My $5M Team, Systems and Mindset Work

Episode Summary:

In this episode, Kirsten shares the team, systems and mindset work she is doing to hit $5M a year. Hear about the recent issues she faced and the solutions she implemented to scale peacefully.

Register for the webinar: The Team, Systems and Mindset You Need to Scale from $100K-$1M a Year, Peacefully at kirstenroldan.com/webinar.

Transcript:

*Please Note: This transcript is based on an outline and may contain typos, word switches, abbreviations, etc. These are provided for your convenience and are not proofread prior to being made available.

Hello peaceful millionaires, I am really excited for this episode because I am going to be super transparent about the team, systems and mindset work I am doing as I scale.

So, I have a 3 year goal of hitting $5M in a year and as I always say, when it comes to scaling it becomes all team, systems and mindset work.

There are 2 things that happened recently that made me laugh because I was like oh my goodness, I sound like my clients.

I tell my clients all the time, this is not one and done work. You don’t just get your team and systems together and you’re done. Your entire team and systems could be changing every quarter depending how fast you’re growing. Your team, systems and mindset work shows a different face at every level.

So I think this will be so helpful for you all because it shows you that this work is never done and it may even sound like you. 

In this episode, I am going to go over:

• How my mindset completely stopped my content systems from working and how I lost money in the process

• How my mindset completely stopped my hiring process from working and how I complicated my CEO schedule and kept me from improving my curriculum and client results

Okay, let’s start with my content systems.

So, I had a system for content that included:

1. Having my team repurpose content from previous launch emails and switch out the CTA to be relevant for the current launch
2. Have me review the content and approve it to be sent to design
3. Have my team send it to the design team
4. Have the designs sent back to me for approval
5. Have my team schedule it out

Sounds fair enough right?

We never got content consistently out. When we did, it would be rushed.

My team would do the work to repurpose my content and once we got to the second step for it to be approved by me, I didn’t approve any of it. Because my thought was that my strategy is going to completely change once we get closer to the launch. So, what if none of this worked? Then, I’d tell myself I’d have to re-work it. But every time I put it on my to-do list and sat down to do it, the same thought would come up – this is all going to change and won’t be strong enough.

It’s so interesting because usually I have to coach my clients on not liking how their team repurposes content, but I had no issue with that. It was that I felt like it wouldn’t be as strategic as it could be.

So then, my team said okay let’s try to avoid doing all this work just for it not to get out, let’s take out one step. Let’s send it to design and then have her approve it.

But it still didn’t work. The same thoughts came up.

So not only was I wasting payroll hours, but then I realized I was losing money. How?

I did a back-end launch for Million Dollar CEO where I only marketed to Million Dollar Emailers. I told my team not to do any forward-facing content because we are only enrolling on the back-end. It wasn’t until the middle of the launch that I wished I had content going out that just didn’t have a CTA. I realized that if I had content going out, there would still be a place to educate, handle objections, and share client wins. I would’ve signed more clients on the back end had I had something still happening on the front end.

Also, I could’ve been growing a waitlist for the public launch of MDC. But my brain kept saying “well I don’t know what my webinar is yet and I’d rather wait until I have that in place…” and all that did was slow down my lead generation for the public launch.

When really I could’ve just had a waitlist going and promoted the webinar to them later on.

Another way my mindset hindered my content systems during that back-end launch is that I was only selling to people who signed up for my webinar rather than my entire active clients list because I thought, “A back end launch is different than a public launch”,when really that just kept me from signing more clients.

So to recap:

• The thought, “I want to make sure my content is strategic” had me adding 2 rounds of revisions in my content process that had me paying for my team to do content just for it not to go out at all
• The thought, “My strategy is going to change so we need to wait until I know exactly what it is” stopped me from selling more in my back-end launch and doing lead generation for my public launch 
• And the thought, “A back end launch is different than a public launch” had me selling to less people and decreasing my conversion opportunities

Which by the way, all of this impacted my podcast content system too. Because I was so worried about my strategy changing and needing to update my content plan, it kept me from putting anything new out and delayed our podcast promotions as well.

And you know the crazy part? I exceeded my goal in that back end launch. But hitting the goal doesn’t matter. I know how to hit my goals. I want to set bigger ones and in order to do that, I needed to clean this up.

So, what are my solutions?

