Mindset Shifts for 7-Figure Growth

24:54And all of these offers know, just like the way it's opened the doors for them, and it opened the door to me to Oprah and the New York Times and Forbes and TEDx and all these places that now our clients get to do too, it will open the door for you as well. The year that I focused on the book, once a month speaking and three referral partners a week. We crossed the million dollar mark on December 10th and we have hit it every year or multiple seven figures every year since. See, I didn't know how crucially important this was going to be. I didn't know that by doing that, I would be able to pay my all-woman team through the entire pandemic and every market challenge we've faced since without ever missing a beat.

25:31I didn't know that my husband's business was going to be unexpectedly shut down and dissolved. And I was going to be able to say, it's okay. I've got us. I've got our family. I didn't know then that according to Forbes, only 1.9 % of American women have a seven figure business. We need to change that number. We get to change that number. And you're next. So back in 2017, I was working full time for a federal judge as a law clerk and also a photographer, and then I was moonlighting on the side as the legal page, was trying to build something totally new, a legal education platform for online small business owners, particularly in the wedding and event industry.

26:16And let's just say that the spreadsheet was not pretty, I was not profitable, and I felt like I was pouring everything that I had into something that maybe people didn't totally understand yet. But I kept going because I truly believed that when the need arose, I wanted to already be the solution. And so I stayed ready. And I built out systems, and I built out education, and I built out a contract shop. And I invested in my online presence. I hired a tiny team. I laid the foundation, even when the money didn't quite justify it yet. And then 2020 hit, and the entire wedding industry almost collapsed overnight.

27:03and then suddenly all of those photographers and videographers and wedding planners and other vendors that I had talked to for years all needed help at the same time, and I didn't have to panic, and I didn't have to scramble, and I didn't have to piece things together, and I didn't have to set up shop online like other lawyers because I was already there. I was ready, and that is the year that my business exploded because I was ready to scale. And so that is what I want to talk about today and help you make that kind of business, the kind of business that is protected and prepared and positioned so that when you are in the middle of a moment, you are ready.

27:54Here are the three things that I have found to be the most critical when you are preparing to scale to seven figures. Number one, your scaling squad. Number two, your street cred in the online world. And number three, your routines that run without you. So when you are hiring your team or your scaling squad, the team that's going to help you get from here to there, The one thing that I've found is to hire very slow and fire fast. What do I mean by that? I mean that when you're hiring, you need to do test projects and multiple interviews. You need to make sure that they have the right skill set, yes.

28:36But when you're onboarding someone and they're two to four weeks in and you're starting to feel a little weird about them, I can guarantee that about 95 % of the time, you need to fire pretty darn fast. And here's why. You can't teach culture and morals and ethics and values. That has to be there right from the get-go. And then the other thing about onboarding, you actually have to onboard as a CEO when you're to get to seven figures. You can't just send a email that says, hello, welcome to the team, here are the bullet points on how to onboard. You have to tell them and effectively communicate how you want them to onboard onto your team.

29:25The biggest mistake that I see when people are moving from six figures to seven figures is they think that they can just throw out a job posting and then have someone come on and they're going to telepathically understand what it is that they want them to do and be this magical unicorn. But that's not the case. You have to teach them exactly what you want them to do. And you're not only going to put this in your employment agreements or your independent contractor agreements, but I highly, highly recommend that you put this in an employment handbook so that that type of standard and onboarding step by step is standard across the board for your team.

30:07And then here is the kicker here. Remember that lovely people don't always equal the right people. You deserve A++ players. And your team also deserves A++ players. When you are really trying to make a nice person or a lovely person work, you're actually not helping anyone. And your team is very, very invested in everyone around them, and they expect everyone to live up to those same expectations. So remember, it's all about skill sets, and it's all about culture. And then the last thing that I want to say here when it comes to your team is your communication style. Your team is always listening.

30:57They're watching and they're reading between the lines of your comments and your DMs and your emails. And so whether you like it or not, people are watching you, particularly your team. So invest in your communication style and communicate and over communicate. And if you need help, go find someone to help you with your communication style because people mirror what they see. Now, the next thing I want you to do is triple down or quadruple down in your business's reputation. It is everything because when you are scaling and you're trying to move into that seven-figure mode, you need to remember that people are talking about your business and your reputation when you are not in the room.

31:46So what do you want them to say? You have to actually give them a playbook, and you have to say that over and over and over again so that they repeat that when you're not in the room. You want to be the one that they talk about every single time. And the one thing that I say here too is you're not trying to spew this out everywhere. You want to be strategic, and you want to be talked about in the right circles and in the right conversations. In today's online world, it is very, very, very important that you are connected with the people that you also want others to be connected with. Their reputation means your reputation.

32:31So if they're talking about you, you have to be strategic about who those people are. And once you finally figure out that network and the people, and maybe it's an affiliate program and a referral program that helps them talk about your business, you want to be the name that they drop, the link that they share, and the person that they trust. Because in today's online world, it is all about trust, and it's rooted in trust, and clients expect that. It's not about how much money you can spend in meta ads. It's all about your business's reputation and the people that push forward that reputation.

