Good Marketing, Good Business

063: Sustainable Success vs. Results Yesterday

August 05, 2024 • Shannon Stone • Episode 63

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Fast results are fab and welcomed for any business, but the work is not done just because you hit a great milestone.

By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:

  • How to solve the most important issues in your business first
  • How to prioritise the next areas of improvement in your business
  • When all areas of your business grows, so does your bottom line

I also share the waitlist for the Service Business Boardroom is now open, join here to be notified when we’re open for entry and to secure priority access.

Enjoy!

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If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.

Shannon Stone:

H ey guys.

Shannon Stone:

Welcome to the podcast, super excited to jump into this episode today. Today I am sharing sustainable success versus results yesterday and, of course, we're talking about your business, growing your business, generating the clients that you want, but not just on the clients, just overall growing that business of yours and making it as strong as it can be and make it everything that you want it to be, everything that it can provide for you, not just in business, but obviously in life as well, because for most people in business, the success of their business often dictates how they live their life, what they pay themselves, their lifestyle goals and all those kinds of things. So business is so much more than just that in a silo. It gives us many, many more things. So I want to talk about it. So I'm going to be talking about this idea of sustainable success versus results yesterday so very quick, fast results and I'm also going to be sharing a two-step plan, just a very simple plan, to help you to balance both of these side of things. And, most excitingly, I'm going to be sharing the service business boardroom, which is something I have created and the waitlist for it is open. So I would definitely love for you to jump onto the waitlist just so you can be notified as things come to play. But I'll share a bit more on that in a little bit. So let's talk about this idea of sustainable success, if I can even say the word, and results yesterday.

Shannon Stone:

So I've helped a lot of businesses to get results very quickly in their business. So even from the time of talking to someone just on their inquiry, just seeing if I am someone that can help them, as I do with my discovery calls, I really give people a lot of helpful information. Whether we work together or not, I would honestly love to talk to every single business owner and, like someone once asked me what is one thing I wish I could do, and my answer was it literally just came to me in the moment, but I said I would love to talk to every single person on this planet. Like wouldn't that be amazing? But I would love to do a chat with every single business. Like I really geek out on this stuff, as you can tell, but I've helped a lot of people to generate fast results in their business and it can just come down to one conversation. Some people that I've spoken to it's just about finding out, you know, what they've got going on in their business, what they've got coming up Someone might have sales calls this week in their business and giving them a few tweaks and ideas and just a bit of feedback on how they're doing things at the moment. That type of advice at the right moment can really shift things for people and I've seen that where we've had just very simple conversations or conversations and in a very short space of time they were able to turn that into something incredible in their business, whether it was in that type of way where they've got sales calls coming up or they're launching something soon. This is basically the nature of what I do I advise on what they're doing, help them to make it better, help them to find better, smarter, more strategic ways to achieve their business and revenue goals. So for me it just comes very naturally and very simply, but also because of all the work that I've put into it as well. So I've seen so many people achieve results really really fast. But it's also really interesting because some people and this can be a lot of us, it's probably even myself included we can sometimes think if we got the thing we wanted.

Shannon Stone:

And for business owners, it's often if I got the number of clients that I'm wanting to work with, if I hit my launch goals, if I hit the profit or revenue that I've been really going for, that is all that matters. It's almost like the idea of like winning the lotto and like when I get that I will be happy. When I get that, all my problems will be solved. And for businesses, it's often around the number of clients they want to work with, the number of how much they're earning in their business, and it's those metrics where people can often think well, once I achieve that, that's all I need to do and like. It's not that at all.

Shannon Stone:

Unfortunately, it's not just about hitting those numbers and hitting those numbers. Once I had a client who we reached her like big, hairy, audacious goal in the first three weeks of working together and this is a few years ago and even I was like, oh my God, what do we do now? Like I'm meant to be working with this person for, you know, several more months. What are we going to do? And that was actually a really insightful exercise and scenario for me to open up the fact that it's not just about helping people to hit their revenue goals. There's actually so much more that can help people to create sustainable success in their business, not just one-time results that feel so good in the moment, which everyone should feel good about it. You should definitely applaud yourself for reaching milestones and results quickly, because it's something to definitely be celebrated, but also, and at the same time, we need to focus on sustainable success in our business as well, and that is something I want to touch on today.

Shannon Stone:

So in this two-step simple plan that I've got for us is number one many businesses or businesses, a lot of them are wanting to wanting or needing, whichever it is for you wanting to generate more clients, or maybe they're just so busy. They need to hire someone in their business, like I often find everyone has that one thing that they really need that alarm bell help with. Like alarm bell is flashing lights are going off. If they could solve that problem, they would feel so much better. We all have that right.

Shannon Stone:

So number one is to solve the most important issue in your business first, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you need more clients, go and get those more clients. Find out what are the ways, the strategies, how can you improve that area of your business? Because there's no running from the fact that that's a problem that you need solved and it is genuinely one of the biggest issues a lot of people face, and it also causes a dominoes of other issues as well. If you're not reaching the number of clients you need, you're starting to have cashflow issues. You're having cashflow issues. There's a weight of angst that comes from that and people start to make very poor decisions. You know you question yourself, you doubt yourself. It's a horrible spot to be in.

