Phase 3: Automation & Scale – Money While You Sleep
FREEDOM BABY! It’s that elusive enigma all Entrepreneurs strive to achieve.
And while the lifestyle of an Entrepreneur has built into a lot more freedom of choice over a J.O.B. – actual FREEDOM… takes years of long hours and hard work.
Now that you’ve got your business moving smoothly along, it’s time to step into an entirely different mindset – AUTOMATION.
Automation is basically designing your business to run without your efforts… freeing yourself & your time becomes the focus.
This allows you to be the face of your business while your team executes the systems to fulfill on your promise to customers.
This allows you to stand tall as a Thought Leader who now has the freedom to give back and ramp up the impact of your contribution through your legacy.
Welcome to Part 3 of the Three Phases of Business: AUTOMATION
Step 1: Master Your Marketing
BRANDING Great branding means the moment your ideal client needs what you offer they think of YOU and the benefits you provide.
Branding is the backbone of ALL your marketing efforts and in Phase 3: Automation & Scale, you will need to revisit your brand to ensure your messaging is aligned with your essence.
Not only has your business evolved over the last 3-5 years as you’ve made your way through Phase 1 and Phase 2… but you’ve evolved too!
What got you here… will not get you where you want to go.
You’re gearing up to be the face of your business so you need to ensure your branding is “world-class” and communicates the benefits of your business persuasively and authentically.
Branding is so much more than colors, logos, and fonts… high-level branding strategy is at the heart of all of these and tells a story that is relevant and interesting to your ideal client.
It’s through the creative use and deployment of your story and content that you achieve T.O.M.A – Top of Mind Awareness.
When the stories, language and emotions you want to be associated with your brand are communicated effectively… your stepping into a whole new arena of excellence and service.
MEDIA & PR Now that you’ve created a profitable business, and you’ve established some systems with your team, it’s time for you to turn your attention to Thought Leadership…
As a Thought Leader, you are setting the standards with your intellectual property and often become the one everyone models in your niche or industry.
You have 10s of 1000s of raving fans and this platform makes you very appealing to promoters and media.
This is when you’re ready for Oprah, The Today Show, CNN, and other highly coveted media spots.
Because each exposure brings with it a flurry of traffic to your website, you need to be prepared in order to maximize these opportunities.
Dial in your media presence… as a Speaker, you’ve already learned how to position yourself while providing value to followers, now is the time to land these media spots and learn how to talk in sound bites, with humility and humor.
Public Relations and media requires your time and energy as well as the necessary funds to invest in training and representation.
This is one of the highest leveraged activities for reaching the masses and impacting the world with your work.
Digital Marketing One of the most comprehensive and complex aspects of business is Digital Marketing. Digital Marketing entails ALL tools, apps, websites and strategies for attracting customers online.
The biggest mistake we see ambitious and motivated Entrepreneurs make is stepping into Digital Marketing & Online Marketing too soon… often as they are launching their business (and haven’t mastered Phase 1 of Business yet), they get seduced by the sexiness and myth of the “easy button” of internet marketing.
Think about it for a sec.. how can you possibly master Online Marketing if you aren’t clear on the specific group of people you’re trying to reach and haven’t done market research to elicit their specific challenges & desires?
Where will the funds come from for Facebook ads and paid traffic if you’re not yet profitable in your business?
Who will manage all the moving pieces of your business if you don’t yet have a skilled team in place?
It’s essential you do the right things in the right order.. remember SEQUENCING is key to your success!
Digital Marketing requires 100s of hours of training and experience as well as a highly educated and trained team.
The complexities run far deeper than one can imagine and the landscape of Digital Marketing (not to mention Facebook algorithms!) is always changing.
From experience, we suggest building an in-house Digital Marketing team instead of outsourcing to an agency or a consultant.
You need an in-house team who understands your value, brand, messaging and heart so all the pieces of your business and marketing platform are consistent.
Our experience has been there can be a disconnect when you hire an outside team or contractor and that can cost you A LOT when it comes to the online game!
