Episode 87: Unknown vs. Too Known

Imposter Syndrome...every business owner has felt this at one point or another. Some would say this is the break in the Achilles' heel of business owners, that if you fall into the thought process of feeling inadequate in an area that you will be holding yourself back.

However, the areas that are too known in your expertise can hurt you just as much. Because while knowing something and being confident in your knowledge of it, you are not continuing to learn or keep your skills top notch.

This shows how most business owners have on rose colored glasses when looking at what their business needs. They are blind from their assumptions about the areas of their business they need the most help in and what would grow the business the quickest.

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Prefer to read what we talked about in the episode? Read below!

Hello, and welcome to another episode of our Ask April Porter Show. Today we're talking about what is really holding you back in your business. Is it the known? The to know? Orr the unknown? So often we assume is the unknown. In fact, I remember very specifically, being in my business, and really feeling like I had mastered a lot of things I mastered what the franchisor had taught me about running the model, I had mastered my own training program that was internal to the way we were operating the model so that I could get employees trained up and going. I had mastered local marketing. And I was doing that really well pulling in a good number of people every month and then converting them into customers, our sales were going well, our sales conversion rate was going up. And, but, I still felt like there was this void. I felt like there is an area of business that I just don't feel adequate in. And for me, it really was more in the financial side. That's how I characterized it. I thought that my problem was I didn't know enough about the numbers. I didn't know enough about P & L’s at the time, I didn't know enough about balance sheets, what's the difference between a P & L and a balance sheet? I didn't know enough about really managing my expenses, what should I be spending money on? What should I be investing in or not? And that's where I felt inadequate. Now, for many people, this feeling of inadequacy kind of shows up in a little bit as imposter syndrome, right? This if you have that sense that people are celebrating you for different things, people are celebrating you because you're running an amazing business. Like at the time, I was winning all kinds of awards. And being you know, people were coming to me for advice. And there was a lot of great advice I could give. But I did feel like “Hmm, should I even be giving advice if I don't know everything about business”, right? This is back in the early days.

But imposter syndrome is common, even to people who are very, very successful. You know, it can creep up. And it really represents that area of the unknown. What do I not know? What am I missing? Where am I not smart enough yet? Where do I not have enough details? Where do I not have enough knowledge? So these two things go hand in hand that unknown. Now, the unknown is usually the scariest piece of the puzzle. It's where we fear that there's something that we're missing, and if we don't figure it out and sees it as an opportunity, then we're going to be left behind or we feel like there's something that we're missing, and it's a threat to our business and if we don't figure it out and identify the threat then it's going to catch us unaware and it's going to demolish what we've built. A great example of this is watching a horror film, right? The scariness in the movie doesn't come from seeing the threat, it doesn't come from seeing the villain. It comes from the person walking through a dark room and that anticipation of “oh my gosh, where are they?”, “What's going to happen?”, “When is that villain going to jump out?”, “When are they going to be in danger?” Right? So that's the unknown. The thing about the unknown in all of those scenarios is that we feel like that is what is holding us back. We feel like if we can fill in everything in the unknown sphere, that suddenly we're going to skyrocket our businesses. And so we're always trying to answer that question of what do I don't know that I don't know. Let's talk about the “too known”, things that are too known, the too known represents all of the things that you believe you're doing well, in your business. Like I said, I was marketing really well, I was getting a good number of leads through the door, and our sales conversion rate was what the franchisor told me it should be, which was right around 50% 40 to 50 every month. In trying to figure out the unknown. For me, I learned a really big lesson, I thought all of the things that I needed to learn, and the pieces of the puzzle that were missing were things I didn't know yet. But I was confident in the things that I knew that I was doing well, I didn't need help with those. Right?

