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Mindset Shifts for Solopreneurs: Overcoming Obstacles and Leveraging Data to Define Success
Viewing Obstacles as Opportunities
"Get curious about obstacles to see them as stepping stones for growth."
As solopreneurs, we often encounter numerous challenges, from evolving market conditions to declining conversion rates. When faced with these obstacles, the initial reaction might be to question everything or consider drastic changes. Instead, Amy, the host of The Motivated CEO Podcast, encourages seeing these obstacles as opportunities to learn and grow.
Drawing a parallel to a child learning to walk, Amy emphasizes that growth comes through overcoming hurdles. Just as a child falls many times before mastering walking, entrepreneurs can use each setback as a learning experience. By reframing obstacles and asking, "How can I overcome this?" solopreneurs can gain valuable insights and build resilience. These challenges are not indicative of failure, but rather avenues for creativity and adaptation.
For a practical step, Amy suggests discussing challenges with someone who offers a different perspective. Sometimes, stepping out of your work zone and unplugging from external noise can provide much-needed clarity. Recognizing and celebrating small wins along the journey builds confidence and prepares you for future challenges.
Leveraging Data as Your GPS
"Data removes the guesswork and offers clear insights to steer your business effectively."
In today's digital age, data is an invaluable resource that can guide solopreneurs toward success. Running a business without leveraging data is like embarking on a cross-country journey without GPS—it can lead to unnecessary detours and wasted time.
Amy stresses the importance of using data to remove guesswork and make informed decisions. Keeping an eye on trends and patterns over time, rather than isolated metrics, can provide a comprehensive view of your business performance. For example, tracking total audience growth month-over-month gives you insights into the effectiveness of your visibility strategies.
A powerful case study Amy shared involved a client who felt stuck in her marketing strategy. By focusing on data, they discovered that 80% of her leads came from email rather than social media. This insight allowed them to refocus their tactics, which led to a 40% increase in conversions. This scenario underscores the importance of data in driving strategic decisions and optimizing efforts where they matter most.
Defining Success on Your Terms
"Success is personal and evolving; it should align with your goals, not others'."
It's easy to adopt someone else’s definition of success, but this often leads to unnecessary comparison and dissatisfaction. Amy advises solopreneurs to define success on their own terms. By gaining clarity on what you truly want from your business, you can stay focused and motivated.
In her book, "The CEO Method," Amy dedicates an entire section to gaining clarity on personal and professional goals. By establishing what success looks like for you, it becomes easier to prioritize efforts and remain disciplined. Celebrating progress, no matter how small, fosters a positive mindset. Instead of perpetually moving the goalpost and feeling unfulfilled, track and savor each accomplishment.
Amy suggests keeping a "wins folder" where you collect positive feedback and accomplishments. Revisiting this folder during challenging times can be a powerful reminder of your progress and impact.
Conclusion
Mindset isn't just a buzzword; it's the foundation upon which effective business strategies are built. By viewing obstacles as opportunities, leveraging data as your GPS, and defining success on your terms, solopreneurs can cultivate resilience and stay aligned with their true goals. Remember, this journey is yours, and with the right mindset, you can navigate it confidently and successfully.
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Transcript for Episode 393. 3 Powerful Mindset Shifts for Entrepreneurs
Amy [00:00:12]:
As a solopreneur, you know how much effort it takes to grow a business. But in today's episode, I want to dive into something that is so important to unpack, because these limitations can derail even the most successful business owner out there. And it happens to all of us. It's our mindset. And in this episode, I want to share three powerful mindset shifts that can transform the way that you approach challenges. Because in the online space, don't you feel like mindset has almost become a buzzword? And it's something that I'm seeing over and over with clients when I'm working with them? Yes, the strategy piece is so crucial, but what about the mindset? Because if you don't have the mindset to back it up, to help you show up on the days that you don't feel like it, to keep going, when you have a down month, to stay out of your head and ditch the data drama or avoid looking at your metrics altogether, this mindset is essential for business success. And the first shift I want you to make is really make sure that you are looking at obstacles as opportunities. There is so much mind drama that happens when we're starting to face different challenges in our business.
