Episode 41: Accelerate Your Business Success Today with Terra Bohlmann

Intro (00:01):When you give smart women a five year plan, simple business strategies and a positive mindset, it's amazing how fast your business can grow. Welcome to the fast track woman podcast. I'm your host and business strategist, Terra Bohlmann. I help women business owners stop winging it and board the fast track to success. When I'm not making high flying dreams a reality, you can find me traveling to random destinations, desperately tracking down Chanel brooches , or sipping Starbucks mochas, and then trying to give them up and then just cutting the drive through for one more. My purpose in life is to help you build a profitable first-class business, smooth out the bumpy ride, and finally have more time, energy and freedom. So buckle up your seatbelt because this episode of the fast track woman takes flight. Right now.

Terra Bohlmann (00:59):Welcome back to the fast track woman podcast. I'm your host, Terra Bohlmann. First things first. Why the name change? You may have noticed you may not have noticed that's okay. The name, the fast track entrepreneur podcast is now the fast track woman podcast. And I made a decision last week about, I guess, it's about 10 days ago that it just was more fitting to be the fast track woman. Why it's who I serve. I serve women and I was going through a process of trademarking, the fast track entrepreneur and it's sense. You know, it was almost nine months now I've been in this trademark process and a media company that is known to serve entrepreneurs, wanted to detect like contest my name fast-track entrepreneur saying that they have the rights to the word entrepreneur and it was going to be another 90 day delay. And it just forced me to sit with, okay, like how important is this name, entrepreneur?

Terra Bohlmann (02:09):And the more I sat with it, I thought, you know what? I don't want a company that's contesting and delaying my trademark to be able to control what I want to run with and who I serve and the name of this podcast and the name of everything and whatnot. So I just decided to change the name to what it was supposed to be. Anyway, the fast track woman, right? I work with women business owners. That's who I serve. That's who I know I'm meant to serve. And even the word entrepreneur and itself is, you know, it's, so it feels very vague. It, you know, some people relate to being an entrepreneur. Some people relate more to a business owner. I myself am a woman business owner. I work with women, business owners. Entrepreneurs tend to be people who are super creative and come up with ideas, have their, create something, and then sell the idea or sell the business and then go do the next thing like entrepreneurs fabulous.

Terra Bohlmann (03:12):If you relate to as an entrepreneur. And that's how you classify yourself, really cool for me, I was one of these things. It's like, you know, I even struggle sometimes with, when I've typed out the word entrepreneur, I misspell it probably 50% of the time. And it was just kind of like, you know, what, why am I making this hard? It's so obvious that I meant to work with fast track women. So why not be the fast track woman? And so that's how it all came into play. So I appreciate you listening and being part of the podcast and just know that I've got some great, great things in store for the fast track woman. And I hope you feel that. And I hope you see yourself as a fast track woman, and it's going to be my job, my role, my everything, to be able to guide you so that you can go faster and make that impact that you want to make in the world. Right? So that's why I changed the name. I wanted to make sure I address that we're going back and changing some of the branding. And, you know, the, every episode has a matching a webpage on TerraBohlmann.com. So if you're listening to episode

Speaker 3 (04:27):12

Terra Bohlmann (04:28):And you want to go see the show notes and the links and the transcripts, you just go to my website, TerraBohlmann.com/12, you know, and there's all your information that you need, right? And then you can go to TerraBohlmann.com/Podcast is like home base. But then we have an individual web pages for every episode and they can just be found by the episode number. So wanted to make that super simple. So we're going backwards a bit to change up some branding, you'll hear the new intros and all that kind of stuff. So bear with us. But I think it was just really important. We're now almost pushing 50 episodes. And I was like, it's going to be easier to do it now versus episode 350. So the fast track woman is here and I appreciate it. And I appreciate you for listening. And I just want to give some context around why things changed, because it drives me nuts when people don't give the context, I want to hear the story like what happened.

Terra Bohlmann (05:29):So, you know, for me, I'm transparent and want to share that. And that type of stuff may happen with you too. You know, like you may have a concept in mind, come into some issues with it, but it really forces you to get clear. And if anything, I can tell you 2020 has been about massive clarity for not just my clients and you probably, but for me too. And it's been really good. So, alright, so that's that one to make sure I address that. The second thing we're going to talk about is all around getting acceleration in your business. And I think it's really important, especially in today's climate that we come together as women, women, business owners, I almost said women entrepreneurs, but I'm going to try to change my nomenclature now to be women business owners. So I will probably say entrepreneurs a million times, but we as women business owners need to come together and help each other accelerate so that we can all not just get back on track, but really create what are the future looks and feels like for us, because it may not be quote unquote normal like it was before the pandemic and all the things that are coming up over the next few months and whatnot.

