EP367: Why Your Sales Will Never Grow Beyond Your Mindset

Tracy Matthews26min

Tracy Matthews

00:00

Because I just focused on what I could produce and releasing attachment to the outcome, my business grew really quickly to a multiple six figure business and then eventually to seven figure brand. Welcome to thrive by design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing and scaling your business. So you could spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this. Welcome to the thrive by design Podcast, episode 367. Hey, it's Tracy Matthews here, chief visionary officer of flourish and thrive. And I am excited to be here talking about one of my favorite topics, which is all about mindset. Now. I know after working with so many people over the years, I've talked to 1000s of designers and supported 1000s of people in our programs over here at flourish and thrive. What I know is that the people who succeed and have thriving businesses that continue to grow year over year, have a different kind of mindset, then people who struggle on an ongoing basis. And I'm going to explain a little bit more about this. But today's topic is really about why your sales are never going to grow beyond what you believe is true about yourself or your situation or what I like to call, or what a lot of people like to call mindset. Now, before I dig into this topic today, I do want to mention that our Laying The Foundation program is open for enrollment. We are about to start our final group cohort for the year. And this program is designed for all of you out there who have been in startup mode for a while and trying to get your business. Beyond that six figure marker. This program is perfect for people who want to build a successful side hustle. It's great for people who currently have a hobby business, and they're trying to go full time in their business. It's also great for people who are trying to get off Etsy and build their own online store. And it's great for anyone who has a multi revenue stream business, who just wants more ease and flow in their life. And they want to be making a good income that supports their lifestyle and their family and helps them create financial security and freedom in their life, doing what they love running a successful jewelry, or product business because it does work for product businesses as well. So if you're in that mode, where you're trying to get consistent, predictable sales that support yourself, your family, all those things, then please check it out, we're going to walk you through our desired brand effect methodology to help you build a brand that stands out in a saturated market that puts some stakes in the ground so that you aren't vanilla or like, you know, could be mistaken for another brand. We're also going to help walk you through how to design collections, how to price them properly, how to market and sell those collections online and off, and how to create a consistent cycle and a system for repeat predictable sales in your business. Because we do know that when you create The Desired Brand Effect in your business, and you have the creating desire, sharing desire and scaling desires, pieces all working in unison, you, your business will grow every single year. So if you're interested in learning more about that I would love to invite you to head on over to flourish, thrive academy.com, forward slash LTF, you can check out more about what the program is all about. I will also have a link in the show notes. And we have tons and tons of case studies and testimonials on that page as well. And we're happy to help. And if you'd like to talk to someone on the phone on my team, we're happy to help with that as well. So let's dive into today's episode, which is all about why your sales will never grow beyond your mindset. So first, I want to define what mindset is. Now if you look up the definition of mindset on the internet, whatever resource you have, it kind of states that it's a fixed mode of thinking or believing about a certain situation or circumstance. Basically, it's how people interpret their experience and life. And it's interesting to see how the definition is online because it says it's fixed. Now, here's what I have to say about that. Any mindset can be changed with enough work. Obviously there are a lot of things that influence a person's mindset. Primarily like your socio economic circumstances, how you were raised, your belief systems,

