Welcome, welcome to the next episode of teachers in business. This is Episode 35. So today I want to talk about what I think of as my forward business model is literally the entirety of my business model. I mean, it's not actually because you know, like, like everybody else, I have a plan. But really, the very top of my business model is the legitimately forwards lawn, it is very much something, I have a couple of business friends that make fun of me for. But as time has gone on, they can't argue with it, because it works. So my forward business model is talk to more people. And it is not four steps, you will be like, Alright, what's the next step?

It's not it, there's four words, it is talk to more people. This is it. So this, for me is the model that has created all of the income in my business, basically. And it is all you need to create success in your business. Truly, I know this because it has worked for me. But I also know this because over the past whatever years I've worked with 10 2030 clients, right? helping them build their businesses. And we always lead with talking to more people. And time after time after time, it makes a ton of difference. The clients I've had that do this best are the people who come back to me in pretty short order and are like, Oh my gosh, now what do I do with all this business, and we have to start making the adjustments that are required to have that business thrive long term, like where they start to expand where they start to bring on people or they start to shift their model. But this starts, it starts at the beginning with talking to more people and yeah, your thing, your brain is going to want to tell you exactly what mine does, which is it's not that simple. But it is like when it really comes down to it. The more people you talk to you, the more you get to grow. So actually, what I sat down to do today was I started to think about what you get from connection. Like if you choose to build your business through connection, which I advocate for, because honestly, it is the fastest, most effective way I know to grow, then, you know, I made a list of like what you get from connection, I actually have 12 things and I'm sure this is not the whole list, but I gave myself 20 minutes, I got 12. So to start with, like, from a math perspective, you just literally no more people. And, you know, think about the people you know, who are really effective in the business world, they tend to know, you know, a fair number of people like my dad ran a business for a bunch of years. And although I will say he's a little different situation, he ran a cemetery growing up, he knew everybody, always, but then when he moved into running has no big own business, he knew all the people. And that really helped.

So not only when you focus on connection, do you know more people, but you know, more people, they know you and they know not only you, but what you do, how you help people and why it matters. So the more you focus on just connecting to other people and telling them what you do, the more people know what you do. Right. And from a math perspective, like that's not going to hurt anyone. More people knowing what you do means more chances of meeting people that need you, or meeting people that know people that need you or meeting people that know people that should know you. I mean, the number of times where I connect to someone, one on one, and they go like, oh god, I have a friend, you have to talk to you let me put you two together. Like that happens twice a week. That's, that's the thing. So what you get is connection, you know, more people more people know you. And as a result of that you make money. Because even if like and this is not the average, but even if we took a really small percentage and said like okay, out of every 50 people you meet two of them are going to become your clients or customers. Fine. Like that's a small, small percentage, right? But even if that was the case, if you're meeting 200 people in a year or in six months, versus meeting 20, you're a lot more likely to meet those people that are going to become your clients just on a volume aspect. And I'm not saying like meet all the people. You don't have to take it to like the crazy end of the spectrum. But most of us aren't in business. Most of us aren't meeting enough people, especially right out of the gate because we're nervous. And that is the other really big upside to focusing on connection. You can focus on just meeting people. And what you get out of it is the opportunity to time and time again, practicing what you do. Getting really comfortable telling people what you do, talking about what you do, trying new ways to explain what you do, because the first couple of times, like 100, you do it, people are gonna look at you sideways, every now and then you're going to explain it in a way that like somebody goes like, Oh, yeah, I need that. You're gonna be like, wait, what did I say? And then you get to start like, experimenting, and you get to experiment on purpose. So you get much more comfortable, straight off the bat, just talking to people you don't know. And not everybody is great at that, especially like I live in an introvert world. I don't love meeting new people. But I have taught myself how to be comfortable with it by doing a lot of it, right. But then you also get to clarify and get really good at, you know, when somebody says, oh, what do you do, you say, Oh, this is what I do. It's great, we have so much fun, versus like a bit of a little bit of a stumbling everywhere. Like, the more you practice, the better it gets. And you cannot do this practice on paper. I mean, you can we want to write, you want to write it out and practice it over and over again until you feel really comfortable. But you know, it's like writing a script to present a lesson in a classroom.