Terra Bohlmann (06:55):Right? So because of that, I put together a five day challenge that is going to be completely free. I would love for you to participate in it. It's you just got a TerraBohlmann.com/challenge. So TerraBohlmann.com/challenge. And I am going to be there to help put the stake in the ground that we, as women business owners can stop working so hard to prove our worth and get some things done. Right? My goal in doing this five day challenge, which is going to run from Monday, August 31st until Friday, September 4th. So if you're listening to this before August 31st of 2020, go to TerraBohlmann.com/challenge put in your first name and your email, and you'll be in it's free and what's going to happen is every day you'll get an email from me with a quick action step that will take you less than 10 minutes, right?

Terra Bohlmann (08:01):I'm not, this is all about saving time. I don't want you to spend a ton of time, but you're going to do a quick action step to help you accelerate your business. And my goal by the end of the five days is that you're going to feel your workload lighten. Your confidence is going to rise, and I want your bank account built more than it was before we started. Okay. The challenge is all about maximizing your time. And just, if you just have these little tweaks that you can do, and I really want to give you smart, actionable strategies, instead of you're just spinning your wheels going, okay, I know I need to go faster, but you know, I don't know what that feels like. So join the challenge. It's the five day accelerator challenge, TerraBohlmann.com/challenge. And it's going to be a lot of fun.

Terra Bohlmann (08:55):Like, I feel like it's really going to be a great week of getting major acceleration in your business and everyone else that joins in, I just want you to have a piece of it, and I want to make it as worth your time as possible because it is it's our time as women business owners to unite so that we can help each other not work so hard. I always say like, we got to work smarter, not harder. And I also need you to understand that working harder doesn't mean you're more worthy of collecting money or taking time off or doing the things that you really want to do. You're worthy period.

Speaker 4 (09:38):Okay. So

Terra Bohlmann (09:40):Join the challenge. That'll be like, step number one, to getting acceleration in your business. And we're also going to have a Facebook group. It's going to be really fun. I'm calling it accelerator headquarters and you're going to get encouragement, not just from me but also encouragement from other women business owners and feedback. And I'm not going to let you stay stuck. It's going to be a place we can celebrate together. Okay. All right. So let's talk acceleration and what it means in your own business. So acceleration is simply going faster. We want to go faster and why do we want to go faster? Some of us are just, our DNA is built to be high achieving, right? And that's just how we are. We are built that way. And it's just about getting results yesterday. So that's, that's one camp, or sometimes we simply get stalled out.

Terra Bohlmann (10:40):We're exhausted. You may hear burnout. You may feel that sense of overwhelm, but we're just stalled out. We're stuck. A lot of women come to me, I'm like, I'm stuck. Right? And in that case, in that, if you're a high achiever and you get that feeling, it's like, that's really going to drive you crazy. So then we like, okay, what do we need to do to accelerate? We got to get back on track and we need to go and we need to go faster to make up for this time that we felt stalled out. And then there's another camp of women that sometimes we just get complacent. And I'm saying, we, because I have felt all of these at different times in my own business journey. Right. And what does complacency look like? It's, you know, things are going good. You know, I'm making my, you know, comfortable revenue every month.

Terra Bohlmann (11:32):I've got my team. I can trust them. You know, they were pretty self efficient and you know, and that kind of stuff. And, and, and that's okay. Like sometimes it's probably great to be that I call it cruising altitude. Like you're just at that part in your business model, like during a specific stage is of cool things are going great. But then what happens is we start getting these taps and nudges going wait a minute, something else. We need to be doing something bigger, more impact. I need to get in gear here. Right? And a lot of women business owners, you know, me included, we can tell ourselves we should, it should be further along in our business by now. I don't understand. I'm smart. I'm capable. You know, why is this taking so long? These are the things that I've said to myself over and over again.

Terra Bohlmann (12:27):And I know a lot of my clients had, and if you're saying this too, you're going to love this episode because it's all about how do we go faster? So I wanted to start with that because I want you to be able to self identify what it feels like. Like this is why I think women business owners do really well with women, business coaches. We are wired differently than men. I love men. I'm raising three boys. I'm married to a fantastic guy, but as women, we're not, we're programmed to go based on how we feel. And there's like this feminine energy we have in our business. And there's a masculine energy that we can have in our business too. I tended, I tend to have more of a masculine approach just because that's how I come from from the corporate standpoint, coming from that. And it's taken me almost a decade to kind of move into this feminine approach of, okay.