Tracy Matthews

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significant trauma that you experienced in your life. Your confirmation bias like basically like everything that you're that has kind of shaped who you are today affects your mind. that. And people who have an easy time growing their business and their sales typically are really positive people who are focused on outcomes and not what is going wrong. And they realize that failure is just a part of growing their business and they don't let it set them back to farm. Typically, these people and the best example that I can give you right now is someone in our community. Her name is Twyla dill. I've talked about her a lot on this podcast. And I have been just so blown away by what she's been able to create over the past five years or so that I've known her. It's been amazing like in in the summer, it was her birthday, and she had a challenge. She wanted to sell $100,000 worth of jewelry in a month to reduce her inventory. And she set this massive goal for herself. I hope she made it. I don't know if she made it. But I know that halfway through or two or three weeks in, she was already to $36,000 in sales, she had one of her best days in sales ever of selling over a $20,000 in one day, which for a product brand like hers. And with she doesn't have a huge team or anyone helping her she just has a couple of people helping her sell at Pikes place market. And she's transitioning out of imperson sales to sell only online. And she's been working on this for years. And even when her business took a massive hit in 2020, when the pandemic hit, because she did make a lot of her sales in person, she was always one of the most positive people that I've ever seen in our group. And when the next year came around, because of all the work that she did, to build her online sales, her she had one of the most successful years that she's ever had. And this year, even though she's not, we're just not technically working in our program that strong foundation and setup that she worked on. By working with the flourish and thrive coaches excetera helped her continue to grow and to be able to quit doing in person events, which is incredible. I'm just so proud of her.

Tracy Matthews

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But the one thing that you will see if you watch her videos on social media is that she is inspiring. She's always positive, she's not worried about outcomes, like she'll set goals. But if she doesn't hit the goal, it's not the end of the day. It's just she realizes that a goal is just a target. The goal is not like what has to happen, and she's flexible with how she approaches life. And this woman in an interesting way has had to deal with a lot of adversity in her life. And I think one of the ways that she's coped through the death of her mother and through, you know, traveling to Turkey and learning how to make jewelry at a very young age. And living like more of an unconventional life helps her create this positive, future focused mindset that wasn't so caught up in the details of the things that were going wrong, helped her stay focused on what she could do to change her experience, that it made all the difference. And now she has a multiple six figure business, I wouldn't be surprised if she sold half a million dollars this year or more, she's doing so well. I have no idea. I haven't checked in with her about that. But I know the last time I checked in she was close to the $300,000 marker, so I don't have it in front of me. So we do have a case study about her. If you want to hear more about it, you can reach out to Twila or connect with my team and we can send you over a case study. But the most important thing there is that even in the face of adversity even in with challenges in our business, even though she had a massive setback in 2020. She was always just like, well, it is what it is. And I'm just gonna move forward and stick with it. Versus different kinds of designers. I'm just gonna say that gently, who we may or may have worked with or have seen externally, or I've witnessed spiraling out, when something goes bad, they panic, and they freak out. And I can understand what that's like because I'm a highly emotional entrepreneur. And I get stressed when I don't reach my sales goals. And when I'm really really attached or gripping to a specific outcome, I notice that things just don't really go my way. And so what I've seen in even in the pandemic, like we had a designer who just like completely freaked out within the first week and like threatening to sue us if we didn't let her out of her contract for the coaching program and was worried about her entire business spiraling out freaking out about it. Obviously, we really start we're not interested in working with people like that. But to see how the trajectory of a designer like that where they're always struggling or they're thinking the worst or spiraling out and not having a great result, how they let circumstances affect them and how that changes their experience and their outcomes. And so the reason why I mentioned this is because you have a choice every single day to work on your mindset and to heal some of the things that might be holding you back from reaching the sales numbers that you actually want. And in our program Laying The Foundation it's one of our the ways that we sell For people is to start off with a ton of mindset training, including identifying the core of issues that are not serving you and helping you heal those things. Obviously, joining a coaching program or a program like Laying The Foundation that has some of the tools that you need to kind of reverse, specifically, some of the things that might be holding you back when it comes to sales can be a significant way to help you get to the next level and change some of the things that are holding you back in your growth. So depending on what's coming up for you, obviously get professional help if you need it, especially if you're dealing with significant trauma, or things that are literally holding you back and stuck in fear. But let's talk about how to evolve some of these, you know, mindsets that might not be serving you. So at a high level long time ago, I love this story. I'm gonna share it again, I've shared it on the podcast before I went to my first coaching event, I guess I was living in San Francisco. So it must have been like in early 2000, or something that I went to this event is a coach named Dave Ellis, my personal life coach. At the time, Pete Chanda, and I was a mentee of Dave Ellis. So he invited me to this retreat, went to this retreat. And he's like, Dave is amazing. And Dave kept talking about his dad and his dad was a door to door salesman back in the day, and he would get the door slammed in his face all the time. And he would come home, super happy and chipper and be celebrating every time a door got slammed in his face, because he had calculated that for every nine doors slammed in his face, that he would make one sale of encyclopedias or whatever he was selling door to door. And that made him excited because he knew he was closer to making a sale. And that sale would help him support his family and help him reach his goals. So I want you to start thinking of how you can turn a negative situation or something that stressful into something positive.