That's the ego that comes in and tells us “well, that's not where I need help”. So in my search to fill the unknown, I stumbled upon a sales coach. And after discussions with the sales coach, I invested in his services. And investing in the services, we went from a 40 to 50% conversion rate up to an 80% conversion rate. That meant that if I brought in 10 leads, instead of selling four, or maybe five, I was selling eight customers on our services. So that made my marketing efforts much more effective, because I was saving time, energy and money by bringing in the same number of leads. I didn't have to change what I was doing in my marketing. But because I made a change in my sales, I was doubling our revenues. And so this represents what most business owners are blind to, it's the assumptions that we make, “I assumed that my sales were fine”, because we were doing what the franchisor said, we should be doing 40 to 50% conversion rate. So I wasn't really actively looking for what I felt and what I was confident we were doing well. I wasn't looking for a solution there, I was looking for a solution outside of that. Every day I watch business owners make assumptions, and we do it on autopilot. So we don't even know the assumptions that we're making. You go in, you implement a strategy, and you implement it based on everything you know, right now about the way you're doing things and the confidence that you have, that you are doing it right. And you are for the level of business that you're at. But to get to the next level of business, there isn't a magic pill, it's not a magic -  it's not a spell is nothing that is so far outside the realm of what you're already doing. But it's about how to do what you're doing better and at a different level of strategic thinking. And that's why the real threat to your business is not what's unknown. It's not that void of what I don't know that I don't know, in the sense of a topic that you're feeling self conscious about. The real threat to business is being confident that you're doing the things you know how to do at their optimal level, when in actuality at any given moment, all of us are probably operating at a three on a scale of 1 to 10. Why do I say a three? Well, let's take when you have a single franchise location, and you have a single franchise location. And you might be in the top 10% of your brand operating that single franchise location. So the data in your franchise or in your peers are all telling you you're operating at a 10 out of 10 you've beat all these other people. Right? But the strategies that you're putting in place the thinking that you're using to get there may only be a three on the scale of what's possible. Because what if you didn't own Just one location? What if you own 10? And what if you didn't just own 10 locations in a single brand? But what if you own 10 locations in 10 different brands? What if you had investments that weren't even in businesses, but we're passively bringing you income passively? There's a lot of different ways and different definitions of that word when it comes to business. But there's so much opportunity out there, that when we're operating at our very best, we're still only operating at a three on a scale of 10 being 10 being what's possible. And that's where I want to get everyone's wheels turning today is really asking yourself this most important question, you could probably ask yourself in business - “what if I'm wrong?” What if I'm wrong, I believe I don't need any help in marketing, I believe I don't need to learn anything different about marketing, or I don't need to spend my money in marketing in a different way. Or I don't need to attend even a conference that has marketing on the agenda. Because I know how to market.

What if you're wrong? I'm a good leader, my employees love me. We're like a family. They, you know, we all work together, everybody's happy with our working environment. And I'm leading them and we're optimizing, and we're the top 10% of our brand. And it's because I have such an amazing team. What if you're wrong? What if you're wrong? What if all of those things can be true? Those things can be true, but that being the top of where you could reach in potential in that area of your business could be wrong. And so that's my challenge to you today is what are you willing to do to get to your SWAG? Are you willing to explore not just the unknown, but perhaps that we're too confident in what we believe we know? Are you willing to explore that? And what are you willing to do to get to your SWAG. So many people get to explain a vision of SWAG to me, that is not match where they are currently living their lives, but yet they believe they're doing the things that will ultimately take them to SWAG. Well, if that's true, why aren't you at SWAG yet? If the things you're doing right now will connect you to SWAG, then shouldn't it be here? Shouldn't you be experiencing swag right now in your life? And again, SWAG, for those of you that are tuning in, maybe for the first time stands for Sanity, Wealth, And Gratitude, and it represents that ultimate lifestyle that you are putting in all this work to achieve. So it represents the experiences in life that you will have when you feel like you can relax, it represents that sanity, that replaces all the chaos, that nervousness of, you know, making the schedule, having to put yourself on the schedule, having to when somebody quits having to jump in and go back into the business and it being scrambling in order to find the next person. So that's what SWAG represents. And we all want to get to a place of SWAG where we're living and Sanity, Wealth and Gratitude and we're able to enjoy the fruits of our labor, while allowing the labor to continue running smoothly to provide for our employees and our customers. So that's what SWAG represents, and the reality is if we are doing all the things we need to do to achieve SWAG, then that's the lifestyle you're living right now. 

And if that's not true, if that equation isn't true, I'm doing all the things that I need to take me to swag. When do you think you're going to hit swag? “Oh, maybe like three years from now”. Then guess what? The things that you're doing right now are not the things that will take you there. Were overconfident in the “too known” and we need to tap into optimizing and learning the higher level thinking to apply to those things we believe we know. So that's the challenge. Are you willing to do it and explore what you believe is “too known” in your business? Then we're here to talk you through it. Absolutely. You're welcome to have a complimentary business assessment with us, and we will help you identify possibly those areas in your business that you're feeling really confident but could use a little bit more attention and up leveling, or possibly where the area of unknown is that you're ready to start exploring in addition to the things that you know. If you want to do that, just visit our website at AskAprilPorter.com and contact us for a complimentary consult. Until next week, have an awesome awesome business week, personal week and I wish you every ounce of SWAG that you can stuff into the next seven days.