Make sure you’re hiring an in-house team that understands SEO, keywords, article marketing, social media management, and optimizing your website and organic traffic.
The best resource we’ve found for building this team is Ryan Deiss & Digital Marketer.com.
They have the most robust and comprehensive system for certifying and training a modern-day marketing machine.
They understand it takes a village and you can’t possibly manage all the pieces of online marketing yourself.
We highly recommend you send your team through their certification programs so they are equipped to help you master online marketing.
Go Ever-Green If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase “evergreen,” it means that you’ve established online marketing systems that produce qualified leads while you sleep.
This can be effective as long as your content remains relevant.
The constant changes being made to the platforms used to create your evergreen funnels require constant attention and upkeep.
The “set it and forget” idea is a myth.
The truth is even evergreen funnels require constant tweaking and tracking to continue to maximize results.
As the Thought Leader, YOU WANT NOTHING to do with these details.
That’s why it’s critical in Phase 3 to have a kickass team that’s educated and allows you to stay out of the daily minutia.
Remember, you want to be spending the majority of your time building your Wealth Team, creating power partnerships, writing books, promoting your business with PR, and Speaking on stages all over the world.
Step 2: Power Partnerships
True partnerships are built on and revolve around one specific and very important dynamic – ALIGNMENT.
When you share values, rapport, and similar business models you’ve found a colleague we like to refer to as a “Power Partner.”
Power Partners support not just the financial growth of your business… you’re also partnered in each other’s evolution and spiritual growth.
Not that you spend time together meditating naked on the mountaintop (unless that’s your jam!) but the relationship has an element that runs much deeper than just business… there’s an intimacy and shared commitment that’s beyond the typical business relationship.
You actually LIKE each other and enjoy spending time together!
This alignment trickles down to your mutual communities and the curriculum you teach compliments each other, providing an even deeper, more enriching experience for your mutual clients.
The goal is to establish 10 of these nourishing and collaborative partnerships with Community Leaders.
Ideally, you want to build deep relationships with Leaders that have a larger following and are more influential than you.
A handful of Badass Business Partnerships with other Thought Leaders will do more for your life and business than a Facebook following of 100 of 1000s.
It’s simple, it’s fulfilling and it works! You don’t need 100s of affiliates promoting your launch… you need deeper more authentic connections.
Eckhart Tolle once said that the energy we’re in when we create something gets attached to that which we create… and I agree.
These 6 (even 7) figure launches as seductive as they seem, can often be riddled with stress, complexity, and overwork.
We know many colleagues who behind the scenes, their online launches are fueled by a toxic, push energy that burns themselves and their team out.
They lose the joy and passion of why they’re doing what they do, let alone their spirituality and consciousness.
So focus on QUALITY vs quantity when it comes to partnerships.
Spending more time determining and fostering the partnerships that fuel your personal, financial and spiritual growth through ALIGNMENT.
Step 3: Build Your Wealth Team – Wealth Mentor, CPA, Attorney, Financial Planner, Investments
In this video, Oprah interviews Lynn Twist on “The Soul of Money”. This short video is all about the concept of “sufficiency” vs falling into the trap of “more, more, more.”
Congratulations!
You’re a successful business owner!
But do you know what to do next?
What about taxes?
Or investments?
Money comes and goes, but you worked hard to earn yours, so let’s try and keep it for you.
And we do that with the final step in Phase 3, building a Wealth Team.
These are the Experts who make sure you’re doing everything legally, make sure you’re maximizing tax deductions, avoiding unnecessary fees & penalties and can get your money working for you.
A New Money Mindset Now that you’re making great money… what are you doing to minimize taxes and maximize wealth?
What used to be a problem of not making enough money is making too much money.
Let me explain.
As you accumulate wealth EVERYONE wants a piece of it… friends, family, the IRS and after working so hard for so many years its painful to see all of this money leave your life just as fast as it comes in.
So now you are spending your time fostering a Wealth Accumulation Mindset and start spending the money you make in an entirely different way.
In Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” he educated people on the difference between Assets vs Liabilities.
A Liability is an investment in something that doesn’t generate revenue… in essence it costs you money every single month.