• I realized that even if my strategy were to change. Like, I figured out new objections to answer or new ways of saying something or more unique ideas, my current strategy is still enough and it’s not bad or wrong. So, instead of stopping my content completely instead I now just add to it. Like oh, the strategy is going to change – when that happens I will add in more content. I’ll do bonus podcasts or I’ll do bonus emails or whatever. This is really important because sometimes you’ll get new coaching or new ideas and you’ll think your original ones are totally wrong when that’s not the case.
• I learned that a back-end launch is not different than a public launch other than it’s not made public yet. I learned that front end content can help you on the back end and for your future launch. So in the future, I’m going to treat my back end launches just like I would any other launch and I am going to generate leads for the public launch at the same time.
• From there, I updated my content process completely. I have taken out all revisions because now my thought truly is, “bad content is better than no content.” My team has revamped our content process and we’ve been getting content out consistently again.
• I also updated my podcast process to remove me from it completely. I would still write my email promo because I wanted it to be written a specific way but again “bad content is better than no content” so I released that completely.
• Now, I have touchless content that generates leads and sales for me. I have gotten more subscribers, faster than ever in my recent webinar because of this.
• If I see content that I think is bad in terms of the post itself and how it was done and I want to improve it for next time, I give feedback on our next team meeting about it.

Alright we aren’t done!

Let’s now talk about how my mindset completely stopped my hiring process from working and how I complicated my CEO schedule as a result.

So, I have a proven 2 week hiring system that works every time. I decided to hire a coach for Million Dollar CEO and I got all these applications from highly qualified people. Sounds like the dream right?

I thought I had no one and had to re-do the entire process again.

I sent a few people through the test project round and no one landed for me, so I threw out the entire pool of applications.

Why did I do that?

I wasn’t minding my business.

So, I have a concept I’ve been teaching for years about minding your business. I say this in both MDE and MDC. In MDE, this can look like not assuming your clients can’t afford it because of something they said. Just mind your business. In MDC, it’s when team members will say things like, “I need this role to pay my bills” or “I want this role because it’s flexible and I’m a mom” or whatever else, I always say instead of having negative thoughts about that, just “mind your business”, that’s not your business.

So, I was not minding my business.

I got applications that seemed perfect but then they’d say one thing that I didn’t like for whatever reason. Like one of them said “I quit my agency because it was taking all my time” and I was like oh no we can’t have a coach that thinks like that…when they were PERFECT otherwise, they just had a little thought about their agency, who cares? Every agency owner does if anything they can RELATE more to my clients. Or another application says “my coaching business hasn’t been successful” and the same thing, I was like oh no you can’t have that thought.

Basically, I was seeing people’s mindset in their applications and  I didn’t like it.

I wasn’t minding my business which made me think I had no qualified applicants even though they were all HIGHLY qualified.

So I realized that and was like okay, if you were minding your business, who would you choose?

But then my brain was like, well it has to be a solid option because it takes a lot for the team to get a group of current clients scheduled for the test project so I just added more pressure.

I haven’t even mentioned that because I thought I had no qualified applicants, that I decided to push hiring until a month or two later. 

This decision then started complicating my calendar and coaching systems because I wanted more time to work on my curriculum but I was like, I need to be available for these calls otherwise we have to organize guest coaches and so then I was like okay I’ll change my ENTIRE schedule to make myself available and add more curriculum building time rather than just hiring and making myself optional so my entire schedule didn’t have to be uprooted for no reason.

So to recap:

• The thought, “There are no good applicants because people are putting their mindset in their application” stopped me from hiring a necessary team member and kept me from working on my curriculum without having to uproot my calendar
• The thought, “I don’t want to waste my client’s time” had me adding pressure to the hiring process rather than just solving for my concerns with a simple update to my process

So, what are my solutions?

•  There’s a step that is already included in my hiring process that needed to be a requirement rather than optional, which is the coaching video. I realized last round that I didn’t have examples of coaching videos from people, I made it optional on the application form rather than required. And I needed that to effectively filter who goes to the final round of the test project without having to schedule a bunch of more rounds. So, we added that one simple step to filter people to the next step.
• I minded my business and found a bunch of people that I could move to the next phase without having to redo the process
• Now, I’ll have support to be able to work on my curriculum and deliver a ton of new content to the program

Do you see how much your mindset impacts your team and systems, and how much it impacts your income and peace?

A lot of times people ask me what kind of mindset coaching I cover inside Million Dollar CEO and it’s stuff like this. The mindset work that keeps you stuck like this.

The $5M version of myself does not have time to not trust my strategy, pick apart my content and pick apart my applications. My word of this year is MOVE and I need to keep it moving.

So do you.

If you want to figure out what is keeping you from hitting your next income goal, then you’re going to want to get ready to join Million Dollar CEO when we open on August 30th after our webinar.

See you in the next episode.