Terra Bohlmann (13:27):Hmm. This is what this can feel like. And I use the word feel because before, when I would make business decisions, I did it strictly with my head. It was like, my brain was a computer. I had people that told me I was computer. They're like, can I just have your brain for the day? Right. And I was like, sure, like how about a VIP day? Awesome. And I would sell VIP days over and over and over again. And I would just dedicate putting my brain to work for them. That was me leading with my masculine energy and business. It still serves me today, but I've also been able to tap in now are the feminine side of business, which is okay, this is cool. And like, yeah, this can all make sense. I can make it happen. I can work. I know I have the confidence to be able to get this done, but how is this going to make me feel, am I going to burn myself out?

Terra Bohlmann (14:18):Is this worth, it are my kids going to sacrifice having their mom, you know, for a couple hours a night before they go to bed, is this going to sack? Is my marriage going to be sacrificed? Is, you know, am I going to not be able to take that trip that I want to do? Like what about the white space? And, you know, I like to exercise and you know, things for everything you do, there's an opposite, right. Of what you give up, right? This is like the prior to prioritization that we would do in business all the time. So I say that because I want you to understand from an acceleration standpoint, what that can mean is we tap into our, our brain, but we also need to understand and know how it's going to make us feel for a short period of time.

Terra Bohlmann (15:08):Alright. So I want to give the context of acceleration and really what that means for women versus maybe a man or someone who, or it could be a woman who just leads more with her masculine side. That's okay, too. But like it took me 10 years to figure out, Oh, I can feel a certain way in my business too. Oh, I can, this can adjust like how I make decisions. Like it was, it was an aha moment for me. Maybe you're like, yeah, Terra, duh it took me a long time to figure that out. So now I have to balance it a lot better so that I'm not just a robot and getting burned out because my, my computer brain has gets on overload. All right. So knowing how you want to feel and,

Speaker 5 (15:56):And how

Terra Bohlmann (15:58):Acceleration is going to allow us to work harder for a little bit. I, in the corporate world, especially in the project management world, there's a thing called you know, an agile project management. It's a term called sprints and sprints are freely doing something faster and more focused for short period of time, right? It's a cycle of deliverables that you're going to crank out. So in some cases I've heard of women business owners saying I work in sprints. So I work in four sprints a year. And what that looks like is January and February, I work really hard March. I take off April and may I work really hard June. I take off and relax and whatever. And then I, so every two months they work in a chunk of time and then they relax in a chunk of time. So that's one way to look at it and you can do shorter sprints and cycles. You can do longer ones, right? You only, you know, your body and your circumstance and whatnot, but I want you, I want to introduce that concept with you because when we go and want to accelerate something and that something will be defined by you. And I'll, I'll teach you a framework on how you can decide on that,

Terra Bohlmann (17:17):But you can

Terra Bohlmann (17:20):No, and you mentally prepare for a sprint knowing there's going to be relaxation afterwards. Okay. Some people would call this in the online space. It's like doing a big launch around something. And then you get to like celebrate the and relax, and then you go back and do it again. So sprints launches, cycles, whatever you want to call it, know that we have to get wrap our mind around it so that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. So we don't feel that overwhelm, right. So I'm not saying it'll be perfect, but you know, you'll be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is a really good thing. And it'll keep you focused. All right. So now that we understand, you know, we've kind of framed up what acceleration looks and feel likes. I want you now to then take the next step, which in order to accelerate, you have to set aside some time and some focus time and what that looks like.

Terra Bohlmann (18:22):And what I have sometimes my clients do is I'll have them book a VIP day, a full day, right? And have them focus on planning and getting clarity and all that kind of stuff in their business. Awesome. That's a full day. I'm not asking you to do a full day. I'm simply asking you to book yourself a VIP hour and you may ask who's the VIP, Terra? It's you it's one hour. I'm not even asking you to do the whole day, but set aside one hour of white space for yourself and your business and be your own best customer. You hear me say that all the time, be your own best customer so that you can do some planning around this acceleration. So you may be asking awesome, Terra, what do I do on the hour? I'm gonna tell you exactly what you can do, but first I want to draw a parallel.

