Ep 56: My 3 Biggest Secrets in Business

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era, a business and marketing podcast with a difference, ranking in the top 5% globally for people who want to start, scale and grow their own business. Dawn McGruer shares tips to improve marketing, motivation and mindset as well as her own real-life challenges and experiences as an entrepreneur. Guests include some of the world’s most inspiring leaders, too. So if you are an aspiring, established or serial entrepreneur, this is your go-to podcast to fast track results, and rise to meet today’s challenges, and master the art of online influence and business success, and avoid common pitfalls along the way. Never miss an episode and subscribe and listen at dawnmcgruer.com.

Introduction

Dawn McGruer:

Welcome to Episode 56 of Dawn of a New Era. And in this episode, I’m going to share three of my biggest secrets, things that a lot of people will not consider if they know me as an entrepreneur. And the thing is when we look at people who have maybe been in the online space for a huge length of time, they have been uber visible and uber present, then we start to make assumptions.

The importance of down time

Now, the thing is, is for me, I have worked in the online space, well, since the internet began. And I want to let you in to my secret. Now, I truly believe that social media can be such a powerful medium, but used in the wrong way, it can absolutely be a drain on your life. And the thing is, is we need additional detox. So my biggest secret is that I don’t actually touch my mobile phone from the minute I finish work until the next morning. Why? Because we can become consumed by the all-encompassing online space.

And what do I mean by this? Well, no one’s going to die if you don’t post at 9:00, 10:00. The biggest fundamental success factor that I believe is having that detachment and having the space so that I can have creativity, but I could also have a life. We cannot be driven by our businesses. We want to be the driving force. And you might be thinking, well, that sounds simple, Dawn, but that’s not always the case. Well, true. Sometimes if there’s a launch going on, there is something that is happening short term, yet, do you know what, I will be looking at emails, looking at WhatsApp, keeping in touch, but it’s only for a couple of days. The majority of the time, I will not touch my phone.

And social media for me is a very powerful medium for lead generation, but you can’t be attached to your phone or expecting people in your team to be using this medium all the time. Because if we do this, we become consumed by it. We actually put too much emphasis on how important social media is. Now you might think I’m crazy. Now, most people know me for digital marketing, marketing online. Why am I not the advocate for being on social media 24/7? Because you don’t need to be, to be successful.

I spend 10 minutes a day on social media and this accounts for 80% of my leads, especially through mediums like LinkedIn. This platform for me, it’s been around since 2002, but it’s steadily driving leads into my business, leads that are useful in terms of partnerships, collaborations, and also clients. So for me, it’s about building a powerful network, building these deeper connections with your social media audience. And in turn, some of those connections will turn into clients if it’s used in the right way.

Know when to take a step out

Now, secret number two, well, I have three things I think about each and every day, three things I know are absolutely the foundation and the pillars for me, my business, my sanity, my success, and that is marketing, motivation and mindset. And these are the things that I feel that if I focus on each and every day, then I will have this foundation to build a better day.

And what I mean by this is that you have to be checking in with yourself. You have to be thinking about how do I feel? Am I feeling a bit depleted? It’s all right if you are. We can’t always be absolutely switched on, on it. Things happen in our lives. Things change our mood. What we can do is we can make little shifts to try and make us feel better. You can’t control everything.

So in terms of motivation and mindset, what I do is I try and think about how I feel. If there’s something really bothering me, I write it down. It could be something that’s so out of my control, but something that’s just really grated on me, something that’s triggered me, and it’s just kind of sucked up my mojo and I can’t get past it.

And then I try and think about three things I can do to try and shift myself out of it. If I can’t control the situation, say something awful has happened in your life, during COVID, we’ve had just absolutely disastrous affects and impacts on our lives. People have lost businesses. People have lost loved ones. I mean these are just things that are heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching, but yet we’re still expected to get up every day and move forward. Sometimes, it is just not that easy.

If I really was in a situation where I just … something had happened that has really knocked me, I’d step out. I’d take time out for a minute. You will learn to realize if you haven’t already that your business will survive a day without you. And this is not about just being lazy and it really isn’t this. You should never ever berate yourself for the fact that you’ve stepped out because when you step back in, you’ll be in a better mindset. You will have reframed everything and you will have used whatever these three tactics are for you to try and move yourself past it, whether it’s just taking time out, talking to someone, going for a walk, whatever is helping free up your mind.

