Recently after a live event, I was able to slowly make my way back to Austin via Kansas City. We ended up in a really awesome bar in Kansas City bar called The Plaza Three. It’s this really old, very historic and upscale little place, and downstairs they have fabulous live jazz music.
While I was sitting in this cute little bar enjoying the music and ambiance, I really started thinking about, wow, this is just so amazing that not only do I have the ability to have the time to mosey about the United States on my own schedule and kind of hang out here and there, but I could also afford to be in that upscale restaurant and amazing little jazz bar.
It really made me think about my journey and this turn that my life has taken just in the last 10 or 12 years. I realized something about how I communicate with the people that I coach and that I consult with.
But if people didn’t know me, like last year when I went, I definitely had to have a bit of a story. I had to have that whole introductory line. As business people, I think we’ve probably all heard the tail or you’ve got to have that 32nd elevator pitch and you have to have a two minute version of your story and then like a six minute version because of course when you first meet someone they’re like, hey can you tell me about yourself, or hey, how are you? Nice to meet you. Who were you again, and what do you do? These are kind of conversations that crop up. And what I kind of realized was I didn’t one, have to say that a lot this past time because most of the people who were there in the audience kind of had an idea of who I was, but I definitely met some other industry people that were guests for my assistant pro that came and that they’re awesome and they do all kinds of cool stuff but they didn’t know who I was because they’re not part of our community.
They were just kinda there visiting. And so when I met those people, I realized that I was neglecting to sort of talk about the me that I was before I decided to have an online business. And so today I really wanted to just touch base with you guys about embracing your whole story. When we focus on our marketing, we definitely want to embrace the struggle. We want to talk about the rough times that we went through. For me it’s always the part of my story that I talk about with that is like, hey, our offline business went down. We had a client that went bankrupt on us for a quarter of a million dollars. We basically did not have the liquidity to come back from that. So everything kind of spiraled. We had no control over this or that. Our house went into foreclosure, so we had to file bankruptcy to save that.
And then from there it was like, I just had to make a decision to make a change. So that was sort of the catalyst that pushed me. That was my pain and my, really, I was scared. I was scared to lose the house. I was scared like where are we going to live, what are we going to do? And so I was like, I was really energized from that moment to make a change and that’s what propelled me to my online business, but I neglect to talk about the good times. Right? Ten years ago we were hanging out at this same awesome jazz club. We were having amazing success and we had lake homes, we had brand new vehicles, we had boats and motorcycles and we were going on vacation and we had all that stuff. And in that business world this is something I actually said from stage was I kind of sat back and looked at it and we had grown a business from 600,000 offline to over $3,000,000 a year in less than 36 months.
So that’s a 500 percent growth in our business in less than 36 months. Now those numbers sound large. But in the offline world it’s a lot of gross income. And then you’ve got to worry about your net. But we were doing pretty good. So what I was figuring out though guys, was that I wasn’t the left thing to sort of embrace some of my own trials, some of my own successes. So when we talked today about thinking about how are you embracing your story? Yes, I want you to absolutely take the time to really catalog the struggle, that pivotal moment of pain that really made you make the shift. And you’ve got to get comfortable sharing that because that’s the part that with other people had been through, going through foreclosure or having bankruptcy or they’re scared they’re gonna lose their house.
I literally had people come up to me and say, thank you so much for sharing that. It’s so encouraging to see someone who was in the position that I’m in right now. And that gives me so much hope that I can make the change. So when you share the pain, then absolutely it allows you to connect really on a very emotional and deep level with the people who are listening to you. Okay. So definitely do that. But don’t forget the exciting things that you have accomplished. Have you been able to be a stay at home mom for 10 years. Have you raised two, three children? Have you been a foster parent? Were you a scout leader. Have you been a basketball coach to little league kids or what is it that’s good about you that came before or during the moment that you decided to make a change in your life and build a business using the internet? Don’t polarize your own self by not being free and sharing some of those good things too because they’re all a part of us.
