Ep #336: Now and Then (Part 2)

Stacey Brown Randall: Okay, here we go, part two of Now and Then.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 336 of the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show that proves you can generate referrals without asking or manipulation.

I’m your host, Stacey Brown Randall. My journey from a business failure to a successful business and now 11 years later, I know generating referrals naturally and consistently has made all the difference. Working with clients around the world, we leverage the science of referrals, protect relationships above all else, and help you build a referable business.

So I’m excited to jump into the second part, part two, of our now and then episode. So if you missed last week’s episode, that is episode 335, we will absolutely link to it in the show notes page for this episode.

But if you missed last week’s episode, I’m really going to encourage you to pause, just stop, stop listening to me right now and go listen to that episode because that was part one.

What I’m doing is I’m listening back to the very first episode I did on the podcast, which of course is episode one. And it was seven ways I overcame a business failure, and like seven ways business number one, or number two, is different from business number one, the one that ended in business failure.

So I don’t go back and listen to podcast episodes. I think some people do, and I think that’s awesome. Very rarely do I go back and listen to them once they’re live. Like, you know, live for you to listen to in your favorite podcast listening app. I just don’t go back and listen to them. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. It’s just how I’ve always done it.

And so, when I was thinking through doing this, I was going to do this last year when I hit my 10-year anniversary, and then I just didn’t. I didn’t have room for it in the editorial calendar, and I was like, I don’t want to go through another whole year and not do this.

So basically, what I’m doing is I’m going back and I’m listening, and we’re listening together technically, but I’m sharing with you each of the seven ways that I changed my second business from my first business. So it’s like the seven ways I overcame a business failure and made business number two better.

So I’m listening to it and then we’re playing it for you guys to listen to as well. So we’re clipping it from the first episode and then I’m coming back in and I’m giving you my thoughts and opinions and reactions to it, which has been really, really fun for me to do this. I may have to do this for some future episodes. I don’t know. I’m kind of enjoying it.

But I kind of give the entire backstory of this in episode 335, and I go through the first three lessons that I learned and lessons that I shared for how I overcame a business failure. So we’re going to move on with this episode to lessons four, five, six, and seven. I got a little long-winded.

And I think in a good way with the last episode, I was like, okay, we’re breaking this into two episodes. So that’s what we’ve done. So anyways, I do encourage you to go back, listen to episode 335, where I kind of start at the beginning and start moving through these before you listen to this episode.

And the other thing I just want to remind you of, and you’ll hear this in the last episode too, is that when I recorded that first podcast episode, it was June of 2018. That was five years into the business I’m in now. Now I’m 11 years in.

So I started this business 2013 and in 2018 I launched the podcast a few months before my first book came out, which is Generating Business Referrals Without Asking. So I launched the podcast and now I’m like, what, five, six years later, and I’m doing this again, going back and listening to that episode.

But I think it’s really important for you to recognize that these seven ways business number two is just better than business number one, the one that failed, is because I had five years to figure it out.

I didn’t figure it all out in day one or even day 180 or day 366. It took me time to figure it out and then for me to be able to compare, oh, these are all the things that I’m doing smartly and differently that are allowing me to be successful.

So here we are, X number of years later, and I’m just telling you what’s changed. And so we’re gonna dive in. So we’re gonna start now with the fourth way. We’re gonna listen together.

The fourth way that I overcame a business failure and made business number two better than business number one. Okay, so let’s go back in time and let’s listen to what I had to say for the fourth way.

Stacey Brown Randall: Number four, this is the fourth way I have been intentional about making my business different this time around, my second go around. And that is I built my referral system.

Now, if you knew from the beginning, what I did not know, that you could generate referrals without asking, you’d probably start this a little sooner than I had. But the truth is, I knew when I started my second business, a major gap was that I hadn’t figured out how to generate referrals.

I loved everything about referrals, what they meant to you, what they said about you, how easy they were to close, how you could receive referrals and then close them, get them to the goal line, get them through the buyer’s journey faster.

Referrals are just gold. They just are. So I knew I wanted to build my second business by referrals. And I love everything about what referrals stand for and how they fit me and who I am. My guess is they probably fit you too.

So I set out to crack the code on how not to ask for referrals. And the truth is, as I refined that strategy for myself, generating over 100 referrals every year for multiple years now in a row, I did start teaching it to other people.

And it’s a focus now of my actual business. I provide online programs and one-on-one VIP programs to help people figure out how to generate referrals in their business without asking for them.

When I sat down to figure out how to generate referrals, most of the advice out there was, you just got to ask. Well, asking for a referral feels awfully like a second cousin to a cold call to me. It’s the most dreaded thing I could imagine.