A car, a house (or even a hot pair of shoes!) would be considered a Liability.
These are the things most of us have been conditioned to purchase.
Assets are investments that generate cash flow every month.
An office building, a storage unit, and a plethora of other revenue-producing investments are available to you now and is precisely what you want to spend your business profits purchasing.
Essentially, you want to look at your business as your “cash machine” that you use to invest in Assets and cash-flowing investments.
This helps you get out of the “rat race” as Robert Kiyosaki calls it and where you start to create long-term wealth and real freedom.
Build Your Wealth Team Continuing on our theme of ALIGNMENT, you will need to spend serious time and thought on building your Wealth Team.
Your Wealth Team is designed to minimize your taxes, maximize and protect your wealth while keeping you compliant with IRS tax codes and the law.
Unless you are a Money Expert, you will most likely be out of your element here… the adage “you don’t know what you don’t know” is at play so finding those Wealth Team Members that are knowledgeable and trustworthy is essential.
Getting the right financial education is critical to your success. On your Wealth Team you will need:
- Wealth Mentor
- CPA (who specializes in helping Entrepreneurs)
- Insurance Specialist
- Financial Planner (again, make sure they specifically work with Entrepreneurs vs W2 Employees)
- Tax / Business / Real Estate Attorney
There’s so much to learn here… the takeaway – protect what you’ve spent years building.
This team is about mitigating the risks to your wealth accumulation and protecting it with systems that are in accord with the law.
You will be challenged to find a Wealth Team that understands the challenges and dynamics of Entrepreneurship.
After doing our own due diligence, one of our Power Partners and who we believe in and is serving as our Wealth Team is Garrett Gunderson with The Wealth Factory .
Garrett and his team have impeccable integrity and an amazing system for managing, protecting and building your wealth.
In this video Garrett Gunderson discusses the role of cash flow in the cycle of Wealth Accumulation
Launch Your Legacy Ultimately what is all of this for?
There’s a lot more to life than wealth creation.
Now you can tap even more deeply into your values and calling to have the “Big Impact” you are on this planet for.
Phase 3 – Automation and all that it entails allows you to create your legacy or foundation and commit to giving back with intention.
It’s great to volunteer your time to help those in need… whether its starving children.. feeding the homeless… empowering the physically disabled… whatever causes your most passionate about.
Use your resources of time, money and energy to give back to causes you believe in.
And life gets TRULY AMAZING when you have the freedom and team to build an official Foundation that provides support to 100s of 1000s of people in need.
Over the last several weeks, we’ve laid out the 3 Phases of Business and how the power of public speaking positions you as a leader of your industry.
These also serve as a way to not just focus your efforts but to also chunk them down into sizable action steps so you don’t get overwhelmed.
It keeps you focused and on track to building a legacy and real wealth for the generations to come.
Here are the 3 Phases of Business: Phase 1 – Profitability, Phase 2 – Leverage, Phase 3 – Automation The Phases of Business provide you a long term perspective on how to grow your business through time so that you have a “Big Impact” with your message.
The power of your voice and your message must be fueled by a foundation build on Entrepreneur excellence so it can reach to far corners of the world and impact those less fortunate and in need.
As the World Authority on ‘The Business of Speaking’ we’ve shown you how the platform of Public Speaking can lead to building yourself a fortune while providing a body of work that heals and transforms the world. Speaking ROCKS and when done correctly and with heart… Speaking HEALS.
And that’s why public speaking is at the heart of our business model and not digital marketing.
It’s real, its authentic and it transforms lives.
It’s YOUR TURN!
What is 1 step you are going to take this week to start automating your business?
Share in the comments below!
And if you’re thinking “how do I start speaking” or “how do I book speaking gigs”.. we’re here to show you how.
If you’ve got any questions about this article, speaking, or growing your business, feel free to contact us and we’ll set up a time to talk 1:1 to help you figure out how to get started.
If we can support you in anyway please email us here or call 855-95-SPEAK.
We believe in you!
Here’s to your Big Impact in the world!
