it work. 

How do you balance doing blog posts, creating a website, social media, learning how to podcast, sending emails, creating freebies, finding an audience, finding a message, creating offers and learning all the tech with actually, you know, making money? 

This business stage was HARD. Really hard. When I was in this stage, I had a lot of FUD running through my head daily. And if you haven’t heard that expression before, FUD stands for fear, uncertainty and doubt. That’s the triple threat that cripples growth, confidence and expansion and at this stage every decision feels overwhelming and frustrating!

Meet Michelle 1.0

Here’s what it looked like for me as Michelle 1.0:

First, I’d search for success stories and inspiration everywhere. I mean anywhere from books to articles to blogs to webinars to videos to podcasts. I’d spend waaaaaay too much time consuming anything, anything at all, that showed me YES, YOU TOO CAN HAVE A THRIVING BUSINESS. 

I wanted reassurance that leaving my corporate job wasn’t the worst mistake ever. I wanted to glean any insight possible into how to magically turn the corner and have a business that increased in profitability every single month. 

I wanted to know what the heck to post on my social media, and no joke, there were times I’d spend one or two hours every day trying to come up with a Facebook post. 

During this time I bought course after course after course looking for the fastest path to cash. I invested too much time and money into website design, branding services, social media managers, fancy funnel design software, Facebook ads for fans on my page (please, for the love of god don’t EVER do that) and more. 

The problem was that I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t have confidence that I could figure this out. I felt behind and like I had to pay big money and spend a ton of time learning so I could magically make money. 

During that time, I bought more than 30 different courses and programs. So when I say I was looking for answers, I REALLY was looking for answers. 

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

The reason I’m sharing this with you is so that you don’t make the same mistake. 

All that money and time I wasted wasn’t even the worst of it. The biggest problem was that I made all of these investments BEFORE I had my business message, offer and audience figured out. 

I had a dream. 

I’d read a book called The 4-Hour Work Week and bought the lie that I could make millions only working hours a week. I desperately wanted to be my own boss, but I was scared to figure out my own way of communicating, trust my own knowledge and expertise and find my own audience. 

So I devoured courses, books, webinars and podcasts like there was no tomorrow — which overwhelmed me to the point where I couldn’t make any decisions at all. I just didn’t trust myself and that was difficult. 

I remember sitting in my office one day, reading a self-congratulatory email from a well-known business celebrity talking about his seven-figure launch and I just started crying. I felt so alone, I felt like a loser, I felt defeated and I felt like I’d never, ever figure this out. 

I told myself “Everyone else is so much better looking, so much more polished, so far ahead, so much more charismatic, so much better on video… and I’m not good enough and I’m not cut out for this.”. 

I cried and pouted and was in a funk for over a month. During that time I unsubscribed from the vast majority of email lists I was on. Anyone who made me feel crappy about myself was gone. 

I had a long chat with myself that either I figured this out on my own OR I needed to get a job. No more being a groupie of big names bragging about their seven-figure launches. 

Because really, I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t ready for that yet. 

Looking back, the saddest part was that I DID have a good business. I had a business that was making money. I had a small group of amazing clients that I loved. But for some reason, I felt like a miserable failure because I’d never had a seven-figure payday. 

Saying that out loud is a hard admission. Really hard. It was like yeah, I’m making money but I haven’t MADE IT yet. 

I wasn’t appreciating the hard work I’d put in to cultivate client relationships. I was listening to big-name gurus laughing and scoffing at people who traded hours for dollars — even though the dollars I made were pretty legit. 

I felt like a failure because I wasn’t Marie Forleo with an enormous audience and multiple seven-figure launches under her belt. 

My Lightbulb Moment

What made the tide finally start to turn for me was one day a friend messaged with an urgent marketing question she knew I could help her with. 

I helped her, it worked and she was thrilled. 

And for some reason, a lightbulb went off in my head.

I realized I had been trying to engineer a product that would give me a seven-figure launch instead of serving my audience and growing into whatever size business felt right. 

I want to share this with you so badly because that mindset shift was such a big a-ha that opened my mind up to so many possibilities. Ones that I couldn’t see when I was trying to be a big-wig seven-figure launch person, even when it didn’t feel right. 

Have you ever felt that way? Like you have to create an online course otherwise you’re not a real business? 

Or like you have to have 100,000 people or more on your email list… otherwise you’re not a real business? 

Or like you have to have that magical seven-figure launch otherwise you’re not a legit business? 

If that’s where you’re at now — I want to invite you to stop. Stop comparing yourself. Stop competing with people who have inside help from their high end mastermind that you don’t have. Stop comparing your profit with someone else’s gross revenue. They’re really different things. 

Just FYI, many of the people who have seven-figure launches pay out SO MUCH MONEY in affiliate fees, ads, their own team and more that many of them don’t actually profit that much. 

Michelle 2.0 Emerges

If any of my story sounds familiar or hits a chord with you, first of all welcome to the club. Every single business owner 1.0 goes through this. 

We fall victim to the big-name gurus who prey on our fear of failure with promises of quick cash.

The best way to STOP this madness is to: 

1. Become aware of it — which is why I wrote that new tell-all article. I don’t want people to spend as long as I did as a business owner 1.0.
2. Discover what it’s doing to your business. What are these beliefs costing you?

I go through a full breakdown example of how to figure out what this is costing you on page three of the article and you can go step-by-step through the process that I took one of my clients through.

Because the goal is to learn and grow and gain confidence so that each of us can evolve into Business Owner 2.0 (and FYI, being a 2.0 business owner feels amazing). 

When I went from 1.0 to 2.0, the difference was night and day.

Here’s some examples of the difference:

• I felt confident in my business and don’t fall for business-in-a-box shortcuts any longer.

• I was confident in my business model and no longer wasted time chasing hot trends that didn’t align with my strengths, skills and business model.
• I had a growth strategy and set aside time every quarter to create a 90-day plan so I’d stay on track, focused and reach my goals.
• I found my audience through Mini Offers.  I discovered who they were, where they were and what they wanted and honestly, that made the biggest difference. 
• I knew exactly what to measure to track profit… not vanity. NO MORE Facebook Ads to grow my fan base!
• I was always testing — testing a message, testing an offer, testing everything because no matter what the result of the test. Good or flop, I was learning more and more every day. 
• Failure and success no longer defined me as worthy. My own definition of success changed to having time to enjoy my family, friends and hobbies. 
• And finally, I only take advice from a small handful of trusted and proven experts who get results and have a similar business model to my own.

Create Profit Without Worry – one system at a time. I’ll show you how to attract a steady flow of buyers without all the hustle with this free download →  5 Steps To Profit Without Worry.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Article: The Real Reason Proven Marketing Formulas Have Stopped Working
• Connect on Facebook
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Connect on Instagram
• Create Profit Without Worry – one system at a time with this free download →  5 Steps To Profit Without Worry.