Cold calling being first, asking referrals being second. And I just figured out, you know, as I talked to more people and I did the research, most people had issues asking for referrals. But all the advice, all the experts, all the gurus said, well, if you want them, just ask. And if you’re not willing to ask, well, then that’s your problem.

And I just could not agree with that. So I decided, well, let’s figure out what makes a referral a referral and how does it work. And I’ve got more of that coming up in a couple of episodes. But I wanted to know, how do I make referrals happen that I don’t have to ask for?

And I boiled it down to a process and a system. And it became a huge factor for my business success, so much so that it’s what I do now when I’m helping clients. And the cool thing is, it’s just five steps.

And I am truly obsessed and passionate about making sure that everybody understands you can generate referrals without asking. And building my referral system has made a measurable difference for me and the success of my business. And so if you don’t have a referral system in place, you definitely should get one.

Stacey Brown Randall: I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that one of the ways I survived a business failure and made the business I have now a success is because I figured out my referral strategy. I don’t think that comes as a surprise.

If you’re listening to a podcast that is titled Roadmap to Referrals, it’s probably not a surprise that the referrals, the process, the procedures, the strategies, the language, all the tactics and everything that I learn and teach my clients today, that obviously clearly learning that was a game changer.

Developing that, learning that, creating that, throwing a whole bunch of spaghetti on the wall and seeing what would actually stick and what would work and now building an entire business around that.

I don’t think that comes as a surprise that even back then I would tell you that big difference between business number one to business number two was figuring out my referral system and then building that and then being successful with that. And then, of course, eventually teaching that to clients.

I kind of giggled when I said, there was a few things that actually made me giggle, but I kind of giggled when I said that I think the most dreaded thing you can do is cold calling first is the most dreaded thing you can do. And second dreaded thing you can do is asking for referrals.

I still 1,000,000,000% feel that way. And I always will. I mean, clearly, because I don’t think you should be asking for referrals, and the science backs me up. And of course, there’s results from myself and my clients to ultimately prove that as well.

But one thing that caught my attention, and I think I had just kind of forgotten, was when I said, way back then, was my whole process was just five steps. And I was like, oh my gosh, it was. Back then, I really taught one foundational strategy. And it’s called my Growth by Referrals strategy. It’s what my first book, Generating Business Referrals Without Asking, is based on.

And a lot of times, people were like, so this is it. This is the strategy. And now, I’m like, no, no, I teach 19. I teach 19 different strategies. And there’s one I’ve been teaching to clients for probably about the last 24 months that I’m like, I need to make this an official strategy, not just an add on and say, I have 20 strategies that I teach because I do.

So it’s just crazy to me, like when people, when I, you know, over the last couple of years, if you’ve been a long-time listener to this podcast, you’ve heard me talk about the layers to our referral strategy.

You’ve heard me talk about the referrals exist in their own ecosystem within your business. And there’s lots of places that they hide, and you can uncover them, and you can put strategies and tactics in place to be able to develop them and cultivate them and pull them out.

But way back then, way back then really was. It was my Growth by Referrals strategy. It was the strategy based on if you receive referrals, here’s how you get more referrals from those people who are currently referring you, which we call existing referral sources.

But that’s so funny that I was like my whole process is five steps. In case you’re wondering, it is not. It is so much more than that. Growth by Referrals is still a foundational strategy. It is in, if you’re a client of mine, you know this, we call it the green box. It is in the green box of trainings. Everybody goes through it when they work with me.

It is what I call the low-hanging fruit strategy for most, not all, but most businesses. And of course, it’s one of my favorites because it is the low-hanging fruit and usually it helps me help my clients get, if they’re going to get those quick results that’s usually, not always, but usually where it’s going to come from.

But I’m like yeah, my whole process is just five steps okay folks it’s not anymore. I have 19 different strategies. And some are simple, like, hey, learn how to say this. And some are more of a process or a plan and a workflow you have to put in place.

So, wow, has my business evolved. I love that. I mean, always growing, always learning, and always making sure that what I’m teaching is helping my clients. That’s awesome.

Okay, so let’s move on to way number five that I overcame a business failure and made business number two better than business number one. So let’s go listen in now together, you and me, to past Stacey as I talk about the fifth way, the fifth way to make the business better.

Stacey Brown Randall: All right, number five. Always a plan to scale your business. That’s right. Always have a plan to scale your business. Here’s a really important lesson that I learned when my business was failing. You can’t scale when you’re drowning.