Terra Bohlmann (19:17):So you don't think I'm completely crazy on this whole concept of acceleration. When you take a flight, right? Sometimes you take off and the plane leaves at nine 30 in the morning, and it's supposed to get to your destination at noon. But then what happens is sometimes when you get on the plane free, rarely do you ever take off early? It has happened to me a few times and that's pretty cool. But then I radically, the plane tends to still get there on time, right? So the airlines have this massive backend of managing when flights are taking off, when they're supposed to land, who's on the planes, who's doing transfers, what plane are gonna be going next to a different destination. And you know, there is tons of stuff happening in the background. So think about that from, from a plane perspective, when they want to accelerate, because that flight that took off at nine 30, let's say something happened, whether it was a mechanical issue.

Terra Bohlmann (20:23):I mean, I'm from Houston, Texas, and Oh, floored. When I've been on a plane in the summer and we get stuck on the runway because you know, the traffic gets backed up and you know, then they're like, and we got to turn off the air, you know? And it's like, Oh, it's brutal, right? It's never fun when we have those delays, but it could be mechanical issues. It could be traffic lining up on the runway has gotten backed up. It could be, you know, Hey there, your gate's not available at your destination. It could be whatever reason flights get delayed, maybe another plane coming in with a bunch of transfer people coming on your plane or we're running late. And they decided to wait for them, whatever reason, right? Air airlines have to manage all this on the back end, looking at how do we maximize the customer experience so that we have more happy customers than unhappy customers.

Terra Bohlmann (21:18):So they're trying to I'm. So I try to give grace, even though I'm not happy when I have to sit on the runway and it's hot and whatever, but all this happens, flights get delayed. So when they get delayed, the airline has to make a decision. Okay, can we be late to our destination? If we're 30 minutes late getting on and we know it takes two and a half hours to get there, do we want, is it just going to be there 30 minutes late? That's the first thing they have to answer and how they do that is they say, well, okay, what's the cost risk, you know, benefit to using more fuel so that we can fly at a higher altitude. So what happens if they want to save that 30 minutes in the air, they're going to cruise at a higher altitude, which of course takes more fuel, which costs more money and more energy.

Terra Bohlmann (22:13):But they know that it's just temporary to help get the flight back on track. And then they're going to cruise at a higher altitude, hence saving time because it's higher up. They can shave off their 30 minutes to land on time. Okay. So they make that decision if it's worth it, you know, and if it's, if it's not then, because they don't have people that are trying to catch other flights and you know, that plane you're on, isn't supposed to go from Denver to Miami within 30 minutes and they have to turn it over. They have to make these decisions really quickly. And so that's something that you can do as well. You can say,

Speaker 6 (22:50):Okay, I,

Terra Bohlmann (22:52):Hey, I need to know where my D my destination is. So, and, and how late you're running behind, or that feeling that you're running behind and, and knowing where you need to go. Right? So the first thing is in your VIP hour, that I want you to gift yourself, block it out on your calendar, no distractions, take your phone, you know, turn it on silent, or don't even have it in the room, literally you and a notebook, or in my case, I use my iPad for my notebook. So it'd be myself and my iPad, you know, however you like to best plan, right? And whatever tools you're going to need to do this. That's all you want to have. And sometimes, you know, what's really cool about the VIP hour is not even doing it in your normal office space. Go do it somewhere else.

Terra Bohlmann (23:43):So then it kind of messes up your mind a little bit so that you can be a little more creative on thing, which is, which is cool. That's a good little trick. So you can go to a coffee shop and go to a different room, go outside, whatever it takes, give yourself that hour. So schedule it and then treat yourself like your own best customer during that hour. First thing you need to know, just like the airplane needs to know where they're going and how late they're running behind. You have to determine where you're going and how late you feel you're running behind. And then you want to know where and how fast do you want to get there? So this could look like one of two things. One, I have a workbook that I give away for free. That gives massive clarity. All my high end clients do it as a step one as well. They fill out a workbook called destination success.

Speaker 7 (24:38):It's a tool

Terra Bohlmann (24:40):That helps them create their five-year plan, like really fast. So you can go grab a copy of that workbook on my website too. So go do the challenge, TerraBohlmann.com/challenge. Once you're in there, then go grab TerraBohlmann.com/workbook, download your copy of destination success. And it's literally a fill in the blank workbook that will allow you to do this step one so that you understand where you are now, where you're going. And in my case, I do five years because I feel like women who have a five year plan and they're high achievers, they tend to do it at least halftime. So it even helps you go faster. So when you have to think out five years, and I have the whole thing scripted for you, you don't even, you just need to answer the questions, right? And so you can go grab the workbook.