Tracy Matthews

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So I want to mention this, because if you can't overcome your negative feelings and emotions and turn those things around to work for you, instead of against you, your sales are never going to grow beyond your beliefs about yourself or your beliefs about your situation. I mean, we've all heard it, we've heard that it's hard to make money as an artist, right? That's just a belief. I know, several artists were making millions of dollars a year, we've also heard of the starving artist syndrome, that if if you're an artist, you must be starving. But I haven't had that experience, quite frankly, when I started my jewelry business, and went at it full time I did it part time for years, like three, four years. And I made it like a bunch of side cash when I was in college, like several $1,000 a year, which was a lot in the 90s. Back then, especially for a young woman, you know, he was 20, making, you know, Max $30,000 a year as a good salary. So I'd make like, you know, anywhere from five to $20,000, a year at side cash in my part time business. And then when I launched my first company, with the exception of like, operating out of fear for the first six months and not making any sales, because I just focused on what I could produce outcomes and goals and releasing attachment to the outcome. My business grew really quickly to a multiple six figure business and then eventually to seven figure brand. And then you know, the rest is history. But that kind of mindset where you're always moving forward and thinking like what can I do to reach those goals and set targets. So I want to give you some just actionable things that you can start working on right now to help you reframe how you're thinking if you feel like your mindset is not serving you. So the first step into kind of changing your mindset, when it comes to sales, is to create some structure around what it is that you're trying to create. And that really comes down to setting goals. Now, a lot of people don't want to set goals for themselves because they don't want to hold themselves accountable. And they feel like if they don't make the goal, they missed the target, that they are a failure. Well, here's the thing, the majority of the time, you're probably not going to hit your goals. Because a lot of times we think that we are much more capable of what we can do than we actually are. In fact, the majority of the goals that I set for myself, I miss, because I'm a big thinker. And I think that we can do a lot more than we can. Now that's not to say that I haven't achieved great success, because even if I set a goal that was maybe further beyond what our advertising budget or email list size, or whatever it is that we were trying to create would really support. I've grown as a business owner. And so I want you to start thinking of the goals that you set. I'm going to set goals and then I want you start thinking of the goals that you set as targets instead of ultimate outcomes. So that's the first step set goals and then look at them like more like targets because if you actually just grow a little bit but you don't necessarily hit the goal or the target Isn't it better than not setting a goal at all and not growing. So that's the first step, I got that piece of insight from a mindset coach that we had a while back. Now, the second step to this is to start reframing the way you think about money and sales in your current situation. So if you have negative beliefs about making money, if you have negative beliefs about your current situation, if you have negative beliefs about being an artist, if you think you live in a small town, and there's no way that you could make any sales outside your small town or friends and family, because you live in a small town, and you can't reach people outside the small town, that's a good one, I hear that one a lot, then you need to change the way that you're thinking or else you're never going to get outside of that situation. So what I want you to start thinking through is if you notice negative thought patterns, or things that aren't serving you coming up, whether it's conscious or subconscious, or awareness, or not totally aware of it, keep a little journal and note when those things are coming up. And then I want you to create a positive statement that counteracts that negative statement. So for instance, it's hard to make money as an artist could turn into a positive statement of, I get paid very well, for my creativity and my art. Money doesn't grow on trees is to say, Money comes easy and frequently to me, or something along the lines of