Now, my first business was an HR consulting firm. And my second business started out as a business and productivity coaching practice. So I got really clear on what my limitations were going to be with my second business.

One thing I knew as a business coach, we’re going to trade dollars for hours and you’re going to hit a ceiling with how much money you can charge and how many hours you have that you can trade for those dollars.

So I got open very early on in the second business to what scaling could look like. I didn’t know what it would actually look like until of course I discovered my referral plan.

And then it clicked for me that that is something that I could scale, that I could take those five steps to generating referrals without asking, and then I could put that into an online program and serve people all over the world.

And in the last couple of years of being able to do that, I’ve been very fortunate to work with students not just across the United States, but all across the world. I’ve got students in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.

So I knew that I needed to figure out, starting a business and productivity coaching practice, you better have a plan to scale or you’re going to hit a ceiling.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with hitting a ceiling. And if that’s what you want, to have a certain business that generates a certain amount of money and you only work a certain number of hours, go on with your bad self.

But if you do want to actually build a business that has some scalability and some growth, if you’re trading dollars for hours or you’re going to run out of time to do the work, you’ve got to think about scaling.

Now the truth is, there are a number of ways to scale and deciding to offer an online program is not your only option. You can bring on employees, you can bring on other people who can deliver the work that you can do, but you’ve got to figure out the scaling mechanism that works for you.

I happen to like to go it alone, so bringing on employees and other people to do coaching wasn’t really what I was looking for. And the truth is, I knew I was open to scaling, I was just looking for the right idea.

And because I was open to it, and because I was paying attention to it, and I was investigating options, I think that’s what led me to finding this scalability option in my business sooner rather than later.

So I had a hunch that I could grow my referral generation without asking into a program that I could scale, and it worked for me. I think if I wasn’t looking for the opportunity, it probably would have passed me by.

And so all I’m saying is you don’t have to scale. But if you want to scale, you need to be open from the beginning and at all times through your business because you never know when that opportunity will find you. Again, you can’t scale when you’re drowning. A really hard lesson I learned as my first business was failing.

Stacey Brown Randall: Have a plan to scale. Okay, hey there. Welcome back to Present Day Stacey. Oh, I do love this one. It created a lot of angst for me when my first business failed. And it was something I was laser focused on when I started my second business, particularly as a productivity and business coach.

Because you do, and I mean there are ways to evolve a coaching practice so it’s not necessarily trading dollars for hours but a lot of times for coaches it is. And I knew that going in it was a problem I had had with my first business. You hit a ceiling with how much money you can make and it’s a lot dependent on you to do the work.

And so I knew I needed a plan to scale but never got even close to figuring out what that would look like with my first business. So I got really laser focused on it. And that really helped so much, oh my goodness, of what my business looks like today.

So we mentioned this earlier, but I think that when I talk about scaling, in the context of 2018 Stacey, doing this reflective on the first five years of my business, and I talk about having an online course or an online program that would allow me to scale. That was Growth by Referrals. It was my very first strategy that I taught. Still teach it today, like I just mentioned earlier. Still teach it today.

It became my first online course, and it allowed me to test out this idea of scaling, this idea of recording the knowledge and then putting it in a password-protected website, so to speak, where people could pay for it and access it and go through it. And so I wasn’t teaching them live.

They were watching the trainings, right, and going through it and putting the process in place. And it really did allow me to test out this whole idea of scaling, but it was very, very particular to only online programs. Like that’s the, that was to me, that’s all I needed. That’s how I’m gonna scale.

And if you would have asked 2015 Stacey, when Growth by Referrals first launched. So Growth by Referrals, my first online program, launched December 2015. My very first sale came in on Christmas Eve. It was a very beautiful Christmas that year.

It was also our first Christmas that we had custody of our nephew, Danny. It was beautiful in a lot of different ways. But I’ll never forget getting that first sale that like, oh my gosh, I’m validating the fact that someone will buy this online program. That was 2015.

And then I’m reflecting back on it in 2018. And by 2018, obviously I had some ancillary programs that went along and supported the signature program of Growth by Referrals. And so eventually I did add other strategies as individual online programs.

But the reality of it is 2018 Stacey thought my scaling would only be online courses. And that’s how I would run my business and that’s how I would scale my business.

Now you got to remember back in 2013 and it kind of started like around 2010 and moving forward, online programs, online courses became all the rage. Now I think people have fatigue around buying another online program where they don’t talk to anybody.

But that was like, that was the focal point, like this is how it’s going to work, right? I’m going to have online courses I’m going to have a maybe a bunch of them or maybe one signature one and I’m going to sell it and everything’s going to be great I’m just going to sit back and rake in the money.

