01 | My Journey: How I Built My Business on My Own Terms
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Episode Show Notes
In this episode, I’m walking you through my business journey and telling the story of how I went from building a business that left me feeling exhausted & overwhelmed, to learning to listen to my intuition, release the typical ‘rules’ and traditional marketing strategies that are commonly taught in the online space, and FINALLY start building my business on my own terms.
In this episode, we talk about:
Traditional marketing & why it doesn’t work for everyone anymore
Mistakes to avoid when hiring a mentor or coach
The power of listening to your intuition in business
My business journey
xo, Leticia
Episode Blog Post
Hi! My name’s Leticia, but you can call me Tish, and I’m a Marketing Mentor for ambitious business owners who want to create more time, freedom and profit in their online business, in a way that feels good to them!
I really want to emphasise that I am here to help you build a business that feels good to YOU. I’m not a big fan of most of the traditional marketing strategies and the way a lot of the big business gurus tend to teach online business and marketing.
Traditional marketing are the strategies like cold DMing, sales calls, fear-based marketing, guilt-based objection handling… and so many more tactics that just feel slimy and salesy and gross!
When I first started in the coaching industry, though, I saw a lot of these big-name entrepreneurs using these tactics and I honestly thought this was the only way to run an online business.
For context, this was in 2019 and at this point, I was an influencer coach. I’d built a side hustle as a content creator and I was now teaching aspiring content creators how to grow on Instagram and how to monetise through paid brand collaborations. This is, of course, very different to what I do now, but it was my introduction into the coaching industry.
My start: Building a business I hated.
The first business coach I hired was very big on traditional marketing. The cold DMing, sales calls, fear-based marketing… these were all things that I was taught to do by my first coach; and these tactics were what I was constantly seeing all over the online space. I was being told that if I wanted to build a successful business, I had to do these things as well.
So, I did them. I’d invested in this coach, she clearly had a very successful business and she was telling me that I needed to start doing these things in my business if I wanted it to grow and if I wanted to be successful… so I did!
But what I very quickly realised was that these strategies just didn’t feel good to me. And if they didn’t feel good to me, I was more than willing to bet that they probably didn’t feel great to my audience and my prospects… the people I was using these techniques on.
On top of that, I was also being fed so many rules about how I should run my own business that I felt like I was just in a 9-5, following rules from this big business boss. I would have an idea for something I wanted to do and I’d be told, you can’t do that until you have this. Or, no that’s not going to work… and so I didn’t do them because I’d invested in this coach, and she was a professional and she knew better than me, so I listened to her and I did what she said.
But honestly, I didn’t love my business. I didn’t love how I was marketing it, I didn’t love how I was running it and although I initially started my business because I wanted the freedom that being my own boss would give me, I didn’t feel free at all.
The mistake I made when hiring my first coach & how you can avoid doing the same.
I do think its important to point out here that the way I was running my business and the fact that I was using these tactics and doing things I didn’t love wasn’t my coach’s fault. When I made that investment, I made it from a place of scarcity and fear. I was seeing all over the online space that if I wanted to grow my business and be successful then I needed to hire a coach to help me do that. This, again, is an example of that fear-based marketing.
So when it came to hiring my first coach, it was from a place of fear and I didn’t do my due diligence. I didn’t research as much as I should have into the coach. I didn’t check to see if they were running their business in a way that I wanted to run my own. And so when I got in there, I realised that she was teaching me what had worked for her and it didn’t align with me.
Although I didn’t agree with what she was teaching, it definitely would have worked for a lot of others and how they wanted to run their business, so the experience I had was not the coach’s fault at all - it was mine for not doing my due diligence and taking the time to find a coach I truly resonated with.
Leaning into my intuition, breaking the rules & building a business that felt good to me.
It did take me a while, but after ending my relationship with my first coach, I decided that if something didn’t feel good to me within my business, I wasn’t going to do it.
I started leaning into my intuition and operating from a place of integrity, keeping in mind how I would want to be marketed and sold to if I were on the receiving end. I started building my business based on how I actually wanted to run it, not from the popular advice in the online space. And that has allowed me to build a business that I truly love.
As an example, in my business, I do offer 1:1 mentorship, but I don’t offer it in the traditional way. When you think of 1:1, you typically think of a container where you receive x amount of calls with your coach or mentor and that’s where you’ll do all your planning, strategising etc.
Well, I did this for more than a year, but at the end of 2020, I realised that I was starting to resent my business. And I realised that I was resenting it because I resented the amount of time that I was spending on calls with my clients. And it wasn’t the clients that I resented at all, I absolutely loved working with them, and I loved chatting with them! My clients are the best part of my business…
But what I didn’t love was having my schedule and my time taken up by so many client calls. I started my business for freedom… and the fact that I had so many calls building up meant that I had to schedule my life around my business - and I didn’t want that!
What I began to realise was that a lot of the transformations my clients were experiencing were actually taking place in between calls. They would have access to me via an app called Voxer (which is just like WhatsApp but for business). In between calls, I would use that to continue to support my clients and keep them accountable.
I wasn’t enjoying how my 1:1 was working with the traditional call style, so I decided to try something else. And that’s when I started trialling a new form of 1:1 that took place entirely through Voxer.
I was initially so scared to offer this service because I wasn’t seeing it offered a lot in the online space at that time, people were telling me it wouldn’t work and I didn’t know if my audience would see it as less valuable because they weren’t getting the calls, as usually expected.
But I gave it a shot! And guess what… it completely transformed my business!
It brought in my dream clients, ones who were truly aligned with me, and it allowed me to serve them in the most impactful way because I was able to reclaim my energy and serve my clients in a way that felt good to the both of us!
That’s just one example of how I started to build my business around my life and on my own terms and in a way that feels good to me. There are so many more and if you want a full episode on that then send me a message and let me know!
When I released the expectation of what I’d been taught my business ‘should be’ and instead, started building my business on my own terms, that’s when everything really changed…
Now, I get to wake up every day excited to work (and get paid for) something I am truly passionate about.
And now, that is what I teach my clients and my students.
My mission is to help other business owners create more time, freedom and profit in their business in a way that truly feels good to them and aligns with their values. I teach business owners how to release hustle culture and build a business that supports the life they desire.
So that’s my story, and if there’s one thing you take away from this episode, I hope that it’s the realisation that you don’t have to follow the traditional way of building a business or the traditional way of marketing. You can build your business on your own terms.
You don’t have to do anything you hate simply because it’s considered the industry norm or because a business coach has told you you have to. You can build your business in a way that feels good to you, and still see success… whatever that may mean to you!
LET'S CONNECT
WORK WITH TISH
If you’re an ambitious entrepreneur looking to create more time, freedom & profit in your online business and finally start building your business in a way that feels good to YOU, click here to learn more about how Leticia can support you with Private Voxer Mentorship.
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Hey! I’m Tish!
I'm a marketing mentor for ambitious entrepreneurs who want to create more time, freedom & profit in their online business, in a way that feels good to them!
If you’re ready to build your business on your own terms, so that you can live the life you desire… grab a cuppa, get comfy & stay for a while ☕️ ✨
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