33:14So build out your network as you're going to seven figures. And at this point, you're probably thinking, okay, my brand's reputation, visuals, and all of my logos and fonts, those are really, really, really important, yes. But it's not just about that. It's also about your brand's feeling. It's about the trust that people are seeing, and it's all about the promise. Can you keep the promises that you are putting out there? And then remember this, remember this. You have to protect the brand that you're building. Please don't wait until someone steals your content or uses your business name or infringes on your tagline.

34:02If I tell you anything as an intellectual property lawyer, it's this. By then, it's too late. So you have to protect your trademarks early on before you blow up or before that moment comes. And it's not an if, it's a when. Now, we've gone over team building, we've gone over reputation, and we next need to go into systems and workflows. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. And if you are not adequately creating the systems and the workflows that are going to take you from here to there, I can promise you that you are probably going to be stuck at a 250K business.

34:47Now, what do I mean by that? You have to systemize everything. So here's my golden rule here. If you do it more than once, I want you to automate it. And if someone else can do it, document it so that they can do it. You have to systemize all of the things, your email templates, your workflows. You have to systemize bringing someone onto the team. You have to systemize your contracts. And remember here that when you are systemizing your entire backend, it's not about doing it better. It's about doing it smarter and it's about doing it faster. And then in terms of client interactions, when it comes to systemizing, here's what I have found to be true.

35:37The best client systems are the ones that you are designing to feel seamless even when you're not in it. So you want to create systems that allow you to over-deliver without overworking. and your team is going to help you with that. That is the power of workflows, right? And then it's a set it and forget it mostly. Yes, you're going to need to tweak and revamp and update your workflows and systems, but you don't always want to be the one pressing go. That is the power of systems and automations. The next level of you, when you're ready to step into that seven-figure CEO era, it requires the support with the systems, automations, and workflows to get you to that next level.

36:27I am here to remind you that seven-figure businesses aren't built in a panic or by scrambling. They are built with the right team, with the right reputation that is protected, and then also with the right systems and workflows in places. I want you to stay ready so that you don't have to get ready. And if you're ready to put all of this into action, I have created a free business scaling guide just for you. You can get it here on the screen or by going to thelegalpage.com forward slash scale. And it also includes all of my legal tips for six-figure businesses to move to seven figure businesses, such as contracts and trademark protections and contract protections.

37:16So thank you so, so much. I am very excited for you to stay ready. I don't know if you can believe this, but we are at the halfway point. I don't know about you, but my mind feels dang blown by what these entrepreneurs have shared for you, with you, for you, for free. And I understand there is a mix of people right now. There is a mix of feelings. Some people are saying, oh, this is too soon for me to do. Oh, this is not enough. I need more information. Please stop. Keep it going. Slow your roll. Okay. You could feel all of those feelings. But what I'm going to remind you and invite you to do is to say that feelings change, results don't.

37:57How you feel in this moment will not be how you feel in an hour or tomorrow. So if right now what you feel is excited, yes, have that push you through to tomorrow. And if what you feel right now is very overwhelmed and intimidated, guess what? Same feeling. It's going to go away. Have it push you into tomorrow. What I want us focusing on is, has anybody said anything that lit a little light bulb in your head? Because if so, that is your driver to result. Anything that is not for you, leave it behind. If somebody has said one thing, now we're going to focus on that and ask ourselves, how do we use this to get us a result?

38:32Now, the best thing that we can do for our business is acknowledge the feeling, but focus on taking action. See the feeling, acknowledge it, I feel. If you have a notebook, if you're writing something down, if you're at the gym, pause this, get off the treadmill, go to your notes app and say, I feel, and name the feeling. Observe the feeling and say, even though I feel happy, excited, overwhelmed, sad, intimidated, fearful, whatever it is, acknowledge it and say, I'm still going to take action because action is the antidote to fear. Action is the antidote to indecision. Action is the antidote to doubt.

39:11Inaction, inaction, which is a sneaky little sucker, it disguises itself as, oh, I need to wait a little bit more. You see, I'm going to blame somebody else for this because I don't have that. I'm going to hope that things change without me changing. No, no, no, no, no. Inaction, you not taking an action. It could be disguised as something else, but I am telling you that will lead to your dismise. Did I say dismise? I meant demise, but you want to know what? We're just going to make up words as we go. Dismise. In fact, if you're watching right now, send me a DM at Jasmine Star with the word dismise.

39:43Then I know you got to this point because right about now, what you're feeling, it's been about 35 minutes. And at this point, you're probably feeling something begins to shift. It is a perspective change. I want to acknowledge the perspective change. I have navigated thousands of business owners through this very specific perspective change. So what you're looking at is a time horizon, who you were in the past. And then what you see is who you want to be in the future. Now, in our mind, what we think it's going to be is a straight line, where I am now to where I want to be in the future. What we think and what we hope and what we secretly long for is that it is a straight line, but nothing good ever came from easy paths.

40:28Because what it really looks like, let me just save you all some time, is that there is the version of who you were in the past and what you see in the future is not on a flat horizon line. It is up a hill. It is a 90 degree climb to where it is that you want to go. So what happens to us on the climb? Well, the brain, our beautiful brain, wants to use the past as an indicator of what we can do in the future. But we need to train our mind to avoid that. Because what happens is if you look at your future on top of a hill, on top of a mountain and say, I can't ever get there because in the past, I have not done that yet.

