Welcome to Easy money. I’m Jill the Money Coach. I know what it’s like to push through to white knuckle it to put in the time and get no results. I know what it’s like to wonder what’s the right way. And to constantly worry about doing it all wrong. I’ve learned a whole lot from doing things the hard way. That’s why I help coaches go from doing everything the hard way to making money easy. You want to create your dream life and dream business. That’s all about being free to do what you want, spend what you want, and build the future you want. And do it all with ease. In this podcast, I bring you Simple Strategies for Success for your business that make money easy. So it’s time for Easy Money. Are you ready? Well, then, let’s go.

Hi, there. Welcome back, I can’t believe we’re already on Episode 5 of Season Two of Easy Money. So exciting. I am back from the retreat that I was out on and had a great time. It was fabulous. It was a great place that we stayed in, all of the people there were amazing. So I always love getting together with other thought leaders in my industry and chatting with them and to thinking with them and strategizing with them, it just always blows my mind so much. You know, you think that you’ve got everything you need. And then you learn about something you didn’t even know about, which is what I love so much about those retreats. And so I am also glad to be back and glad to get back into my routine. One thing that I noticed when I go on things like that, and I’m getting ready to go to LCSW Mastermind in less than a month. So I’m sure this will happen there too. But when I go away, I get out of my routine, I get out of the time and space that I reserve for myself on almost a daily basis. And I noticed that when I come back, because I’m an introvert too, I recharge on my own. But more than that, it’s just the time and space that I have to think and to organize and file away my thoughts. And when I am away, I don’t get to do that. So I come home, and I need a little bit extra time in space not only to recover from being around people all the time, but also to sort through and organize all the extra thoughts I have floating around during that time, all the new thoughts that I got while I was there. And all the ones that I didn’t get to file while I was there, because I kind of got out of my routine. 

But it’s all good. I was so happy to be there. And also so happy to be back home. Yeah, my husband and my crazy Beagle both missed me and I missed them as well. So I’m back and here I am. And you probably didn’t even miss me because you don’t know, you got the podcast either way. But today I am talking about how do you make money easier? Well, the first thing that I will tell you is that you make it quicker. And how do you make it quicker, is you take action. What I have learned from the time that I have been in business from the time that I started growing my coaching business, is that action is the quickest way to growth. Action is always the quickest rate way to growth. Thinking is not the quickest way to growth action is and so there are one thing that I learned from the last retreat that I went on with Dave Moreno that he facilitated was this idea that every problem that we’re solving in our business requires that and this this really goes along with my solve any problem solve any money problem, free resource free toolkit that I have. It’s very similar in concept but the way To solve any problem is either through action through mindset, or through skill set. And so I boil all of those down and I, what I do is I internalize Everything I make it my own, I explained it in my own way. So my translation of that is really, that everything starts with an action set. And so if everything starts with action set, then we can say, when we take action, we know that sometimes there’s going to be mindset that comes up, there’s going to be mindsets, that we have to shift, because we noticed that drama around the actions that we’re taking around the actions we’re not taking. And so what that means is that when we take action, we the mind drama comes up, then we address mindset, or we take action, we figure out what we don’t know. And then skillset comes up. 

So I feel like everything really does start with action. So once you try to take the action, you’re going to develop resistance, or you’re gonna develop a lack of training in some area, shape, or form. So action really is the quickest way to growth. Doing things before you’re ready is also the quickest way to growth. Because when you do things before you feel ready, before you feel prepared, you’re going to identify what’s missing, it’s either going to be mindset that’s missing, or it’s going to be skillset that’s missing, and then you develop those in real time. So you figure out that you don’t know how to do something, well, what happens, you go and figure out how to do it, right. But if you’re trying to figure out what you don’t know, then it’s really just a crapshoot, you’re just guessing what you don’t know, you’re just trying to be prepared when you don’t really know what you need to be prepared. Now, sometimes we, you know, what we need is pretty obvious. So that’s a little bit different. But also what we do is we buffer with learning or we buffer with self coaching, instead of taking action. And how do I know that because I’ve done it, I have clients that have done it. And so I have seen these patterns play out many, many, many, many, many, many times. Many times. In case you didn’t get that many, many times, because so many times. Okay, so keeping it simple, makes it much easier to get ready. So when we keep things simple in the beginning, which is one of the reasons that, you know, we learn that b minus work is all you need to go forward to move forward. And it could even be sleepless, right, it just needs to be good enough to move forward. And so the simpler you keep it, the easier it is to be, to have the minimum you need in order to move forward. So start with the simplest, the most pared down version, knowing that you can always enhance or upgrade at any time. So you’re just shooting for the minimum viable product that you need in order to take the next step. Okay. And so one of the things that I do each day is I identified the things that I am working on for that month. So that might, I might do that at the beginning of the quarter. And then I’ll refine it at the beginning of each month. But what am I working on this month and so I might have three to five things overall, generally in my business that I’m working on at any given time. And then each day, I have those written down. And I just happened to use the high performance planner, but not because it’s the High Performance planner, just because I like the layout and the format. And I like with everything else, I just make it my own, I don’t use it, as you know, 100% according to the instructions, I just use what I like, and then I skip whatever I don’t need. But at the bottom, there’s a place for notes each day. And so I just write the top three or five priorities that I’m working on for that month. And then across from that, I will write down the next simple step for each one of those priorities. 