Terra Bohlmann (25:31):If you want to do that, it should take 15 minutes of your hour to actually get massive clarity on where you want to go within the next five years. If you don't want to go grab the workbook, that's totally okay to grab your notebook and just journal out where you want to go. Where's your destination. How much, like how far behind do you feel and when do you want to hit your new goal? Okay. So, and just journal about that, maybe five, 10 minutes, we need that clarity of where you're going. A lot of women business owners don't understand even where they're going, and then they're frustrated that they're not going faster. And it's like, but what does it even look like? So we got to build that. All right. So that's step one.

Speaker 7 (26:22):Step two is

Terra Bohlmann (26:25):You need to spend focus on the climb. So the first step is all about clarity. We do that by putting together the five year plan, knowing how you feel, getting clarity on where you're going, all that stuff. Step two is then all about the climb. This is all being done in your one hour, VIP, you know, session with yourself, get the clarity that should take 10, 15 minutes. Then I want you to focus on the climb, which is a couple of things. One mentally preparing yourself that you're going to go faster and do more for a short period of time so that you can get the result that you want. And then, so once you say like, okay, I'm committing, I'm going to work the next, you know, it could be week three days, three months, whatever I am going to be all in on this.

Terra Bohlmann (27:17):I need you to get that mental permission to do that. Knowing there's going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you're like me, sometimes I will gift myself little prizes. I love to compete against myself. It's very bizarre. But like I say, okay, if I get all this done, then I can do this. Or I get this, you know, I play a little tricks with myself and then in the clients or mentally preparing for how long you're going to go faster and knowing this is just a sprint, right? It's just a cycle. The second thing then is I want you to figure out the number one category that is holding you back from the success you want. So figure out that number one category, that's holding you back from the success you want. Cause we've of course in step one, we've, we've gotten clarity on where we're going, and then you can take a look at that and go, okay.

Terra Bohlmann (28:12):So, and you know, everyone's definition of success is different. That's why I use the term success. It's access to someone may be hitting six figures in the first year. It or there, your business success to somebody else may be, yes, you know, could be hitting a million. It could be revenue based. It could be profit based. It could be, you know what? I make plenty money. I would like to be able to take a month in the summer so I can rent a Villa in Tuscany for my family. Right. That could be a version of success. Your version of success is only for you to define. It's not for me to define. I tell my clients like, just tell me what you want, but just be really clear with what you want. And I will tell you how to get there, right? And I'll help you get there.

Terra Bohlmann (29:02):Success is different for everyone. We're not here to judge anyone that maybe there's this revenue base. Maybe there's this time-based maybe there's this. They want some freedom. Maybe success is somebody driving a dream car. They wanted paying off their house, retiring their husband, whatever that looks like. In my case currently, it's going to be around helping my son get into his dream college and paying for it as much as I can. So success is different. We need to be clear on that. You're going to get that clarity in your step one, your 10 to 15 minutes of planning, you're going to do the climb then becomes, okay, I want this. I want to hit the success. I'm going there. And I'm willing to go there for one week, three months, whatever six weeks I'm going to, I'm going to hustle hard for this during the sprint, knowing that I'm going to get to relax.

Terra Bohlmann (29:58):So I want you to also put in your relaxation time, right? So we don't burn your burn you out and then understanding, okay, what is the number one category? That's going to get me to my success faster and what a category is look like. Well, I break out my business map method, and I'll just share with you the categories of what, what that can feel like. So, you know, as somebody I've been business coaching for almost a decade, now it's hard to believe. So I've heard all the different categories, right? And they usually fall into one of these and I'll share with you and you can be real about what category works for you. So the first one is really about a business foundation. So that's category one, that's step one of the business map method. Your foundation is okay. Maybe I have not been really clear on my goals for my business, or I have what I call a Frankenstein business model, which is a little bit of this.

Terra Bohlmann (31:01):And then I worked with this person over here. And, but none of it is flows. It's confusing. I'm confused. Right? And if you're confused, anyone who works with you is confused and definitely your potential customers are confused. Okay. So it could be a foundation category. What fits in foundation branding, you know, if you have a Frankenstein brand, as my friend, Tiffany Newman says you may have, your branding may feel off your, who you serve in your perfect customer profile. You're not clear on that. It could be all kinds of different things from a foundation standpoint. And these are like your, the basic business building blocks. It could be simply your registered as a DBA, but you know, you need to be an LLC because of this and this and that, whatever. Like it's foundational things that sometimes no matter if you're a multimillion dollar business or not, you got to go back and fix that foundation so that you can build on a more solid ground.