Amy [00:01:55]:
And last year was a tough year for a lot of entrepreneurs. There was a big shift that happened in the marketplace, and let's face it, a lot of the tactics that used to convert so well just really weren't converting as easily as they once were. And it's easy when something like this happens to get into your head to, quote, question it all, to want to burn it all down and pivot. But you can use this as an opportunity to get curious instead of seeing obstacles as something scary or something that you need to avoid. If you approach them as opportunities to learn and grow, you will see massive growth and quickly. Because we've been conditioned somewhere along the way to believe that life is always supposed to be easy. But that's not the case. Think about even when a kid learns to walk for the first time, they don't just come out of the womb one day and start running.
Amy [00:03:01]:
No, they have to lift their head, they have to roll, they have to sit, they have to stand. There's so many little steps along the way. And then when they finally are ready to start taking those first few steps, they fall down a lot. But what does that do? It teaches them how they need to recover, what they can do to adjust and adapt. And they keep going. They learn through those challenges so that they can walk, run, skip, hop, Jump all of those more advanced skills. Well, it's the same in business. Business is nothing more than an experiment.
Amy [00:03:43]:
You're constantly testing. You're gathering data, and this data is giving you information, valuable information that you can use to get creative. So when something's not going the direction that you had hoped for, you can ask yourself, okay, this isn't working like it once was. How can I. If I identify a leak in my funnel at the visibility stage, how can I position myself in front of more of my ideal clients? What I see so often is you have this awesome opt in, this awesome lead magnet, yet your email list isn't growing. Okay, well, how are we getting in front of the people that would see this amazing free resource as valuable? Obstacles are pointing out areas for growth. And it builds resilience, it builds confidence. It builds the knowledge that you can use to tackle issues as they come up.
Amy [00:04:50]:
So by reframing your thinking and asking yourself, how can I? By getting really, really curious, that helps. And if you're like, I don't even know. I don't even know where to start, talk to someone with an outside perspective. It doesn't even have to be someone that is like a coach or a mentor. Yes, that's awesome. But sometimes the best ideas come when you're completely out of your work zone. Take the time to unplug and quiet the noise. And that's something I really dove into last summer with the Unplug Chat challenge.
Amy [00:05:29]:
I'll put a link in the show notes so that if you're interested, you can join that. But unplugging quieting the noise really helps give you that clarity because we're living in an era where we're consuming all of the things all of the time. And yes, these books, these podcasts, you know, even this podcast, it's awesome. You get so much information, so much strategy that you can use to navigate these challenges, but you already have all of the answers that you need. A lot of the time, your biggest breakthroughs come when you quiet the noise outside so you can amplify the voice within. So mindset shift, number one, really making sure you're viewing those obstacles as opportunities to grow. Now, the second mindset shift is leveraging data as your gps. So I want you to imagine for a minute you're driving across the country without a gps, without Google Maps, anything.
Amy [00:06:35]:
It sounds stressful, doesn't it? At least it does to me. You're going to take a lot of detours, wrong turns. Sure, you might get there eventually, but you wasted so much time and energy. That's what running a business without leveraging your data feels like. Data removes the guesswork. It's giving you those clear insights about what's working and what's not so that you can be proactive. And instead of being stuck in this reactive mode, you can anticipate the problems and then prevent them and feel confident making decisions. Whether it's investing in a new strategy or adjusting your offer, the numbers are providing you clarity.
Amy [00:07:23]:
So you can really double down on those areas that are working and see those opportunities, those obstacles that we just talked about as opportunities for growth. So what you want to look at is trends over time. We're looking at patterns over time. And this is a mistake that I see clients make a lot. They're like, okay, well, my follower count's down, my metrics are down, my income's down. Okay, let's look at, at the big picture. Let's zoom out. Because when we're just looking at one piece of data in isolation, we're looking at a snapshot.