Marketing, motivation, mindset

Now, these pillars, I honestly believe are attributed to how people form businesses. And when you think about leadership, you have to be motivational. You have to be in the right mindset and you have to be marketing. So marketing, motivation, and mindset are things that I focus on each and every day and they’re the first thing I address each and every morning. How do I feel? How can I move past it?

If I’m feeling amazing and I’m thinking my mindset’s in a good place, I might shift my day up. I might look at how my day is looking because if I’m in a super elated mood in the morning, I might do something that maybe is going to take a lot of my energy and then it might sort of switch around my calendar if possible, but I always have time in my calendar, and this is something I look forward to. Carving out that all important space in your day and checking in and looking at how do you feel? What could you do to make things different if you were not in that zone?

Now, secret number three, last but not least, this is something that I absolutely, truly believe. Success is relative and it’s relative to you and to what you want. So when people deem someone successful, what the heck is that, right? Success is only going to be recognized by you, and something that happened for me for many years is that I achieved loads in a really short space of time. And even at 42, I feel like I’ve done a mass of things. I have written a book, I’ve done my podcast, but these are all things that are on my to-do list, right? But does it make me feel successful? No, it doesn’t and for a very long time, people kept saying to me, “Dawn, oh, my goodness, aren’t you successful? Haven’t you done well? Oh, aren’t you lucky?”

Success is relative

I don’t think I was lucky. I think I absolutely worked my heart and soul out. I think I have been through most entrepreneurial challenges so I can relate to pretty much anything anyone at any stage of their business is going through. It hasn’t been easy. I didn’t wake up one day and go, “Oh, I’ve got 5 million subscribers.” It’s been bloody hard work, right? But success is relative to you. And the thing for me is I had to start realizing what success was. And it really was for me about working smarter, not harder. And it was really about kind of looking at where I was and where did I want to be, but more importantly, looking at the bigger picture, right? So what was my why?

So my biggest secret is that I didn’t feel successful at all until I really touched back with why I was an entrepreneur. What made me successful? Yeah, students who were getting certified, who were getting the qualifications, who were graduating, oh, my goodness, I was super proud. That really did hold a big firm place in my heart, something that made me feel successful that I’d been part of that journey. But for the bigger enrichment, the bigger fulfillment, it was about dreaming big and making it happen. And this is something that I feel is so important, especially after the pandemic. And it’s about helping me really understand what my potential was and looking at aspirational goals that felt truly achievable to me. And this is really where my new program came from.

My program is launching in September, The PowerCircle. I have put a lot of work, a lot of energy into it, and I am super proud. I decided that I had a lot to share. I hadn’t reached my potential through my agency, my academy. There was more to give. And this is why I built our new system, The PowerCircle. It’s a six-step system to support people, my clients in gaining a powerful brand presence that brings the authority, the ascendancy and the influence that people need.

Focus on the  bigger picture

What I started to see is that there was a gap. People were starting a business. They were taking off things on a to-do list. They were hitting targets, getting revenue, getting profit, all of these things, but did it actually make them feel happy? No, it didn’t. And this is about putting the fun back into business and really looking at your wealth and success and what that means because it’s not just business. There is so many elements.

I use a success plan, a wealth and success plan that’s got eight areas within it, which addresses every area in your life. You’ll never have balance, but you’ll have days that these things win, and it’s about having the focus on the bigger picture. Because when you’re starting out in business, learning for me like success is anything but a linear process, and everyone learns differently and has these hidden talents. I meet so many people who have not unleashed these talents, and people coming on courses with me, when I start working with clients in the agency, I just thought, do you know what, there is more here, there is more that I can do than just sharing my expertise, my knowledge in the world of online marketing. Yeah, I can help people master digital marketing and social media to scale and grow the business, but there’s a deeper cause here.