Like you have the script, but you don't read it. Because you can't stand in front of a group of kids and hold your paper to your face and read your script. Like that's not how it works once you actually have a human in front of you. So you need practice actually talking to other humans about what you do, which is different than writing it out on paper. It just is I know that it would be perfect if we could like hold up our piece of paper and be like, Hi, my name is Sarah. I am a business coach. I work with teachers. But in reality, that's not how we meet people like I was at my son plays baseball, I was at a gathering yesterday of travel baseball families, I didn't really they're too new for us this year. So I didn't know most of the moms. You know, it was like, Okay, what do you do? Well, you know, I coach businesses, I work with people who were teachers, and they were there now growing businesses. Like I have gotten really comfortable saying that to people over time. But that's because I've practice saying it to people over time. And that's the value of practicing connection. The other thing that I find really useful, and before I go, I forgot one. The more you practice, the more competent you can become, like confidence is not something you just build up inside of you from just like sitting. Action inspires confidence. One of my very good coaching friends, her name is Jen libo had this post last week in her group that I then stole and share a bunch of places with her permission. But it was about this idea that competence comes from action. It doesn't just like well up out of nowhere, and then you take action. If you're waiting for confidence to take action, you're doing it backwards, you have to take the action to get the confidence. It's like riding a bike, you can't just wait till you have it figured out to get on the bike. Again, you're just gonna fall on your face, you're gonna fall on your face. Either way, you might as well just get on the dang bike. So the other thing that I find really useful about connection is it's funny, I was talking to a client last week, we were talking about how, like networking or going to meet people one on one, half the time you like talk yourself out of it before you get there, you're like, Ah, it's gonna be so much work, like meeting new people is hard. I'm going to be tired. I don't know what I'm gonna say I'm gonna have to think really hard. And then inevitably, you walk away and you're like, oh, that was so lovely, I'm energized. And then you forget again, the next time that connecting energizes you and we go through the whole like mental thing again, because we expect it to be a lot of work. But when you really are just show showing up to truly Connect. It's not it gives you energy versus taking it connecting to other humans especially humans that you know you can help that you have something to give to that like fill your little teacher heart. Like I always walk away from those and think like, there was so much fun. And I've learned over the years to remember that where it's like oh, god I love that group. There's so much fun to connect with. I always take something really useful away. I know people take something useful away from me. What a What a treat to be able to see spend that time with those people. Like that's the joy of connection. So not only do you get energized, but you get inspired. Like I was in a networking meeting last week where there was this woman talking about all the different ways. She like, tackles productivity and the kinds of work she does with people. And then people had all these questions.

I walked away with like a billion ideas, of things to talk about and things I wanted to think about for myself in my business, and things that would directly help my clients, things that will directly help people in my facebook group things that were useful for me things that I'd have to offer to others. And it was like, Oh, this was so inspiring. Like, I my brain spun for like, four hours afterwards. That's so much buzzing around in my head. But you meet people, you meet them in groups, or you meet them one on one, and you're constantly inspired by what people do. Like I was talking last week, I met someone who is a single mom. And she's got a couple of kids. And she decided that teaching Wasn't she just didn't like, wasn't flexible enough for what she was doing. So she started a business and she's really worked in just talking to her and like, the different hurdles she's overcome, and the different ways she's approached it. And the way she like keeps her kids in the center of her head, too, because she wants them to see that, like you put in the work, you get what you get, like you get something out of like being it's like, I walked away with my heart full and full of inspiration and just really feeling, you know, like there's good in the world, and in wanting to be able to support her. And so you walk away inspired. And then you also get to be inspiring for others. Because as much as you think your story's not special it is you must say that again, as much as you think your story is not special it is. Your story is special. And there are someone that you're going to connect with, that's going to be like, Ah, that's exactly what I needed to hear right now. I just need to keep going.