Tracy Matthews

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I'm not a good salesperson is I am my best salesperson, and people love to buy directly from the artist. Now all of a secondary statements that I said are actually the truth. People do love buying from the artist, if you have issues around selling, like selling is icky or something like that, when you frame it as coming from a place of service, you actually like people will want to buy from you. So fun to watch people doing this because their businesses are just like thriving because of that. So step two is to reframe any negative thought patterns or beliefs about yourself, reform them into a positive statement that's actually going to serve you. Okay, now the third step to this is to create an affirmation practice. Now, this may be for you, maybe you might be like Pooh poohing it. But one of the best ways that I overcame bankruptcies and my feelings of failure and feeling like a total loser, and like I had no right to be speaking to anyone about business because my business got wiped out in 2008. So hard time for me, I had a really bad mindset. And I just, I was about to go work for someone else. And there was a situation that happened where I was offered a job. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, my income is going to be kept, I am going to be in a nine to five, I'm not going to have a flexible schedule, I have to stop teaching yoga, like all these things sort of running through my mind. And I'm like, I gotta figure out a better way. So I started working with a coach. And she gave me this affirmation practice that she's like, stayed at 25 days times in the morning, 25 times in the evening, keep doing it over and over again, and be really clear on what you're trying to create. So I had specific goals in there, that kind of covered all of the negative mindsets that I was experiencing. And one of the things was I stated I wanted to make $15,000 a month. And within about three months, that happened because I stated those affirmations, but I was also doing the work to back up the actions to back up what I was trying to create. So I got super clear my goal, I reframe my negative mindset, started stating affirmations and then back that up with action, actionable steps that were going to help support that affirmation and goal, aka law of attraction in a belief system. And it came really, really quickly. So you never know what it's possible. Now, the next part of this is to create a gratitude practice. Now, when things are tight, and you're strapped for cash, and you're trying to make sales, and you feel defeated, it's really hard to remember the things that you have in your life that are freaking amazing. Maybe it's a house over your head, maybe it's warm food every night, maybe it's a car to drive, maybe it's the ability to work with your hands and be creative. Maybe it's the $700 in your bank account, or whatever it is, or $10,000 in your bank account, whatever it might be. Remember to acknowledge the things that you do have, because the more that you can do it, even if it's really, really hard to acknowledge anything good. Things will start to flow in a good direction. And you might start to realize, oh, maybe things aren't so bad. And that shifts your mindset. Now, this next step is really important. I used to work with a coach a long time ago and we'd spend 15 minutes before each session talking about wins that I had and it was so annoying. This is tied into a gratitude practice. But I'm like I really have something to talk to you about but she made me work on wins for like, or celebrations or brags, they're called different things each time. And but she called them brags, I call them celebrations. Now we call them wins over here at flourish and thrive. But celebrate the small wins because like every single sale matters, you know, there was a year I worked with my salesperson, Hillary when we were trying to land more wholesale accounts. And we had a massive goal for the holiday season, we wanted to sell about $400,000 in a three month period. And we set this target, we set the goal, most of our accounts were wholesale, we were off to a good start in September, we had an amazing October. But what we did is we gamified our sales. So every time one of us made a sale near Hillary, we would celebrate we'd high five in the office. And we would say like, oh, great, awesome, we got a $500 account,