41:06Let me tell you, you've come too far to only come this far. There was a time in your business that you didn't know how to do what you're doing today and you figured it out. So if you figured out new things in the past, let me just tell you, you might not know what your future looks like, but I believe you're going to figure it out. because if we use the past to predict the future, the future will look the same as the present. Should I say that again? No, I don't need to. I don't even want you thinking about it. I want us thinking a new thought because when we use a vision of the future, we can define the actions that we need to take today to move forward of success.

41:45I might not know how to get to that future vision of my future success, but what I'm going to do is who must I be? What decisions must I take? What lessons must I learn? What failures must I come up against and say, I'm still going to rise. I am still going to try. And after I feel like I left my lung on the floor, I broke my leg, I'm missing some teeth, I'm going to say, yes, I'm going to rise up and I'm going to do this again. Why? Because my future version is waiting for me. Because I cannot lose if I do not quit. So when you think of the future, can you list three to five things that will stop you from getting there?

42:21Right now, in a notebook, pause on the treadmill again. go to your notes app and say, what would stop you? See, what I like to do is I like to know the enemy in my head. I want to get that enemy who keeps an outpost in my mind to say, I see you. I acknowledge it. I might feel a certain way, but my feelings are not going to get in the way of action. So you might be sitting here listing all of the possible obstacles in your way. You don't have enough money. You're starting too late. You don't have the right team in place. You don't know the next best step. You don't know how you're going to get from here to where you want to go.

42:57Fine. I just gave you a list of obstacles that you can add some of your own. Now, there's a 90 % chance that the obstacles you listed are actually fears of the past. Look at your obstacles. Look at your obstacles. There is a 90 % chance you feared the same obstacles when you first started. Now, they might not appear that way, right? Because when you first started your business, you're like, I don't have money. And you might have built a business that now has more money. And you might say, I don't have enough money. Same fear. Not exactly the same on paper, but the same underlying fear. It's sneaky.

43:35It's a shape shifter. Your fear will take on, wear different costumes, but it's the same thing. So fear disguises itself as a thousand different things to keep you stuck and keep you thinking that everything is a new obstacle. But the odds are statistically, it's not. It is the same fear appearing as itself in a slightly different form. Here's why. The average human thinks around 60 ,000 thoughts a day. You and me, we're going to think about 60 ,000 thoughts a day and 80 % of those thoughts are negative. 80 % of 60 ,000 thoughts are negative. I want us to let that sink in because the vast majority of your thoughts today have been negative.

44:21And then we wonder why at the end of the day, we're like, oh, I'm tired. I'm stressed. I'm so overwhelmed. Well, of course you are. The narrative in our mind has been negative. Now, here's the trippy part. Dr. Joe Dispenza states that 90 % of the thoughts we think today are the same thoughts we thought yesterday. Okay. Okay. Okay. Think about this. Think about this. 60 ,000 thoughts, 80 % of those thoughts are negative, and 90 % of them, we repeat the next day. Is that crazy? 90 % of our thoughts are repeated, and most of them are negative. So our brain is replaying the same stories, ideas, and scenes again, and again, and again.

45:08So you know those obstacles you listed, those three to five obstacles? You thought about them yesterday. You thought about them the day before yesterday. And you thought about them the day before that. My question to you is, what today are you going to do to change that? Because our brain repeats the same fear in slightly different ways. So how? How do we stop this? Here at the Seven Figure Summit, I don't want you learning something, getting a dopamine high, being like, I'm so inspired, motivation and momentum. And then tomorrow you're back at the same thing because it's the same negative thoughts.

45:44What do we have to do? Number one, stop the thought. See the thought. Number two, replace it with a new thought. And then number three, repeat that new thought again and again and again. It is stop the thought, replace the thought, and repeat the thought. Why? Because the more thoughts you think in a new way, it changes your entire belief system. Because here's the goal. I want you to think of this new thought so often that it replaces the negative thought. If you think and replace this thought, you're going to have a 90 % chance you're going to repeat that new thought tomorrow and a 90 % chance that you're going to repeat it the next day.

46:27Now, I want to pause here because if you're feeling like a little overwhelmed or a little bit bummed and you're like, man, I don't want to think so negatively. I didn't really think I was a negative person. It's okay. I'm here to tell you it's normal. As entrepreneurs, we have big ideas, big visions, and big hopes. And then all of a sudden we get torn down to reality when things don't happen the way that we wanted them in the time they happen. Should I pause there? We get bummed that it didn't happen the way that we wanted to happen in the timeline we wanted to happen. That is normal. That's what makes us crazy.

46:59and amazing and beautiful. We are the game changers. We are the way makers. We are the rule breakers. It is normal for us to deal with fear and doubt that other people don't. Why? Because we're breaking the system. I have been so honored and privileged to host a mastermind of seven and eight figure founders scaling their business. This is what we go through. I don't care for making$7,$70,$700,$7 million. This is the pattern. And today on this summit, if what you walk away with is stop the thought, replace the thought, repeat the thought, nothing would make me happier. If you would like to learn more about our seven-figure founders mastermind, we are not open for enrollment, but if you want more information or sign up for the wait list so that you get more information, you can find us at jasminestar.com forward slash mastermind.

