Hustle - noun – To put in energetic effort.
There is this HUGE cosmic joke. And it’s on us – yep, you and I.
You see you probably decided to start your own business for a few very awesome reasons. Lets check them:
1. You want to share your gifts and talents to make a difference. Love it.
2. You want to make copious amounts of money and don’t want to settle for an hourly wage of any kind. I get it – why should you when you don’t have to, right. Great.
3. You want more time freedom … so you can focus even more on the things and people that really matter to you. Thats insanely intelligent. Which is why that cosmic joke can sting!
What Cosmic Joke?
Be careful. As an entrepreneur you usually end up working more.
Have you ever read the ‘Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris? It’s a great book and it’s even one of my teenage daughters favourites (when ever I couldn’t find it on the book-shelf, I’d just hunt for it around her bed). If you haven’t read it, the title says it all. It’s all about the why and how to reduce your work week to just four hours a week. No small feat, but still do-able.
So we plot out what we are going to do to work less without making less (correction – work less hours and make more money) and instead we end up working hours that are kind of ludicrous. Like, seriously crazy.
To bed at 2am. No problems. Up at 3am – no worries.
But we tell our selves it temporary, right?! ”It’s just while I’m setting up my business”. “It’s just while I’m learning how to use this new piece of software”. ”It’s just while I’m launching this new project”. ”It’s just while I’m studying this course”. It’s just while I’m …..
Hmmmm. We know it’s wrong to carry this on too long. It’s unhealthy for you. Your tired and your cortisol levels are shooting up, so you’re beginning to get snappy. It’s unhealthy and other people are beginning to pay the price. Besides it’s just ugly (bags and dull skin, shall I go on) …
... So because you and I are smart, we take a little break and try to re-focus on ‘leveraging our time’. Ooohh ahhhh. Blaaaarrk!
I know I’ve said it. We should leverage our time. Infact I said it in last weeks video and I’m not bagging it. It is the only way to do what you love, make more money and make a bigger difference to more of the people you want to serve. ie. If you only work one-on-one you serve potentially thousands and possibly even millions less people.
But choosing to leverage your time and working smarter – doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. Infact you have to work it and hustle BIG time.
Why Hustle?
People think getting your business online is the royal road to cash and all you need to do is _____ and then you’ll be all set.
But what if you’re just starting out or changed what you do recently (like me)? Even though YOU know that you are a bag of brains when it comes to your work – how do you get your name out there and how do you help your potential clients to trust you?
Firstly, you must know exactly what problem you solve and then you have to HUSTLE (as in, put in energetic effort)
And no matter how you paint it, you must provide something that is more valuable, than the investment your asking your clients to make. This alone will probably challenge your mindset (something I’ll talk about another time), left, right and centre. But supposing you do stay the course and you have some break-throughs you still need to put yourself in a position for alot of people to find you!
This means hustle. So once you’ve made up your mind to finally host that live event or start running regular webinars or whatever you think suits you and your potential clients or tribe best … you have to put yourself out there.
Don’t have the ‘build it and they will come’ attitude. Have the ‘build it and then go make a ton of visits to where they are hanging out – and let them know how you can help and where to find you so they can come’ attitude.
Get yourself infront of other peoples, people.
How to hustle?
The best way to hustle, is to be highly helpful. You can -
-write incredibly valuable guest posts. This strategy isn’t a one off thing – this should be consistent and to make it worth your while, somewhere with high traffic
-put yourself out there for interviews and/or interview other people and make it useful for both of your audiences (but if you’re being interviewed focus on their audience).
-Reach out to the connections you already have via phone or email. Let them know, you have xyz coming up and you think it would be helpful to their audience (only if it will be) and ask to partner up (affiliate). Make it easy for them to partner with you and have all the ‘copy’ and other promotional stuff ready for them to use in their emails to their list.
-Be helpful on forums or groups within your industry.
-When creating your own content, make sure it is the kind of content that is just what your potential clients want and that will attract awesome SEO results, so it can attract a steady stream of googlers.
And to take your hustling up a notch … plan it out. Going to focus on writing guest-posts and articles for the next 6 months. How many per week? How many requests for interviews are you going to send out each week?
So what are you waiting for?
Hustle!
Now over to you?
How do you get yourself infront of your tribe of potential clients?
What works for you the best? … and if you’ve learnt anything please share!
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