Terra Bohlmann (32:04):Okay? So there's a foundation category. There is also then the next category becomes your offerings. So I call them your signature offerings and your pricing, if these aren't in order. And you're just really not clear on what you sell or what the price point is and how you move people through a customer experience, journey, right from how they can buy from you and what that looks like. That's a category. I'm not clear on what I sell, Terra. I'm not clear on what I should be. I'm selling 5 million things or I'm making up stuff as I go along. Right. It could be the category of your signature offers and pricing that's category two category three could be your sales. I mean, it's like, okay, I tear up. I'm really solid on my foundation. I'm I know exactly what I'm selling and how much I sell it for, but I'm not sure how to sell it, or I'm not getting the sales that I want.

Terra Bohlmann (33:11):I'm not lacking. I'm lacking the money that I want to be making. And I hear this a lot. I need to be making more money. Okay. Well, in that case you have a sales process category issue, and it may be something just being really clear on how you transact, right. Or your sales skills or something like that. Right? If you have a sales problem, you have a sales problem. The fourth category is a marketing problem or visibility problem, right. People don't know you're there. You're saying. And then that case it's, you're really clear. You know? So all this stuff builds upon it on each other. You're really clear on your foundation. You're really clear on what you sell and how much you sell it for. You're really clear on how you sell, but you're not getting the leads you want. And don't, don't misinterpret a marketing problem with a sales problem.

Terra Bohlmann (34:03):Sales are associated with, I'm not making the money that I wanna make. You may be making money, but you're, you're attracting the wrong people, or you're not being consistent to have consistent sales. So that, that would be the four saying the fourth category visibility marketing is you'll know if you're in that category, right? Because you're not having consistency. You're making some money, but it's not consistent that type of thing, but make sure you have your sales process down before you would even look at it being a marketing category problem. Okay. So, and then the next one is you may have all of those in order, Terra, you know what? I got a solid foundation. I know what I sell, how much I sell it for. You know, I'm really clear on how I bring people into consultations when sell and give offers, all that kind of stuff, you know?

Terra Bohlmann (34:55):And I'm pretty solid with my marketing. I'm getting leads, but what's happening is my customers are bouncing there. I'm not resigning. They're not continuing to buy again. There's just some struggle with serving them. It's not automated. There's no systems. I'm like, it's, it's not good. I don't feel good about when somebody pays me. I'm not giving them the best experience I can. Then that's a customer experience problem. And so that category falls under, I want to make customer experience better. And then the last category is dream team. So that can look like, you know, you got all these other things in place, but man, when it comes to building my team or having some leadership around, making sure everyone's motivated, or maybe I'm just doing everything and the wheels are gonna fall off the bus. If I don't do it, that's a dream team problem.

Terra Bohlmann (35:56):Okay. So I want you to pick the category that resonates with you and not just, you know, if you're have a strong foundation, you know what you sell, but you also know, you know what, like I should have more people on my team. You don't may not have a dream team problem number, go through the five categories in order to say, am I good? And I have another podcast episode that you could go back to and listen to. It's like auditing your business basics and stuff like that. That you can go through to see what category you're in, but be really clear about the category and know that every business owner in different stages struggles with the different categories. Okay. So pick the category and define it. You know what Terra, you know, here at this time, I thought I had a marketing problem. I had a visibility problem, but you know, it's real, I'm not clear on my signature offers and the how much I sell it for.

Terra Bohlmann (36:57):And that's, that's the truth, right? So you may say, you know what? Yeah, I got a problem. They're there, they're there and there. But my next problem is this one. And that's what you focus on as far as category goes, okay. So you feel good on your foundation, but you're, don't feel good. And your signature offers with the pricing in place. Start there. That's your that's going to help accelerate you because you're going to go in the strategic order, which is going to give you that confidence that you need. Okay. Dream team. I always put last, everyone thinks, you know what? I can just throw money at something. I can save time. I must need an assistant. I need a VA I blah, blah, blah. I need team. But you know what, if you're not clear on all the other things they're going to be set up for failure.