47:48What an honor and privilege. Let's get into the rest of these conversations. What if the thing holding you back isn't fear? It isn't strategy. It isn't skill set, but it's comfort. That was me. I was pretty comfortable in my business. I had a multiple six-figure business. I had clients coming in. I had money in the door. I had freedom. I had comfort. Things were pretty good in my life. And I sat with the question of, do I want more? In my mind, if I wanted more, more was going to be about push more, drive more, do more. And I don't think I was willing to give up the life that I had. Was my life really going to change by having more money?

48:36Was it going to change my lifestyle? Was it going to change my experience? No. So did I really want more? And I got stuck in the enough lie. Enough feels wise. It feels safe. It feels balanced. But sometimes it's just fear in disguise. Fear of getting uncomfortable again. Fear of going for something bigger in life. Fear of dreaming, of becoming something that calls for you. And that pause, that pause changed everything. Instead of pushing, I paused. And I started to ask questions. What is it that I really want? Who do I really want to become? What's missing in the industry? What do I want to be the change for?

49:24And as I started to sit with these questions, I realized maybe there was another way. So I'd actually reached out to my mentor at the time. I was in a mastermind and I was coming up for renewal. And I said, if I renew, here's what I want. I'd like to have a seven-figure planning session. I want you to build the map for me for my seven-figure plan. He said, sure. So there I was gearing up for this planning session and he sends me a worksheet. It wasn't a strategy. It wasn't a checklist. It was a mirror. And it gave me the opportunity to sit back and reflect. And as I started to reflect, I looked back in my history.

50:06After working in wealth management, 15 years I spent managing wealthy people's money. And in that time, I realized that wealthy people think differently. They show up differently. They operate differently. differently. And what I started to realize was this conversation was missing in the online space. People talk about cash months, sales goals, revenue goals, launch numbers. They talk about burnout, scarcity. But what they were missing is the conversation around wealth. See, there's a big difference between money and wealth. Money comes in, money goes out. Maybe you know what that means. Maybe you've had that experience.

50:46Me too. But the difference is with wealth. Wealth is coming from a place of overflow. Wealth is building a legacy. Wealth is building your net worth for the future. It's about having more than enough. And it's knowing that if you lose it, you can rebuild it over again. And I'm like, this is the conversation that I want to have. I want to create millionaires. But then that little voice in my head said, like, guess what? You don't even have a seven-figure business yourself. How are you supposed to do that? But I thought about it and I thought, you know what? I've created a seven-figure net worth.

51:22I can stand in that authority. I can move forward with that. And so as I thought, how do I measure this? What would measuring it look like? And I thought, I know what I could do. I could create millionaires. And if I'm going to bring people to the experience of wealth, how many millionaires would I want to create? And as I sat with that question, a hundred came to mind. A hundred. I wasn't excited. I thought, well, what would get me excited? And then the number a thousand came to my mind. A thousand millionaires? I felt like something was rushing through my veins. It felt scary. It felt magnetic.

52:03It felt bold. This was the vision. I knew it. And as I started to speak it, as I started to share it, people started to lean in. And I started to notice the differences between six-figure earners and seven-figure earners. You see, six figures is all about throwing spadeli at the wall, hoping something's going to stick. It's the hustle. It's the push. It's the go, go, go. Seven figures. It requires there's something different. It's about a reinvention. It's about leading differently. And that was the moment I stopped pushing and driving and I started being pulled by something bigger. And as I started to think about this vision, I looked at my business and I said, does my business model match?

52:52Will my business model help me create this vision? And it wouldn't. I was working with people in a 90-day course. They'd come in, they'd get a result, off they go. Then I worked with this small intimate group of people in a mentorship, but it was such a small intimate group. There was no way this formula would create my thousand millionaires. And so I thought, what would? If I want to create, expand wealth and create millionaires, I got to create enough six-figure earners. So that birthed the idea of how can I create the biggest pool of six-figure earners. And that created my VIP cashflow accelerator program thinking that if I can create the space and create six-figure earners, this is like part of my millionaire curriculum.

53:36I can take some of those people and build them to seven figures. And as I started to share this vision, as I started to speak into it, as I started to put it out there in rooms and share that I was building my millionaires board, people would lead in and they'd reach out. I want to be one of your millionaires. I want in. This is what I want. People weren't just enrolling in the program. They were enrolling in a mission. You see, a vision is not personal. It's powerful and it's contagious. When you speak it, it becomes real. When you measure it, it becomes a target. And when you live it and you breathe it, people build it with you.

54:19So maybe it's not about doing more, maybe it's time to reinvent. The first step is to reinvent your vision. Discover for yourself what that is for you. Step two is to reinvent your model and make sure that what you're building actually matches what you're feeling called to create and put out. And number three, it's about reinventing who you are becoming. I wasn't pushing anymore. I was being pulled by a vision so big, I couldn't help but rise to meet it. And maybe that's you. Maybe you're at that point of wondering and questioning, do I want more? Is this it? And if that's you, then I'd love to invite you to download my free vision clarity map.