When you’re starting a business or running a business or you’re at the helm, you are the leader, the CEO, there is a lot to consider. And what we don’t check in enough on is where are we heading? What is our biggest why? Things for me, it’s about the culture. It’s about community. And this is something that really rang true more and more through the pandemic because when I created The PowerCircle, it’s about creating a ripple effect. Can we consider the pulses across a radar getting brighter and bigger and creating more and more influence, and getting them more powerful as it grows and turning ripples into waves of success?

And this really was the foundation of the new program because what were people lacking? One-to-one. What were people lacking in their businesses? Well, I went back to when I started my business at 21, and I started to chart down my pains, my challenges, my pitfalls, things that I could have done differently or wanted in that time. And what could I do to accelerate people’s success? And it was really about sort of these six elements, about having an online presence, making sure a proposition was in place, getting the all-important marketing and promotion out there in the way that it was going to reach customers and turn them into clients.

It’s all about perception

But also it’s about perception. What do people deem of your brand or business or you? And persuasion, so many people cannot talk about their business in a sales way because they have a passion that they’ve turned into profit. And this is very true for me, but the selling side of things sometimes just doesn’t feel aligned. But there’s a way of doing this in a persuasive way that you can really dominate the online space, but also show up as a leader and not have to sell. But also publicity, now what was giving people notoriety? What was really giving people the authority, the ascendancy and the influence?

And all of these six elements started to come together to bring The PowerCircle to life. And now it’s nearly at launch, I know that this program is something that if I’d had at 21, even at 31, I would have absolutely snapped it up because I just needed a sounding board. Yeah, I wanted mentoring. Yeah, I wanted coaching, but really, I needed someone to talk to, but not just in a group basis, something that was a bit deeper.

Now for me and for many of my clients and maybe the case for you, when you clarify your purpose, your mission and your vision for your future, and you develop actions to get the results, it’s very difficult not to achieve. So more and more, I spoke to people and what was the one thing they wanted? They wanted me to step in to work with them, to walk with them during the journey, and to create a success plan, a plan that was going to 10 times wealth and success. Because how do we measure that? You might be saying, well, there’s loads of people out there in the online space who talk about it.

I started to understand what measurement there was against this because each person’s journey is relative. You can move that forward 10 times. You can take that absolutely to the next level. And it’s not about monetary always. It’s about saving and selling. It’s about 10 times-ing the actual impact and the outcome. But guess what it’s not about? It really is not about 10 times-ing the work. I wanted this whole program to be about working smarter, not harder. We need to step back and regain what our business was, what the why was behind the business, the freedom, the flexibility, whatever it was for you as an entrepreneur.

And why I feel this program is so aligned to me at the moment is that I have been through this. I don’t stop this process, and this is what people think. So when we think about our biggest secrets, people assume, I think, that I have kind of hit that point and every day to day, I’m just kind of enjoying the benefits. I’m not. Every day, I’m being dynamic in my business, switching it up, looking at my marketing, looking at my motivation, looking at my mindset. It’s an ongoing journey and it’s very easy to hit burnout. And this is something that I need you to avoid, and this is something that I’ve hit multiple times, but I have to keep moving myself past it and working on myself. And The PowerCircle is about this. It’s about re-energizing your business. It’s about putting the fun back into it.

Now, what I want you to do is if you are interested in a master class that I am running, I need you to do one thing. I need you to come and join the waitlist. If you go to dawnmcgruer.com, you can either join the group, all the information will be in there in the Facebook group, or you can actually sign up for the waitlist. And the exciting thing about this is there’s going to be a bonus. There’s going to be a one day workshop that anyone, anyone who signs up for my waitlist for the program, not even the program, don’t worry, it’s not even for signing up for the program, just the waitlist, you will get a one-day workshop with me on one of the most important aspects in business today, advertising, online advertising and how to actually create killer ads that convert.

So I hope you will join me, and I hope you’re as excited as I am about the launch of this new program. And come and tell me about things that you’re doing. This is not just about me. My podcast is a two-way thing. I speak to people all the time through messages on LinkedIn, Facebook, my group about what they’re doing. And this just helps me in my business become sort of more adapted to what people want. So if there’s something that you want to share, please come and join me. So I will see you on next week’s episode. Take care and have a super week. And remember, success is relative to you.

Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era Podcast. And for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit, and success, and join our community, go to dawnmcgruer.com.