Terra Bohlmann (37:45):You're going to get frustrated and spend a ton of time and money because you haven't done, you know, the, the right category first. Okay. So figure out the category. Where are you? Remember? This is a mistake. I see happen all the time. And I say that because this was also me. I thought I had a marketing problem, but I didn't have a marketing problem. I was using marketing as a way to distract myself from focusing on what I did have the problem with. This was probably about eight years ago. I was really struggling with like sells. I didn't want anyone to think I was slimy or sleazy or icky or whatever. And so I was just putting energy into marketing saying, Oh, you know, if I just do more, if I do that, you know what, but I really wasn't even clear. I, you know, I had my thing I sold, but I wasn't comfortable in the sales process.

Terra Bohlmann (38:38):So once I went and plugged that hole, Oh my gosh, everything else got simpler. Okay. So figure out your kick, your number one category. Then the final part is about the close. So remember the first part was getting clarity. We do our planning, understand where you're going to be in the next five years. Your second part is about doing the climb. This is mentally preparing ourselves so that you will go faster and do more in a short period of time, knowing there's a light at the end of the tunnel, right? And you're going to figure out what category is the issue that's stopping you from going faster. Once you do that, then the last 15, 20 minutes of your one hour VIP session you're giving yourself is about closing it. And what that means is you need to make a list of three projects. You can call it three projects and call it three things, whatever you want.

Terra Bohlmann (39:32):I think in terms of projects, cause I'm a former project manager, but three things based on that category of say, we picked signature offers. You know what? I'm not clear on what I sell and how much I sell it for. And so of course I can't even focus on the how to sell it because I don't know what I'm selling. All right. So we're going to focus on signature offers as your category. What are the three things that are stopping you from going faster to figure out and check the box so that your signature offers are solid? So you can go on to the next thing it could be. You know, I, I don't know, you know, I'm selling too many things, so I'm confused. It could be so streamlining and coming up with, I love threes. Obviously make a list of three projects, make a, you know, sell three things no more.

Terra Bohlmann (40:24):If you can sell one thing, that's better, but you will go faster if you just saw one thing over and over, but I get it. Sometimes we got to have our intro offer and our upsells and our, you know, middle ground type of thing. So, you know, one of your projects may be getting crystal clear on coming up with the things that you sell. The second project may be creating sales AIDS or web pages or PDFs or some sort of documentation that you have around these sales offers that you have. Right? And then the third thing could be simply making a list of people you need to connect with that would need these offers. Right? So, I mean, that could be your three projects in one. That's just an example, but like, you know, in, in the case where you think sales is your issue, because you're not comfortable asking for the sale or your click throughs, aren't, you know, people aren't adding to cart or whatever that looks like you, your three projects may look totally different.

Terra Bohlmann (41:33):Cause you know what you sell, you've got great descriptions. You've got your, you know, PDFs of the different offers and your marketing brochures or whatever. It may be getting comfortable, like creating a consultation process so that you can have a conversation with a potential lead. It could be putting up and setting up a customer relationship management system, a CRM. So you can track, it could be, you know, scheduling out 25 consulting, like whatever that looks like. You can come up with three projects you need to do on the sales side as well. If you're lacking money or maybe one of the projects is setting up your books or getting a bookkeeper that is tracking this stuff on a monthly basis for you type of thing, or, you know, whatever that looks like tracking your money. That could be some projects under the sales side, under the visibility side, it may be coming up with a strategy on how you're consistent on the social media, one social media platform that how you're showing up consistently and systematizing Instagram, or maybe it's LinkedIn or whatever resonates with your perfect customer, which is of course, you know, decided out in your foundation side.

Terra Bohlmann (42:52):So it's like, you know, you come up with your projects that you need to make sure your visibility is consistent and solid. So you can plug those holes so that you can accelerate. Okay. If leads are your issue,

Speaker 8 (43:05):Then

Terra Bohlmann (43:07):If your customer experience is an issue, like everything else feels pretty solid, but you want to accelerate and make your customer experience better. It's like take a look at what do you do to onboard your customers? What do you, how do you deliver to them? You know, another project may be, how do you transition when they're done and make sure they're teed up to be able to buy from you again, right? So you want to come up with projects associated in that category. And then lastly, if you're finding, you know, team dream team as an issue, it's like, you know, make a project to sit down and say, okay, if I can look at my five year plan, who needs to be on this bus with me and I'm going to write job descriptions for that, that could be one project. Second one could be to find an executive assistant.