Shannon Stone:

So, whatever that big thing is for you to solve in your business like, don't run from it. If that is the fact of the matter, then you need to solve it, you need to fix it. And it's one of the I think I did share in a recent episode that one of the greatest approaches with solving all issues in business is to focus on what is the one that's going to make the biggest difference, and let that be a guiding light. So if right now it's, you know, generating the number of clients that you need, like, let's get to it, because there's no running from it, there's no hiding from it. You've got to fix that, you've got to solve that. How you do that is a whole nother story. It's very dependent on a million different factors, but that is number one. You need to solve the most important issues in your business first and make that your key project, your key priority. You know, maybe it's that your business requires 20 clients a month or 10 clients a month, for example, but maybe getting to like 80% of that actually is okay, like, get yourself to the point where it's like okay, this is actually good. It's not absolutely where we want to be, but it's good. And that'll take me to the next point where we start to focus on more of that sustainable success that I think can really help to strengthen businesses.

Shannon Stone:

So the next part and I said it's a two-step plan. Number two is to prioritize the next areas for improvement in your business. So I'm a firm believer that when all areas of your business grows and I'll run you through some of these so does your bottom line. Say, as you improve your offers, as you improve the clarity on your ideal client, as you improve your sales processes, as you improve how your team works and your systems, your finances, as you improve all of these, your whole business can grow, as well as your bottom line. And I think if we kind of balance the two of step one being what's the most important issue you need to solve, let's definitely focus on that. But number two, let's also not forget we need to prioritize these other areas in business as well. That is really, really important. So I've listed some of these areas that you can start to focus on.

Shannon Stone:

Next, I said offer your ideal client, your marketing, your sales, your client processes, so how you're onboarding them, how you're retaining them, how you're offboarding them as well your team is a big one your systems in your business, finances as well, even planning in your business. So these are just an array of different areas that you know we might do in drips and drabs, and we might also only do them when they're an absolute need, if they're an absolute must, which in some contexts that is okay. But I also think if we put more of a proactive approach to making these improvements and making space to work on our business, not just in it, then it's going to help us to strengthen that business. And to that tune of when I said, when all areas of your business grow, so does your bottom line. I think this is the way that really brings it all together. And often I find that we don't make the time or the space to focus on all of these other kind of areas. It's often just done, like I said, just at a very reactive approach. You know, maybe it's in your sales process and conversions are really dropping, so then you reactively start to address that area. But what would happen if you addressed it in a more proactive area, in a more proactive kind of manner where you know, once or twice a year you actually sat down and you reviewed your sales process and you reviewed the numbers and you reviewed all these bits and pieces in your business? So that Kind of leads me to what I wanted to also share with us around the service business boardroom, which has been something I've so passionately created.

Shannon Stone:

As you know, I've worked one-on-one with service-based businesses for a very long time. This year will be my ninth year in business in October, so getting close to the 10-year mark, which will be next year very exciting. But the Service Business Boardroom is a program that I've created for service-based businesses under that $2 million in revenue mark and it's to help them go from being scattered and stagnant in business to being really profitable and sustainable. I want it to be a blend of the two and I find one of the key distinctions and one of the reasons why I wanted to create this program in this kind of way and you know like I am a geek at this kind of thing, like I've looked at it through the strategic lens and I've worked with enough people to see, okay, what is it that would really help people?

Shannon Stone:

So I've created it in a way where it's helping people to address the pressing and important areas in their business. So if it's lead generation that is screaming at them that radically needs help, or they really need to hire a team member that is pressing at them and that radically needs help, it's addressing that component where what does your specific business need right now, something personalized, something specific to you. And second to that, it's giving that consistent focus to the other areas in business. So making that time to look at your offers, your ideal client, your marketing, your sales process, your client processes, all those things that I listed, it's making sure that you do have intentional time, which is within the program, to focus on those areas and be provided with the resources, the guidance and the accountability to actually make those improvements in your business in a really proactive way. That's what I wanted from whatever it is that I created, and that's often why I never went into a one-to-many kind of pathway, because I always knew I could really help people when I work with them one-on-one. How can you help people in a personalized way but in a group format? So when I bring the two of these together, that personalized, what's your most pressing issues right now, as well as those more sustainable areas, looking at, you know, your idle client, your marketing, your sales all of that not in a rushed type of way, but in a way where you've got intentional time, the resources, the guidance to focus on that. So it's not open at the moment, but it will be launching very soon.

Shannon Stone:

So we have a wait list for the Service Business Boardroom. There is going to be a link in the description of this episode, but feel free to reach out, ideally on LinkedIn. Just reach out to Shannon Stone, or feel free to send me an email, shannon, at shannonstonecomau. So that is what I have for you today to help you to look at sustainable success versus results. Yesterday, we definitely want fast results, like we cannot deny ourselves of being human, but also as business owners. How can we be more proactive? So we're not just addressing things in a reactive type of way, because that does impact any kind of business, not just on a revenue profit type of way, but just personally and us as people. We don't need business to be any harder than it is, and that's why I created the Service Business Boardroom.

Shannon Stone:

So I hope, if it interests you, you would join the waitlist. If you know of anyone that it would benefit you, you would join the waitlist. If you know of anyone that it would benefit, send the link along to them as well. But I hope you found this useful. I hope you find all of these episodes really useful and if you have any questions at all, definitely reach out. I hope you have an amazing day and I'll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks for listening. If you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to send it to a friend. The best podcasts I have found have all been recommended to me. If you can spread the word by sharing this episode, I can spend more time helping you by creating episodes just like this one. Send it, text it, tell somebody about it. Whatever you need to do, the more you spread the word, the more I can focus on creating needle-mo, moving episodes to help you and your friends.

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