55:08We'll help you go through the discovery process of finding for yourself, discovering for yourself, what is that next level vision for you? You can go to deliveryourgenius.com forward slash vision. Again, it's deliveryourgenius.com forward slash vision. Remember, it's not about doing more. It's about becoming more. Hi there. I am Nikki Krawczyk. And I'm here to talk to you today about the extremely unsexy, but extremely true secrets to success. What we're going to talk about here is how I scaled my business to seven figures and how I will continue to scale it beyond there. So to start off, I have some terrible news for you.

55:54It might not actually be that much of a surprise. And that terrible news is that sometimes being in business sucks. Yes, sometimes it's amazing. I would say, I don't know, maybe 50 % of the time it's amazing. And 50 % of the time, it really, really sucks. And yes, it's true that some people get lucky. I don't know, for whatever reason, it seems to be 23-year-old business bros online. This is an actual photo of a business bro in his treehouse. Thank you, Instagram. But for the rest of us, what it comes down to really is two choices. Number one, we can complain about how hard it is. And do not get me wrong, this should be something that you do.

56:39With your close business friends, yes, you should spend a little bit of time complaining, but beyond that little bit of time, you're just fighting against reality, which gives us to the second point, which is committing to do it anyway. And we're going to talk about that in this presentation. So the key number one to scaling to seven figures, this key number one to getting to the level of success that you are hoping for is to stop strategy hopping and half-assing it. There is so much information out there, and we all like to laugh at the concept of shiny object syndrome. Oh, I'm going to do this.

57:20I'm going to do that. But I think we're all doing that a lot more than we realize. The thing is, is that there is no shortage of great ideas. and the truth is that the vast majority of them will actually work if you put in all of the effort. If you really learn the system, if the person you're learning it from, you learn everything that they have to share. If you test, if you try, there's a very good chance that it will work. But you can't start something and then get distracted by something else. So I'm going to start doing this kind of live launching and then, oh, but I saw an ad for this. So I think I'm also going to start doing this.

57:57You have to choose one and then absolutely focus on it until you have maximized it, until you know it inside and out and you are doing the absolute best work on it that you could be at all. So key two is do the things that scare you. I was actually once on a call with a business coach years and years ago, and he was asking this person, how do webinars feel to you? And she said, well, webinars, they feel heavy. So I think that means I shouldn't have to do it. And I think, unfortunately, the agreement was, yeah, if it feels heavy, what feels light to you? Let me tell you something. Most things are going to feel heavy.

58:41The truth is that being uncomfortable is a leading indicator that you are heading in the right direction. The fact is, is that most of the things that we want in life, most of the success that we have, it comes from being outside of our comfort zones. So if you are afraid of running Facebook ads, excellent. Learn how to run them really well. Go back to that point one and then run those Facebook ads. If you're afraid of firing the person, you know that you need to fire, awesome. Lean into it. Fire them anyway. You have to stop letting yourself off the hook. And don't get me wrong. This is something that I have to relearn every single day, but we have to dig into the things that are uncomfortable.

59:25If we're uncomfortable, it's a good thing. And then point number three is you have to find people to learn from who actually are successful and they have the track record to prove it. We know that there are no limit to the number of people online who will tell you that they can help you build your business, but there are very few people who actually have a track record. And this kind of goes back to number one again. You can't get distracted by pretty pictures. And yes, a lot of people who have the track record do also have pretty pictures, so good for them. But very few people have the years of success that warrant you listening to them.

1:00:07When you find those people who have the years of success, lean into that. And then beyond that, and I'm really sorry I had to tell you this, you have to pay to be in the room with them. Yes, a lot of people will give away amazing free advice and that is fantastic. Consume as much free advice as you possibly can. But the really successful people, the ones who will really make a difference in your business, if you really want to get the best advice from them, you have to pay to be in the room with them. The truly successful people don't have time to be giving away the great advice for your specific business.

1:00:41So when you want that advice for your specific business, you have to be in the room with them and very successful people, they don't have time to work with anyone for free. But the great news is, is that when you pay to work with very successful people who have that track record, they're also gonna connect you to other business owners, to your peers, but then also people that they are connected to. So you don't just learn from them, you learn from successful peers and you learn from their successful peers as well. the bottom line of it is this. It's the fact that the true secrets to success, if they're even secrets at all, are commitment, consistency, and persistence.

1:01:21And I know this is so disappointing. It's not what we want it to be, right? Like it's not manifesting. It's not crystals. It's not my personal favorite candles with crystals in them, which I will still continue to purchase just thinking. But the truth is that success comes from consistency, commitment, and resistance. Most people are only committed on their good days. They're like, yeah, I'm totally into this. This is amazing. I love this. I am in it to win it on the good days. When they get to the bad days, that's when things change, when they start doubting whether or not they're going to stick with it, when they start trying to come up with plan Bs.