That happens. So you never know who you are going to be able to inspire. But if you're not connecting, they miss out. They miss the chance to hear your story, to get that inspiration to walk away, like Oh, I know what's possible. Now. That's a big deal. And so that getting and giving of inspiration, builds business, just generally. So like you're connecting, you're meeting more people, you're meeting more people that know what you do, you're meeting more people that may or may not be coming clients, you are building your confidence and your clarity and what you do and how you say it. You are inspiring others, you're getting inspired, you're getting energized by connecting whenever I'm like, Oh, I don't want to do anything. I realize it's because I haven't been talking to enough people. Like I'm missing people, teachers or people people. Okay, we need people, I need people in what I'm here in my home office. And it's just like me and the dogs. They're great. But like, I mean people. And I forget that because it's a little easier not to talk to people right to not put in the effort. But it works better when you do. It's like working out, right? You feel better after you do it. It's just you have to like remind yourself of that ahead of time. The other thing, the last thing is that two last things I like the second to last thing is connecting opens up possibility. So a good example of this is right now I am helping connection that I made through a Facebook group, who actually turned out to live here locally by me in the Greater Philadelphia area. I'm helping that connection right now. Like work through the process of building courses, and thinking about how to teach to her audience. Because she is not by nature. She's she is a teacher. She doesn't see it that way. But she doesn't have the same background I do. So when she started this work of building courses and trying to decide what to teach, she reached out and said, like, Hey, I know this is kind of stuff you think about it's not exactly what you do, but can you help me? And so she reached out. And, you know, it's just a new possibility. I have another conversation on my schedule this week. There's like a connection, reached out and was like, Hey, I have this thing. I don't know if it's what you do, but like would you be willing to talk about it? Of course, because here's the thing, it might not be what I do and I get to decide that but at the very least I might know who can help her And if it is something that I think will sound fun, then I'll go ahead and do it. Like I get to decide that my does this. It's possibility, like connection opens up all of these roads to possibility that you didn't know were there. Like, it wouldn't have occurred to me that someone was going to call me to help them with their course. I mean, it probably should have. But it didn't. Until someone did. That was like, Oh, yeah, that would be fun. I'll happily do that. And I do. The last thing I want to tell you is that you, when you build connections, when you lead with connection, when you build your business, by talking to more people, when you really buy into this model of talking to more people, your brain is going to be like, I'm not going to have time to do all the other things. And here's the key, you will not need to do all the other things. building business by connection saves you time. Truly it does, because here's what's happens. You could sit at your desk, you could create and create and create and make beautiful website and you could make beautiful Facebook posts. And you could create freebies, and you can do all these things. But if nobody knows you, and nobody is connected to you, nobody's coming. See it, like I have built that business. I have built the beautiful website until no one about it and didn't understand this early on. This is the biggest mistake I made in my first business. We build all the stuff we created, we created recreated, and we didn't focus on connection. Connection is what moves the needle. It really is. And when you're focusing on connection, all the other stuff that you feel compelled to make, you don't actually need. Like I have clients, I have two clients that have built like, you know, they're making 1000s upon 1000s of dollars a month, one of them, like 10s of 1000s. And, like they don't have a website at all. It's fine. One of them just started working on hers, because she's like, maybe I should do a website. But it's because she wants it. Like they don't have all that stuff. They don't create freebies, they don't do all these other things that I'm not saying those things are wrong. But if you're focusing on connection and meeting people and connecting and being human, all the other stuff really doesn't matter. So will you have time to do it? Maybe your time is focused on people. That's okay. That's the whole point of you being in business, isn't it? You're here to work with people. And so if you're spending time with people, yes, you will not have five hours a day at your desk to think. But you know what, you'll be building a business that actually makes money. And that makes a difference. So you'll get time. Because you won't need to create all the other stuff because people will know who you are. They'll know what you do, they'll be referring people to you. That happens to me with clients. And with connections, connections, jewelry, get reach out and say like, Oh, hey, was so nice. When we talked a couple weeks ago, I have to you have to talk to this friend of my friend, I told her all about you and she's going to reach out. Or I told her all about you. Here's your email, please call her or email her. So you get to build a business where people refer because people know you.

But that doesn't happen if you are not connecting. So this is the case I'm going to make for connection. And here's here's what I want to offer to you today. In my Facebook group this week. So this is the week of July 20. You know, July 26. Yep, I am running a challenge all about connection. Every day, there's a little tiny task. And yes, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, and it's the 27th or Wednesday, it's the 28th you can still come come into my Facebook group, which is called teachers in business. And join the challenge every day, there's going to be a teeny tiny task, like it's not ever going to take you a long time. It's going to take you like five minutes. And it's really more like getting over yourself than actually doing a lot of work. It's gonna come out at 8am. And at some point during the day, I'll post the schedule, there's going to be like a 15 minute live q&a or a live check in. And then all you have to do is say that you did the task, tell us what you did. And then at the end of the day on Thursday, there are prizes, friends, surprises, I have been buying fun things on Etsy to ship people because this is like my favorite excuse to shop. So like all kinds of nifty little things. But also you're going to get connections. We are going to do four different activities that are part of how you start to build connections. You're going to you're going to get your show your brain there now. Not as hard as you think it's going to take you a couple minutes every day. And you're going to start really connecting to other people in building business as a result, which is amazing. So you're listening and you're not in the challenge yet come in, it's not too late. Even if you did it after the fact and you're not into the presence is fine, it will be hashtag connection challenge in my facebook group. And you'll be able to find it, or you can send me an email and say, like, Sarah, I want to do the challenge helped me do it fine. Or you can send me an email or a message or even come book a time on my website, to talk about actually focusing on growing your business via connection. The most effective way for me to teach you that to help you grow your business through connection is by coaching. Because when we meet every week, and really keep the focus firmly on Who are you meeting? How are you meeting them? How are you talking to them about what you do? What have you tested? What have you tried, what are your experiments, the faster you're going to grow. The most effective version of this is the coached version of this period. Like I get coached my clients, they get coaching, this is how growth is sped up. So you can build your business by focusing on connection. But if you find yourself getting in your own way, or like you focus on it for four days, and then you give up, the difference maker will be coaching because that will hold the accountability and the consistency and I know it works. Like you're gonna spend money but you're gonna wait make way more. This is how it goes. It's gonna be worth every penny. So if you want to talk about building your business by connection, send a message. Let's set up a time to talk. It's a free conversation. Worst case, you walk away and you're like, No, thank you. That's totally okay. I still like you. And if not come into the challenge. Let's play. Alright,

I will see you in the challenge and I will talk to you next week. I'll have another special guest. I'm excited. I'll see you then. Bye.