So the smallest increment that I can possibly find for that particular project that I’m working on or that particular set of tasks or that result that I’m trying to accomplish that that big result I’m trying to accomplish. And I just write down that next simple step. And that way that makes it so much easier to know. And to prepare for that next simple step, that next simple step might be learning how to do a reel, and I’m just throwing that off the top of my head, right? Before I can do a real, maybe I have to learn how to do a reel so that could be the next simple step. Or watching a video of somebody making real could be the next simple step, whatever that next simple step is. So that’s what I’m talking about minimum viable product, what is the smallest, most scaled down version that you’re willing to accept, to move forward to offer that program to somebody to open enrollment for your group to start your membership to get people interested in buying your book, whatever project, you happen to be working on whatever result that you want to get, what is the smallest most scaled down version you’re willing to accept, and then try to find one level one, one level of smaller one level simpler than that, and then take that next step. And then that’s the best way to prepare to mate, keep moving forward. And to start before you’re ready. If you think about, like any app that you’ve bought, you probably don’t start with the highest, biggest, most expensive package right out of the gate, you know, especially if it’s not something you’re familiar with. So when you started your business, when you first became a coach, you might have said, Oh, I’m going to use acuity, or I’m going to use Calendly. And you might have started with the free version first, or zoom, a lot of us start with the free version of zoom first. And then only when we need, you know, to add those additional features do we then upgrade from the free version from to the paid version. So we do that with a lot of different applications. And so you can do the very same thing with anything that you’re building. In fact, I have done that with pretty much every offer that I’ve ever built. I’ve started before I was ready. And what I learned from that be, well, not every offer. In the beginning, I tried to have everything perfect and everything ready. And what I learned was, I didn’t know what I didn’t know yet. And so then I learned, oh, I’ll just start before I’m ready. And I’ll figure it out as I go. And I will improve it as I go. And it was easy for me to do that pretty quickly. For one, I’ve read Marie Forleo, his book, The name escapes me all of a sudden, but in that book she, everything’s figured out about in that book, she said start before you’re ready. And I was like, oh, okay, then at that time, I was in the midst of preparing a different version of my program. And I thought, You know what, I’m going to take her advice, I know that I will get in there. And I will always deliver way more than they pay for way more than they expect. I know myself, I know how I operate. 

I know my MO. And so I always give more than people ask for or more than people expect. I am just a giver, I like to be very generous. And so I figure it out as I go. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. I also have a number seven on my Clifton Strengths developer. And so that is also very important to me to develop people to build relationships with people who I want to develop. And so I don’t have to start fully prepared and perfect. Because I know I’m going to be driven to develop and improve the whatever I’m offering along the way. I know that I’m going to figure out better ways to get them there faster to get them there more effectively too, you know, whatever it is that I want to do. And so I’ve learned that it’s better to leave it unfinished because then I am open to what it can truly grow into. And it can grow into what it really needs to be which I don’t normally know at the very beginning because I learned so much along the way and by leaving it open ended like that. I give myself a lot more freedom and flexibility to create what my people truly need. And so if you think about the Agile method of software building and developing, versus the waterfall method, and I am not a techie. So if I get any of this terminology, right, wrong, then you’ll just forgive me. I just asked for forgiveness in advance, okay. But I have never been on a built in development team. But I have been the consumer of that process. And so as the consumer, I participated in the Agile method. So they used to build software using the waterfall methods, which is every, they would just, they would create all of the specs, then they would build the whole program, then they would bring in users to test it, then they would start fixing the bugs, and then they would go back and do the enhancements. But what they found was that that process was not very efficient. And it was not very effective, because by the time they got finished, it was already time to upgrade it. And so they were constantly catching up with themselves. So at some point along the way, they develop the Agile method. And what this allowed them to do was to build the software in increments. And so the ones that I’ve participated in, they called them sprints. And so they might have a two week sprint or a one month sprint, or a two quarterly sprint, but it would be a shorter time frame, where they would do the specs that they needed for that build. And I don’t know, the team that I worked with, they actually were a little bit ahead, they might be, they might be building the specs, like three months or two quarters out, and only be working on that month’s build. 

So it just depends on the team, depends on the product, they’re, that they’re building. But it makes so much more sense. Because then what happens is they create the specs, then they build what they expect. And then they have the user test that portion of the software. And then what they do is they fix the bugs. And they correct any misalignment between the business that is consuming that they’re building the product for and you know, so the business owner would get to test it and and they correct any miscommunication, this alignment between what the business owner is expecting, and what the product development and build team has built for them. And so what that does is it gives them an opportunity to go back and say no, this is not what we meant, when we said we wanted x, y or z, this is what we really meant. And so it gives them a chance to go back and correct that before the entire thing is built. 