And so if you haven’t really crafted your story yet, think about all of that and weave it into a jury because all of those parts are part of each of us and not only you and me, but it’s the people that haven’t found you yet. The people that are going to find you over the next six months, eight months, year, year and a half. I still get people today that come back and say, oh, I just watched four or five of your videos on your channel. And then they start telling me which ones they are and they’re ones from like a year and a half ago. That I’m like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that I even left those up. They’re so horrible. ‘Cause we all think that when first get started, because they’re not good once you practice things get better.
But at the beginning I was not comfortable sharing my story. So I go back and look at those videos now and it’s very spotty. And I kind of like, I sort of tip toe around the real issues that I was sort of living with. And if you’re not on the other side of the pain yet, like right now, if you are struggling because you either just lost your job or you are behind on your house payments or maybe they’re starting to repo the car or the light bill hasn’t gotten paid. Whatever your struggle is, it doesn’t matter. If you’re there and you’re sort of still close to that moment, it is going to be difficult to share. So just accept that, right? And understand that that’s normal. But the sooner you get to the place where you can share whatever it is you’re really going through and what propelled you to move forward and make the change in your life. The sooner you’re going to connect with your audience.
And then when you get comfortable sharing and then you really flesh out your story to include all the pieces of you, the good, the bad, and the ugly. That’s when you become just a real person that other people really want to follow. And it’s a process. It’s absolutely a process to get comfortable in that storytelling and in that sharing. Because if you’re like me, I’m sort of a private person. I literally was never on Facebook before I joined Molly’s system pro. I think I had maybe logged into my account, I dunno, maybe like six times since I was like 18 years old or whenever Facebook came up. I had a profile picture, maybe like five posts or something. Now I definitely consider myself a very proficient Facebook marketer among other things.
And so it’s just really funny that transition for me and the fact that you guys all know that I was hanging out with my sister and I was doing this, I was doing that and now you know that I was in the process of actually foreclosure [inaudible 00:10:00]. I had to share that in a video that was shown at Live The Dream. And I told Brian after I sent it over, I’m like, I’m not really sure I want you to show it. And he was like, no, it’s awesome. It’s, this is the real stuff. And for me it’s still very close to me. It’s still, I still feel something when I tell that story and that’s what makes it powerful. Because when I communicate my story, when I really share all the parts of it, people are able to see and feel the journey that I as a human being have gone through.
When I say look, we were on, we were feeling like we were the top of the heap. We were living large, we had everything we thought we needed, we thought we had it under control and then the rug was completely pulled out from under us and we very much were made to realize, hey look, this isn’t the way that you need to be operating your life. Right? Because you thought you had it all under control and you had no control. Right? And this is why we moved forward into doing an online business so we would have more control. But when I tell that story to the depth of literally almost losing our home and filing bankruptcy, which I never thought, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be in a position to have to do that.
It was a very humbling moment. But when you tell the story from the peaks to the lower valleys and then you can express the climb back up, it’s those arc’s in your story that people relate to you and they want to follow you. They want to keep seeing your journey upwards. They want to see and follow your climb because that’s the part that gives anyone who’s watching the confidence that they can do it too, so share your story, be bold in it. If you’re uncomfortable sharing it, it’s probably the one thing that you need to share. It’s the one thing that’s really going to allow you to connect with other people and just build your arc. You know the highs, the lows, and the climb back upside and you’re gonna have an amazing meaningful connection with the people that are following you because they are.
If you’re creating content, especially if you’re cutting videos, if you have a fan page, if you’re out there, you’re putting yourself out there because you’re in activity with your business. Then people are watching. You might not know it yet, but three months from now you’re going to start getting those phone calls and people are going to start telling you how impactful the fact that you shared your story was with them because it inspired them to change their life. And guys, when you start getting those phone calls, when you start having those kind of conversations with people, man, it really will fire you up to continue and push harder and grow your business in such an amazing way that you’re going to be so glad that you did it. So guys, get out there and have a fabulous day.