1:02:05The truth is that every business owner has fantasies about getting out. And if they do see that typo, here's another pro tip. Don't deviate from the systems that your team has set up to keep you from doing presentations with typos. Don't go rogue the way that I sometimes do. But my point is, is that every business owner has fantasies about getting out. This is me working in a bread shop in my fantasy where all I have to do is ask people whether they want bread sliced or not. Look at how glossy my hair is and how fabulous my skin looks, even though I'm eating carbs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

1:02:40But beyond that, none of us are actually going to get out. The ones who are truly committed, the people who are on their way to seven figures, people who are at seven figures, multiple seven figures, on their way to eight, at eight, we're still going to stick with it. We want to get out, or at least we fantasize about getting out, but we don't. So why don't we? Number one, no one tells us what to do. And don't discount this. I think when we've been in business for a little while, we kind of get used to just being able to call the shots. That's actually pretty rare in life. We have one of the few careers in which we get to decide what we do.

1:03:16And yes, sometimes that's very overwhelming, but for the most part, it's really, really empowering. So don't discount that. And the second part is that we get to literally change lives. Even if I do nothing else with my life. I know that I've had the opportunity to change people's lives. And no matter how small the impacts you have on your community are or how big they are, you get to, even on the hardest days, know that you have had the opportunity to change people's lives. And those two things make all of this stuff, all the commitment on our worst days, absolutely worth it. So stick with it.

1:03:56I'm Michelle Gifford. So about two years ago, I was completely done with Instagram. I was tired. I was trying really hard. I was posting every day and I was not getting the results that I wanted. And I, if you'll see here in this graph that I had many days when those little red lines, those are when I was losing more followers than I was gaining. And this, I was like trying really hard and this was part of my business. I needed to make Instagram work. So I took a step back. This was in 2022. And in about October, I was like, hey, we need to try a new strategy. I am doing a lot of stuff and it's not working.

1:04:36So I shifted and I used my marketing background to say, hey, people are doing this. How are they doing this? And how can I start utilizing Instagram, which is a huge, huge gift to us? How can I utilize that for my business. So I made some shifts. I did that in October of 2022. And by December, I was going viral and I kept going viral and viral until now I have 250 ,000 followers. And that was from 18 ,000 followers till now. Plus I am on a regular basis getting organic emails, people signing up for my email list. And so when I figured out that strategy, I was like, this works for me, but how can I make it work for my clients and my students.

1:05:22So I started teaching it. Here's Meg. She started employing it. You'll see that big sharp lineup. That's when she started employing the strategy. And in a couple of years, she's gone from 150 to 408 ,000. And then this is Amber, one of my clients. And you'll notice on her graph, she also has a huge spike. But my favorite analytic here is 26 % of her non-sponsored posts were hitting a million after employing the strategy. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. I am Michelle Gifford. I am an Instagram expert and strategist. I have a podcast. I have an agency. So not only am I doing this for myself, I'm doing it for clients and I'm teaching it.

1:05:58And as part of my agency, we do a lot of organic marketing. So it's how does Instagram fit into an overall marketing plan? So today we're going to be going through two things, two things that are imperative to really making it on Instagram. Number one is understanding the algorithm. And number two is employing this MyAttract nurture sell method. So we have to know that growing on Instagram is actually easier now than ever. You may not believe that because it doesn't feel true, but you're not employing a strategy that is actually working. So we have to understand the algorithm. The algorithm, it actually made a big shift over the last year.

1:06:37It is not a follower-driven algorithm anymore. it is a content-driven algorithm. So if you don't have a lot of followers, this is actually really great news because it is now not based on how many followers you have. That's how many people see your content. It's about, are you creating great content? The algorithm here is just trying to play matchmaker, right? It's like, hey, we got Michelle over here. She is creating content about Instagram. And we have Mary over here who really needs to know about Instagram and putting them together for a perfect match because the goal of Instagram is to keep people on the app.

1:07:08And so the algorithm is just trying to keep feeding people the right content. So the algorithm is looking for information about each post. It's looking at engagement. It looks at like the person posting in history. And then what it does, this is a new algorithm. And while it is just applying this to reels right now, I predict it'll apply it to carousels and posts in the future. But it is going to, no matter how many followers you have, it's going to present your real into small group of people, if it gets good reaction, it'll serve it up to more and more and more people. So how does this shift our strategy?

1:07:46Well, we have to get really, really, really in tune with getting content that people actually want to watch, that they watch past that three seconds. So we can't do the basic hooks anymore. We have to have these curiosity hooks that keep people around. And because real interaction matters, we can't post and ghost. We have to engage with our audience. And we have to be consistent in our message and posting. And now the good news is for small or big accounts is you don't have to be big to win. Great content is key. So we have to make friends with the algorithm. The algorithm has to understand who we are and who we're here for.

1:08:22So creating consistent niche down content is really important. We create content for people who don't follow us yet. If we want to grow, right, we want the algorithm to push us out to people that we don't even know yet. So we have to understand that it's not just creating for a current audience, but how can we create for people bigger and different than us? We create bite-sized wins for people and we stay consistent because how are you using Instagram? You're probably watching something, loving it, and then sharing it with a friend, right? That's how people are using it. And so we have to create content around those goals.

