My Number One Success Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs
I was asked an amazing question the other day: “Monica, what do you think is the most important thing we can do to have personal success as women entrepreneurs?” It took me a minute to figure out—but when I did a story came to mind.
It was the first year of my business. I call those first two years of your business “the crying years” for a reason. It feels like everything hurts, from second guessing everything to having to learn a million new skills all the time.
On this particular day, I was on the phone with my business coach. I had just said to her, “Annie (name changed) started her business at the same time as me. But look, I think she is further ahead than me. What am I doing wrong?” She responded, “Monica, just focus on you. Focus on your goals. And then we’ll see how it all works out a year from now.”
So I did just that. I literally put my head down, stopped comparing, and laser focused on my revenue goals and working through my strategic plan. I put the blinders on to any actions or people that didn’t relate to my plan. I focused on my goals and personal success. A year later, I had doubled my income.
Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t easy. To focus on my goals I had to get over a very traumatic case of stage fright, learn hundreds of new skills, hire people, and so much more. But it was my journey. Not a journey picked out because someone else was doing it.
I saw my plan from start to finish and learned to shift the numbers and strategies when things didn’t work out. For example, that year I did two 1-day events. When I didn’t get the sales I wanted from my second 1-day event, I switched gears and launched a program to make up the money. I got creative to hit my goals—and my actions were not based on comparison or outside pressure.
Today, I call this strategy the Blinders Strategy.
It’s a mindset of focusing solely on improving yourself every single day and sticking to your plan. No comparing. No changing focus based on shiny pennies (distracting business opportunities). No shrinking back or switching gears when things get tough. Trusting your plan and changing it when necessary.
I now teach this Blinders Strategy to all of the women entrepreneurs I work with. Here are the steps that are important. Keep in mind that the heart of the Blinders Strategy is in step 5—steps 1-4 are the lead up:
1. Strategic Plan: Create a Strategic Plan preferably with Business Coach or Mentor. This includes an annual revenue goal, a launch calendar, a marketing calendar and monthly milestones. If this is new to you—know that our New Wealth MasterPlan Program will absolutely help—it starts in November.
2. Quarterly Goals: Create 3 quarterly goals for each quarter. Your first goal should be a revenue goal—how much money would you like to create in the next 90 days? The next 2 goals could be specific sales goals or project goals.
3. Weekly Review and Assess: Every Friday or Sunday make some time to review your strategic plan and quarterly goals. Are you on track?
Make your weekly to-do lists include both the important and urgent tasks that apply to that week as well as the important but not urgent tasks that apply to your quarterly goals. Here’s an article that shows you how to do just that.
This is so important! Most business owners spend their days doing the most urgent and important tasks. Then they stay stuck and can’t grow their businesses. That’s because they aren’t focusing on actions that would create growth—they are staying in their comfort zones.
4. Shift Your Actions—Not Your Annual Revenue Goal: Don’t be afraid to shift your milestones and actions. But try not to shift the overall Revenue Goal for the year. If you planned on getting 10 people at an event but only 4 showed up—how else will you make up the Revenue loss?
Too many entrepreneurs are very quick to just lower their overall Revenue Goal when one project doesn’t work. But the most successful entrepreneurs—the ones who are hitting their goals—know the secret. It isn’t about making every project work—it’s about being innovative and resilient all year long. Shifting from plan A to plan B. Remember that loss in one quarter could easily be made up with gain in the next quarter, as long as you catch it in time (hence the weekly review).
5. Use a Planner for Daily Personal Accountability: Now we get to the heart of the Blinders Strategy! It does not matter how amazing your overall business strategies are if you are going to compare yourself to others and second-guess your plan every day. Or stop when the going gets tough. The real work gets done during every hour of every day.
Here’s where I suggest using a journal or planner. The one I use is called Self Journal. You can find it here. You use your planner to write down 3 actions you want to get done that day, then evaluate what you got done at the end of the day and lessons learned. Many of my clients have asked me how I use my planner specifically as a woman entrepreneur.
It led me to create the intentional living method. For a complete review of my intentional living method, please check out this article. The point here is that every day you aren’t perfect! That would be impossible. Everyday you are learning and problem-solving. And with each problem that you solve—you become a more successful human being and entrepreneur.
If you do this daily for a year—heck even 30 days! I can guarantee you—when you look in the mirror in December, you will be an entirely different human being than you were in January. You will have fought your battles. You will have stuck to your goals. And whether you achieved them or not is somewhat irrelevant. Because you will have a chronicle of the journey. You’ll see how much you’ve improved along the way and all of your successes. And it also doesn’t matter if you were “perfect” and stuck to the planner each day. All that matters is that you kept trying—going back to your goals. Living intentionally.
This is what I do every year to hit my goals and increase my personal success. I use the Blinders Strategy—problem solving every evening and every week. This has led to huge breakthroughs on every level for myself and my clients.
Here’s to putting the blinders on. To living in a way where you stick to your own goals like a dog with a bone. And to daily assessment and problem solving—something we as women entrepreneurs are actually naturally good at. Use it to make more money and make this world a better place. Leave me a comment below to let me know your Blinder Strategies and what you thought of this article.