Tracy Matthews

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oh my gosh, Sundance just emailed us a $10,000 order, or like whatever it was like they would be coming out different ways. So all the small sales and the big sales, you know, it's like, oh, my gosh, we got $100,000 Anthropology order, like all of these things contributed to our success, because we gamified it. And we made it a celebration every time we made a sale. So the work that we were putting in felt fun, instead of hard. So what can you do to celebrate those small victories and wins and gamify your situation to make it fun, and celebrate those sales as they come in. Now, I want you to take a look at this next step, because this is all about acknowledging and documenting how far you've come or your progress. Now, it is amazing to me that people do not on a regular basis track their sales, don't you want to know how you're doing, I really think at the fundamental level that people avoid looking at numbers in their business, including their sales numbers, because there's a lot of shame attached to that, or they're afraid to look, or they don't know what they're gonna see. So they just don't even want to calculate it, because it's gonna make them feel bad. There is no shame in this. But I want you to get into a regular cadence of tracking your sales numbers and documenting how well your business is doing. I personally like to track my sales on a daily basis. I always know like, what we're closing our accounts out on it, daily basis, how many sales we made, we're tracking with our sales team, we have our business manager run a weekly report, we run monthly reports. So we always know how much revenue is coming in and out of the business and where our sales numbers are. And we track with the last three years. So we know if we're up or down or whatever, from the last couple of years, I'm going to tell you it's hard when you're down. We've been down for several years now, since 2020. But that information has given us so much fuel to figure out how we can fix like what's not working in the business. And it's it caused us to number one, get really scrappy, because we're working with less capital, but number two, to figure out why things weren't working as well as they had previously. And so we were able to basically and I'm just going to use like marketing term but fix our funnel because everyone's got a funnel you got you have a funnel as a jewelry designer, and identify like where are the breakages in the system

Tracy Matthews

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are. So if your sales are down, this is a time for you to take a hard look at to Why are you really doing aggressive follow up? And I say aggressive, that's more just being like consistent with your follow up? Are you leaving no stone unturned when it comes to making sales? Are you getting ahead on your marketing promotions? are you marketing online? Are you fully doing all the things that you know you should and need to be doing to get those sales coming in the door? The numbers are just information. And you might see there's two sides of this. Oftentimes, when I ask maker designer to track their sales numbers, and they haven't been doing it, they look at it. And they're literally blown away at how well they're doing. And they didn't realize that they're avoiding something that actually could have been a celebration. So that's one side of it. The other side of it is what I was talking about before, like using it as information to help you solve problems. Because it's just a number. It's not your self worth. It's not like your identity. It's just information. So if you can start looking at your numbers on a regular basis, acknowledge your progress and start tracking your sales and looking at those numbers on a regular basis, you're going to be so much further ahead. It's going to empower you, it's going to help you make better decisions. And you're going to feel so much more confident in what you're doing as a business owner. So I really want to get you to a place where you're doing that on a regular basis. Now, finally, this is where you get to celebrate and track all the good stuff. So when you're tracking your sales, just get excited about your progress. Get excited about your journey, because there are always going to be ups and downs in business. Nothing's ever gonna go just like solely up all the time. And if it is for you, awesome can modulations but if it's not just realized, this is part of the journey, it's like, every day your confidence is going to change. And I want to help you continue getting into a mindset of sales success so that you can continue growing your business and moving forward. And finally, like if you're dealing with serious trauma or a fixed mindset that's been hard for you to budge, and you just can't seem to get into a space of positivity. Come and check out our Laying The Foundation program because this can really help depending on what you are in business, or work with a mindset coach, you know, we have a lot of tools and resources over here at flourish and thrive. There's different types of coaching, you might need deep therapy, you might just need like a business coach or something like that, where we can help coach you off the ledge, and get you to a place where you're focused on the things that you can control instead of stressing and worrying about the stuff that can't be changed if you don't change the way you think about it, if that makes sense. So anyway, thanks so much for listening to this today. And once again, our Laying The Foundation program is open for enrollment. We are starting our next cohort in October. We'd love to support you in your business goals and help you get a great sales mindset. So you're creating consistent predictable six figure sales or more in your business. So if you'd like to learn more about that head on over to flourish, thrive Academy get.com forward slash LTF and if you have any questions of course, feel free to reach out to us of rep Flourish & Thrive Academy or you can hit me up in the DMS on Instagram. This is Tracy signing off until next time, ciao for now.

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