1:08:55So let's get in to my attract nurture-sale method. This is a content funnel. Now, I obviously didn't make this up. You've seen this before. But you know that for people to come in and buy, they're not going to just barely meet you and then want to spend hundreds of dollars with you, right? You have to have content that attracts them in and then nurtures them. And then you can sell because that attraction content is going to bring new eyes to you. And that's how you gain new followers. And that nurture content is where you are getting that know, like, and trust factor, and then you can sell. Then you can become raving fans, right?

1:09:33So how does this apply to Instagram? Now, this is in general, but reels are in general attraction content. It's easier to get your reels seen by people who don't follow you yet. And then carousels, because you can jam-pack those babies with a lot of value. These are more nurtured content. And then I love to sell in my stories. Okay. So this is where you got to take a picture of this. You got to do this, right? This is a breakdown of how to set up a balanced content strategy. So you have 50 % of your content is going to be attracting new people in. 30 % is going to be nurturing those people. And 20 % is going to be selling to them.

1:10:13Now, if we only attract new people in and we do all attraction, then selling is going to be terribly hard because we haven't built that connection. We haven't built that trust. And so we're just have a bunch of followers, but no ability to sell them anything. If you are not growing, you're probably nurturing your audience and not doing any attraction because we're really good at adding value to our current audience because we know them so well. and you have those followers that are loyal to you and that are always going to respond, they're always going to comment. And so it's really easy to get only nurture content out there because we like it, right?

1:10:52It's easy. We know who our audience is. But if we only nurture, then we're not growing. And then if we don't sell, well, we gotta sell, right? If we're making, we gotta sell, we're a business. So if you were to break this down into six posts a week, then you would do three attraction, two nurture, and one sell. So three, two, one. So what kind of content is attraction content? In general, I think, will someone share this with a friend? So think about trending audios, controversial, entertaining, how-tos, POVs, quick wins, something that is easy to consume, easy to digest. And then we have our nurture content.

1:11:30These are going to be deeper, right? Think about helpful carousels, value-driven, or talking head videos, right? And then you have your sell content. This is where you're showing transformation, your testimonials, you are showing the different parts of your product. Now, if you're thinking about your content, where are you setting up? Where are you sitting? Are you just trying to attract new people in or are you adding that nurture content? Here are some examples of my attract, nurture, sell content. So we have one where it is a very short reel where I'm giving a bunch of B-roll ideas. That got over a million views, 13 ,000 shares.

1:12:08And that was a really great attraction piece of content. And then I have my nurture piece, which is 47 ideas to go viral. And that was a carousel. Now the numbers are different. They're lower, right? But it's okay because I was there to nurture. And then you have the furthest one. And that was a sell piece of content. Again, you notice that those numbers are down. If you start thinking about your content in a track nurture sell, you'll stop putting pressure on your nurture pieces of content to gain a lot of followers. And it becomes a lot clearer how to build a strategy. So is this going to work for you?

1:12:40Will this work for your account? Yes. Doing this and teaching this for the last two years, and I have seen accounts completely blow up. Here is one of my clients, Mandy, and she has been doing this again for two years. But in 18 months, she went from 360 ,000 to a million. And she had one reel that hit, that got 170 ,000 followers. That would not have happened if she would not have put the time and energy into her nurture content and her other attraction content. So can this work for you? A hundred percent. And so I know that it can feel a little bit like, okay, what's the next step? So I have a free audit checklist to figure out, hey, where am I at with my account?

1:13:20What do I need to change to start implementing this strategy today? Because looking at your Instagram account, taking clear steps to build a strategy can completely change your business. It did for me, helped me go from six to seven figures. And now my account is something that I can serve and share and be more. Congratulations. You made it to the end of the seven figure summit. Now I want you to take away one thing from this very moment. And it is a reminder that you did not come this far to only come this far. That what you learned on this summit is just the beginning of what you're going to do.

1:13:57Now, as our presenters were presenting today, I sat back and I took notes. And there are three main things that every speaker had in common. And I wonder if you caught it too. Number one, they prioritized actions over feelings. That whenever they became overwhelmed, we saw everybody talk about an instance where they became overwhelmed or they had a question or they felt intimidated and then they took action. They did not depend on their feeling. The second thing that all of our presenters and conversations that we had today in common was they surrounded themselves with like-minded entrepreneurs.

1:14:31Other people like them who thought differently, who wanted to do bigger things, who were challenging the status quo. My friends, they surrounded themselves with people who thought just as big or bigger than they did. And the third common thing that I saw with all of our speakers today was that they had an unattachment to the outcome. Many of them admitted to doing things the wrong way. Many of them admitting to getting to the bottom and realizing, I think I need to do something different. So what are the things that we all have in common as entrepreneurs that I just want to normalize? What you saw today are very successful female entrepreneurs.

1:15:07Did you happen to know that only 0.7 % of female business owners will ever cross seven figures? Not even a whole percent. and what you saw today was them giving you some of their best advice. So the goal right now is to simply view what you experienced today and decide what actions you're going to take based on what you want to do, nobody else. Because what happens is whenever we come to events like this or you see something online, it is very tempting. It's very common to use somebody else's successes and their timelines and then you judge yourself, right? They did this in this amount of time and I haven't.