Amy [00:08:02]:
We want to watch the whole movie, not just look at one little picture at a point in time. One of my favorite things to track is my total audience growth overall. Because what this tells me is that, okay, the places I'm being visible are working. You know, a lot of people view visibility as a shiny object, a metric that's really not worth your time. What I'm tracking is that total growth month over month over month. So that even when I'm like, oh, gosh, like, I really don't have that many followers, that's okay. I have the right people in my community. So what this is allowing us to do, it's taking action based off of insights.
Amy [00:08:54]:
You know, and another way to think about it, think of like Fortune 500 CEOs, they live by data. They're not just relying solely on intuition. They're tracking and analyzing trends, performance, and they're using those metrics to guide their decisions. And you can bring that same approach into your business. You know, a few months ago, I was working with a client, and she felt absolutely stuck in her marketing strategy. She thought she needed to do more, needed to be posting more, needed to be showing up more. But when we dove into her data, it actually showed us that 80% of her leads were coming from email, not social media. So what we did is we shifted her tactics on social media to really drive people to that email list.
Amy [00:09:47]:
And she saw a 40% increase in conversions because now she was hyper focused on this one area that is the power of data. That is what happens when you leverage data as your gps. And the third mindset shift. I want you to define success on your terms. When was the last time you asked yourself, what do I want? That's a really hard question for a lot of us to answer. And I'll tell you why. I have been there, too. And that is why.
Amy [00:10:25]:
Part one of my book, the CEO Method, is all about figuring out that clarity. What is your definition of success? Because what happens is we're adopting everyone else's goals as our own, and then we get stuck in this mind drama and we compare ourselves with everyone else. But when you're constantly measuring your success against someone else's version of success, you're always going to feel like you're falling short because it's not on your terms. And over time, your version of success will evolve. Clarity drives focus. And when you know what success looks like for you, it is so much easier to stay motivated, disciplined, and prioritize what matters most. Because when we're looking around at what everyone else is doing, we are wasting so much time and energy over something we may not even want. So the first step to doing that is getting really clear on what are your goals, what do you really want? Because this is your business and you get to choose.
Amy [00:11:45]:
And on this quest for success, I really want you to take the time to focus on progress. And this is something, as entrepreneurs, most of us are guilty of. We move that goalpost. So when we hit a goal, we're like, oh, what's next? And I experienced this a lot last year. When the book first came out last March, people were like, okay, you wrote a book. What's next? I'm like, you know what? I'm going to sit and celebrate this because that was so much effort, and I am so proud of myself for committing to doing it and then actually doing the darn thing. We're constantly moving the goalpost and we're striving constantly for more, more, more. What have you started tracking all of those wins along the way, and instead of focusing on everything on that to do list, start celebrating all of the things that you've accomplished.
Amy [00:12:48]:
Really take the time to reflect and be like, wow, I did get a lot accomplished because we're so often focused on what we didn't do. What if you flip that mindset to go, what did I actually get done today? And it's empowering, it's energizing, it's exciting. I actually keep a folder of screenshots and emails and different things that clients have said to me or different positive feedback that I get. So when I'm having a down day I can go back and refer to that folder and go, you know what? I am making a difference. I am making an impact on this world. Because again, this is not always going to be easy and your resilience is what will get you through. So as we round out this episode, remember, mindset is not just a buzzword, it is a foundation for how you're approaching and navigating your business. So get curious as those obstacles because they are opportunities in disguise.
Amy [00:14:00]:
Leverage your data as your GPS and define success on your terms. And stop chasing someone else's version of it because when you embrace these simple shifts, you're going to feel more empowered, more confident and more aligned in your business. If you loved this episode, make sure you check out the show notes for all the links and some additional episodes that if you love this episode, you'll love them too. I am here cheering for you and until next time, remember, leverage your data and shatter your sales plateau.
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