You need someone to hold you accountable

Marina is a doctor of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. She opened her office in Encinitas four months ago. She's grateful for the transformation it's given her. She's making enough to cover her costs, and her clients are referring even more clients.

 

01:42 Challenge: I still don't feel solid, stable, secure. I would like to create safety, but I know it takes time. I need to trust the process. I tend to be harsh on myself. 

02:52 Brad: The feeling doesn't go away, there will always be swings, but you will get better at dealing with it. Life is inherently unstable, it's about your ability to cope with that. 

03:15 Question: What does security and safety look like for you? 

03:20 Marina: I want to be booked a month in advance. At this moment, people come, but it's unstable. 

03:42 Question: What can you do to ensure you have more bookings? 

03:51 Marina: I just realized that I need help. I've been feeling alone in this process. I'm doing it all myself. I don't have any support, and I'm starting to feel like I'm losing my creative vision. 

04:18 Marina: I recognize that I cannot have a business coach because I have a lot of resistance to that. But I need help. So I'm trying to find the right solution, for me.

04:46 Marina: I need someone to keep me in check, to give me homework to do.

04:48 Brad: You said you're resisting getting a business coach, and you want to hire somebody from the Phillipines to market your local businesses. Can you walk us through some of these decisions? 

05:05 Marina: All my marketing can be done from anywhere.

05:05 Brad: Theoretically. It doesn't mean people are good at it. It just means it's cheaper.

05:09 Question: What's the resistance around hiring a business coach? 

05:12 Marina: It's ego. That I know better.

05:18 You gotta laugh at that, because we all do it, right?

05:23 Marina: I just know that I'm going to be resistant the whole time. So I do need a different approach. 

05:29 I would challenge you on that. 

05:32 Question: How long has this been an issue?

05:34 Marina: Since I was a child. 

05:38 Question: How long have you not had a booked calendar? 

05:42 Marina: I just opened in February, so it's been on and off for four months. 

05:48 Brad: I just want to acknowledge that you were so scared to even make the investment originally. Now you're at a different level. You can pay your rent. But you want more. So why not double or triple down what you're already doing, then from that space of clarity - my intuition is that when you get to that place you'll find something wrong, too, but, for now, while you're here in this place, to get to that place double or triple down on your investment and energy. What you're doing seems to be working.

06:43 Marina: I'm considering taking a business loan, so I can go the next level in my marketing. But I don't have a clear vision on what that looks like.

06:50 Brad: Are you profitable right now?

06:52 Marina: I'm covering my costs and personal costs. I'm not saving anything.

07:08 Brad: So you're breaking even. How many business owners took years to get to break-even, let alone profitable? I know did. I burnt cash like crazy at first, because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So, congratulations! 

07:45 I heard something about you wanting to book people out a month in advance. Are you doing anything to make that happen now? 

 

07:52 Marina: Yes, I sell packages. I recently increased my prices again. And it's been good, people still buy it. 

08:02 But what about telling people to book a month in advance? Like, I'm booked out for the next month; start there. The first restaurant I opened in Napa, we told people we were fully booked for the first two weeks we were open. We were not fully booked. But it built a want and need to get in there. Then we couldn't even handle the demand. 

08:28 Brad: Yeah, create scarcity.

08:29 It might take a month or so to build that momentum, but if you make it seem like you're so busy that you can't book somebody, people will want in. 

08:42 Brad: Provided you actually deliver. If they had shown up to your restaurant, and nobody's there - 

08:54 Brad: But the way you did it actually worked, because you knew you had a great product. People did show up.

09:00 Even if we're really good and we think we know what we're doing, there are blind spots that we have that other people can see. That's what a good business coach does, is helps you see your blind spots, helps you work through them, and holds you accountable. I think it's the accountability more than anything, is having somebody to report to. 

09:15 You know probably 5-7 things that you need to do that you're probably not doing. It's true for all of us. The benefit of having a coach is having somebody that you're realistically rely on. 

09:45 It's about accountability and it's about you doing things that you know you need to do. You can't do that for yourself. We're all incapable of hold ourselves to the standard that we really should be. 

09:57 Brad: And our best thinking has only gotten us where we are. It won't get us were we want to go. 

10:14 Marina: My whole life I've been disciplined. I don't understand why I'm not disciplined at this moment. 

10:24 Marina: I should be strong. I should know what I'm doing. There's a resistance. 

 

Three key points: 

1. Your best thinking has only gotten you where you are. It won't get you where you want to be. 
2. A coach will hold you accountable. 
3. Create scarcity. If you want people to book a month out, tell them they have to.