1:15:46And I have to tell you, that is an easy trap to fall into. But I want to point out the trap and say, avoid that trap. Because the terrible thing about that trap is that we have no idea how those people got to where they are. Because what you saw today was every single one of us spent about eight to 10 minutes sharing a snippet into our story. And then we say, my God, they've done these incredible things. They have. But what do you know about their business from eight, 10, 15 years that you're going to get in eight minutes? Very little. So just in case you don't believe me, I want you to think about it this way.

1:16:19Let's say you and I set out to bake a cake. And then an hour later, just 60 minutes later, I'm like, oh, hi, look at my cake. I'm about to slice my cake. I have strawberries on my cake. Anybody have small matching Danish plates and small little gold forks? Here, let me pass them out. And oh, look at my napkins. They're all spread out so beautifully. Are they paper napkins? Absolutely not. They're cloth napkins with beautiful metal holders. And you sit around and you're like, what in the world? You have a fully baked cake? And I haven't even gone to the grocery store to get baking supplies. Ah, is this not what we do sometimes in business?

1:16:49We look at how other people have their cake and then you're sitting here and you're like, Jasmine has her cake. And you're sitting like, well, I haven't baked my cake. Why am I behind? Why will I never catch up? And I am here to tell you, in reality, you have no idea how that cake ended up in my hands. None. I am standing before you with the cake and you have no idea. You have no idea if I was classically trained at a French patisserie for two years learning how to whip up a cake. You have no idea the back in work or education that I had to do to get this cake. You don't know if I was using instant cake mix from the grocery store.

1:17:27You have no idea if I went to the store, I bought a cake, I stood in front of you and I looked around like, hey, look at my cake. You have no idea if the cake I was holding was given to me. And here's the worst part. We see this on social media all the time. You have no idea if my cake is fake. Ah, so what we see is the cake and what we don't see is how that person got the cake. So why am I saying all of this? I don't want you comparing my decorated cake to your baking supplies. I don't want you comparing your life movie to somebody else's highlight reel. We are on our own path. We're on our own timeline.

1:18:10What is meant for you will find you in the right time. How I got to where I'm going has been predestined and based on the work that I'm doing. And where you're going has been predestined based on the work that you don't do. And real talk, let's have a moment of real talk as we close this session. Because what you just saw was incredible entrepreneurs doing really incredible things. And you're like, I'm not quite there. This sounds very easy and wonderful. Let me clap you up. That cake that you're holding, bravo, bravo. But in reality, it's really hard. It is really hard when everything else is happening for everybody else.

1:18:46But when your mind is in control, you are empowered to enjoy the process. I am here to tell you that if what you're trying to do is build a cake to get the cake, you're going to be wildly disappointed. Why? I built too many cakes to know it's never about the cake. It's never about the destination. It is what I am doing in this moment to change to where I want to go. It is about thinking of who I am in the future and mapping it to who I am today. Who do I need to change today to become the person or the thing that I want in the future? That, my friends, is going to the grocery store. That, my friends, is being on the journey.

1:19:22It's not the cake and it's not the destination. So if I'm sitting here and I'm saying, y 'all, there is a better way. There's a better way of getting to where it is we want to go. So how can you enjoy the process when you feel like everything is happening for everybody else and you're running in quicksand? You're doing all the things and all the ways and nothing's happening in the way that you want it or how you want it. How can I be happy on the journey when I feel so frustrated? Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude. That's it. is saying thank you for how far I've come and thank you for how far I'm gonna go.

1:20:05I am thankful for this moment. I am thankful for the health that I have. I am thankful for the people who stabbed me in the back. I am thankful for the people who said I couldn't do it. I'm thankful for the bank that said I couldn't get that loan. I am thankful for the people who wake up and daily ask me if I am capable of doing it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you because why I am here is because I didn't stop and why I'm going to get to where I'm going to go is because I didn't stop. But in order for me to enjoy it, I must be thankful for everything because it's all shaping me for who I am going to be in the future.

1:20:37Because when you focus on what you have, it becomes what you need. When you focus on what you have, it becomes what you need. And gratitude makes everything enough. So when we talk about this recap and we talk about what happened today, I want to remind you, number one, we're going to choose actions, not feeling. Number two, as we scale past seven figures and into eight, we're going to get into a room of like-minded individuals. And number three, results are not a reflection of your worth, but a reflection of the work to be done. The results you have don't mean anything about you. It is reflection of what you're going to do and what needs to get done.

1:21:26So you have good results, great, good job, do more of it. You don't have the results that you want, great, good job. We're gonna figure out what to do next. If you would like to be surrounded by a group of people doing amazing things, like I said, registration is closed. This is not the pitch, but in case you ever wanted to go a little bit deeper and learn more about me, what we do as a community and how I guide people into seven and eight figures, you can sign up for the waitlist, jasminestar.com forward slash waitlist. I would love to stay connected with you and drop me a line. I respond to all of my direct messages.

1:21:56You can find me on Instagram at jasminestar. Thank you for joining and watching the Seven Figure Summit. What an honor and privilege to be on your journey.