Because software gets built in like layers. And so what happens is, if they don’t build it correctly, then and they keep building it before they find out that they didn’t build it correctly, or that the business owner wants something a little bit different than what they thought they wanted, then they’ve got the whole thing built. And they have to go down into the layers and every layer that’s built on above that, they have to also correct. So what this does is it make sure that that layer is correct before they move on to the next layer. And it saves so much time and saves so much money when they do it that way. And so that’s what I would consider in your business is working via the Agile method, instead of the waterfall fall methods. So don’t build out your entire program. Go ahead and test it little by little so that you know what you saw and you learn and discover what you don’t know when you start. And so that you can get feedback from your ideal clients. And you can really apply this to anything that you’re doing. And so whether it’s a program or whether it’s just something that you’re trying in your business, whether it’s marketing doesn’t matter, like a launch plan, even you can, you can do this with like your first launch plan. What if you just went into it before you were ready, and then you tweaked it along the way. 

Then you’re not building the whole thing and having to throw it, throw the whole thing out and start over. So it just invariably, you know, things get forgotten or missed or get lost in translation. You have wrong assumptions. And you have bugs along the way. So if you wait to test it until Everything’s done and you think everything’s perfect, then you don’t have to go back and rebuild the stuff that gets built on top of that first layer, you don’t have anything that gets impacted. Now, you’re still probably going to have a few things that you’re working out that change or that you learn later on in the process. But it is definitely a lot more functional and a lot more effective, a lot more efficient, than doing it all up front, and then finding out, you know, oh, there was this wrong assumption at the very beginning, which means we’ve got to fix everything that came after that. 

So if they build it, if you build it in short, Sprint’s you can build a piece, and then test it, get feedback, then tweak it, then build the next layer, test it, get feedback, tweak, it builds the next layer. And so it makes the process much more robust, it makes the end product much more robust, much more functional, much more effective for your ideal client. And you can identify any functionality enhancements that you need along the way that you didn’t realize would be beneficial to them. And you can identify the wrong assumptions and immediate communications misinterpretations early in the process, and correct it in the process instead of going back and correcting all afterwards. So it makes the structure stronger and less subject to future bugs. And because you can fix the bugs along the way. So I’ve always been happy to start before I was ready. Because what I learned about myself is I would never be ready, if I waited until everything was perfect until I felt prepared, because I never felt prepared. And so it actually worked better for me just to assume that I was always going to start before I’m ready, and I’m never going to feel prepared. And that’s okay. It’s never going to feel good enough. And that’s okay, I’ll release it anyway. And I will fix whatever I need to fix. And that way I know, you know, I get to decide what’s good enough. Because the improvement process can be infinite, nothing can ever be perfect. So the best way to do it is to not become more ready is to accept you’ll never be ready. And always start, always be willing to start before you’re ready. Always be open to what you’re going to learn and discover along the way. And just know that ultimately is going to be your very best. And you can decide that your very best is always good enough. Now, the only way that you can do this is to start before you’re ready. So how can you meet your ideal clients from wherever they are, from wherever, wherever you are, and just help them even if you don’t feel ready, because I guarantee you that you are more ready that you are steps ahead of them. And so you can at least help them with the steps that you know that they don’t. Because there are always going to be things you know that your audience doesn’t. And that’s what you can help them with now. And that’s how you can build that relationship. 

That’s how you can build your confidence. When you decide you’re ready to help them and you go forward knowing that that’s all that matters. So just like sprints in the software build and development process, your program, your business, what you offer is always going to be a work in progress. Because you are always a work in progress. You are never “there”. You know, we’re this whole thing is a lifelong process, right? So what I want you to do, instead of trying to get it perfect trying to feel fully prepared is just to plan for the bugs, plan for the process. Plan for the need to adjust for assumptions, plan for the need to adjust for user feedback. 

Just put it out there, collect the data, get the feedback, make the adjustments and move on. There’s, you know, it’s almost like no drama, nothing to see here. It’s all good and that way you’ll get traction and you’ll see growth so much faster or starting before you’re ready. Then waiting until you feel prepared waiting until you think it’s good enough. You just will grow so much further and so much faster. You’ll grow yourself, you’ll grow your business so much faster. By starting before you’re ready, and you’ll impact so many more people. So I want you to go out there and apply this to every area of your business, your niche, your price, your program, any content you put out podcast, if you’re starting a podcast or you have a podcast, everything you do, be willing to start before you’re ready, then upgrade fix the bugs along the way, and you are good to go. So that is how you make money faster and easier. I’ll see you next time. 

Love what you heard today. Well, there’s more where that came from. Just head on over to Joe the money coach calm and get your free toolkit to solve any money problem. It’s a super simple three part approach to solving the hard problems in your business and making money easier. And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode. See you then.