Terra Bohlmann (43:52):The third one could be simply enrolling in some leadership training that you know, you truly need. So you can be a better CEO and motivate your people. Okay. I mean, I'm just giving you examples of three projects for each category, as much as possible. I didn't do foundation, but something like that would be, you know, to get your brand cohesive maybe update your website. It could be sitting down and getting really clear on your perfect customer profile so you can serve, it could be things like you know, deciding how to do strategic, give back creating a vision statement, like all kinds of things. Foundation's but you just can come up with three projects of each. So then what you do is you come up with your projects associated to your category. I don't want you to do is to come up with, you know, projects that are in different categories, right?

Terra Bohlmann (44:46):Like really think of this high level bird's eye view category. Yeah. Now let's go deeper within that category. So don't be like, I need to hire an assistant. I need to update my website and I need to come up with a consultation process. Okay. You just hit three projects in three categories and that is going to take, take you longer to accelerate. It's about focused intention under a specific category. Okay. So you'll have your category with your three projects associated with it. So now I want you to think in terms of those three projects, let's prioritize them. Number one will help me hit my success sooner. Right? So all of course, they're all gonna probably be high priorities, but you have to determine what's the first one. And what's the second one. And what's the third one. And I want you to focus on one and then two and then three and don't stop until you finish one.

Terra Bohlmann (45:45):Don't get it to 99%. Don't get it to 90% and think it's not get it to a hundred percent and then check the box box and go, Oh, maybe go celebrate, give yourself some breathing time and then get right back at it. And baby step your way, right through number two to a hundred percent. And then step three, we do this thing called context switching, especially as women, which means we're constantly thinking we can multitask, but we're not doing one thing and we're not getting it over the goal line. And there's my masculine brain. You about sports. But it's how I see it is like, we will get to, I think of football. My son played football and you know, it'd be like, man, they'd get it to the 10 yard line. And then, Oh man, they lost the ball. So it's like, let's get it all, all the way to the end zone.

Terra Bohlmann (46:38):Then you can celebrate and then go back and do the next thing. Okay. So prioritize one, two, three. Don't stop until you finish each one. No multitasking aloud. How true this is. Why I'll say this, the risk of sounding reversal. But I believe it. I feel like this is why men can be more productive sometimes than women. We think we are productive because we're multitasking, but they're focusing on one thing at a time. And I just, I get so much evidence in my own life because I'm raising three boys. I have a 17 year old son. I have twin 11 year old boys. Sometimes we'll see what happens with my husband. So, you know, just start testing, you're testing this theory. Right. And see if it resonates with you. But for me, it's like, if I try to give Cooper, one of my twins, I'll say, Hey cope.

Terra Bohlmann (47:32):Can you go feed the dog, transfer the clothes from the washer, the dryer, and then go check the mail. And he'd be like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, mom, wait any one thing at a time? Like I'm confused. You know? And I'm like, wow. And then what he would do is feed the dog and get the mail and he wouldn't transfer the clothes. So they like, it's one thing at a time. And if we can borrow this from their playbook, I'm telling you, it will, it's helps you stress loss as well. Okay. So one thing at a time it works. So we're going to close the gap on where we are and where we need to be. And we're going to define out the projects that we need to work on based on a category. And if you do that, using these three steps, clarity, getting clear on where you're going and where you need to be and how you're going to feel along the way.

Terra Bohlmann (48:26):Remember destination success workbook is available for you. That should take you like 15 minutes, 15 minutes to plan out your five years. Like this is huge. And then you're going to then mentally prepare. The second thing is going to focus on that climb, right? We know mentally, okay, I'm committing to this week, I'm going to work 10 hours a day to get this done, but I'm going to take the next five days. I'm going to work some overtime in my own business. So I can get this done because this is important to me to hit this level of success that I have now really clear on, okay, then we're going to figure out the category. And then once we have the category and we're mentally prepared to attack that category so that we can accelerate our business success, it's a beautiful thing. And then the third thing is we're then going to close it. And how we do that is we make that list of three things that we're going to do in that category to check the box, to get it done. And we're going to do it focused intentional, and we're going to then celebrate our success when we're done. Right? So that is going to be how you can accelerate your business success big time till next time, take care.

Outro (49:43):And there you have it. Another jam packed episode of the fast track woman podcast. Don't forget to visit my website at TerraBohlmann.com where you can get more business tips and strategies, learn how we can work together to accelerate your business success for access this episode's show notes with a full transcript and links to resources mentioned today. And if you enjoy this podcast, I invite you to leave a review so that we can help serve more women business owners, just like you until next time here's to owning your time and

Terra Bohlmann (50:18):Valuing your work.