Okay, seriously, we all know that’s not how it works. But what I do like about listening to myself back then is that I did say, and I think this is so true and has served me so well moving forward, is that I talked about how if I hadn’t been looking out for the opportunity to scale when I started this business back in 2013, the opportunity to make referrals part of an online program and to be what I would first try to scale, I do think I would have missed that opportunity.

I think if I didn’t have my eyes open for it, if I wasn’t looking for it, I do believe that opportunity may have passed me by. And I don’t know, I don’t think I would be sitting here today still looking for something to scale. I would like to think I would have figured it out.

But recognizing that referrals was my place to play in. It was my blue ocean because I was a contrarian in the space. Yes, referrals is a very crowded space, and there’s a lot of people who will try to teach you referrals.

And back then, there were still a lot of people who could teach referrals, but they all taught asking for them or paying for them. And here I came in, in my blue ocean, teaching referrals and teaching how to do it without asking and without compensating.

And yes, the marketplace is still crowded. Actually, now it’s just crowded with people who rip off my intellectual property, which is really frustrating. I do see it a lot, and even from people that I know. And so that can be really frustrating from time to time.

But I do think that looking for it allowed me to see it. Knowing that I was looking for it allowed me to see it. And having that plan to scale and not knowing what it would be, but being open to it when it popped up, allowed me to grab it and be like, yes. this is how I’m going to scale.

What’s interesting is that I’ve kind of like completely, not a complete 180, but now I’m like, I don’t want to go through another online course. Most people don’t. We have online course fatigue.

And I started feeling this back around the time, like when 2020, 2021, and maybe it had something to do with COVID because that’s basically all people were really then pushing were online courses.

But as an online course creator, as the person who recorded the information and put it out on a website for you to access after you purchased it, right, with your password, I started missing talking to people. A lot.

I missed having conversations with my clients. I missed being able to be like, what are you working on? What is your stumbling block? Have you ever thought about doing it this way? And I missed it.

And so that lesson of always looking to scale and being willing to look for something different in your business, being open to it, not knowing what it was, but being open to it so it couldn’t pass you by, was even more true for me in 2021. And that was another very pivotal year for me.

It’s interesting listening back to this as I’m like, oh gosh, I forgot that was a pivotal moment for me, or that was a really impressionable moment for me. And here I am 11 years later, right? But 2021 was really a pivotal year for me.

I talk about the pivotal year that 2021 was for me in episode 201. The title of that episode is called A Business Intersection. And you can definitely go listen to that episode.

That episode is where I talk about finally figuring out how I wanted to run my business and work with my clients, where it brought in my zone of genius, my sweet spot, and where my clients got their best results.

And that is actually the birth of the Building a Referable Business coaching program. And it has evolved to now there is a VIP experience for people who are like, I don’t want to be in a coaching program. I just want you to do it for me, Stacey. And so there’s that option that evolved.

And it existed in the past, but nothing like it exists today. And that was able to evolve because I had this pivotal process that I went through in 2021 and changed the game on how I worked with my clients and started moving away from, I’m going to only scale an online course, which much more of that’s not how I want to work with people.

And eventually. Like in 2023, 2024, you no longer could purchase Growth by Referrals. That very first course that started it all, it still exists. It just only exists inside my coaching program and inside my VIP experience. But you no longer can actually purchase that a la carte.

I was like, no, no. I want people to understand what referrals looks like when they are doing it right and doing it with access to me. And that model is just different for me than it is an online course.

Now, do we have an online course? Yes. To fill the gap that taking away any of our a la carte online courses that people could buy in the past, to kind of fill that gap, I created a new process, not a new process, but I guess a new program called Your Next Five Referrals.

And that is our online, what I would call our online starter course. It’s like the basics that I really wish every single business would put in place, particularly before you start working with me.

Nothing makes me more happy when I have a new client that starts in the coaching program or in the VIP experience, and they’re like, okay, here are the things that we’ve already done. Check, check, check, check, check.

And I’m like, yes, it’s like they went through Your Next Five Referrals, because a lot of times they had. Or I do it with them real quick. That’s where we start if they haven’t done it. So we do still offer that online course, but it’s much more the, hey, anybody can put these things into place. But they’re at the starter level.

They give you the basics. It is not all the things that I teach my clients that get my clients those amazing results you hear us talk about when I interview a client, or when you see their results on social media, or when you’re maybe on the page reading about one of my programs and you see results from my clients. Those come from my bigger programs.

Those do not come from a four-module starter program called Your Next Five Referrals. But it is the basics to get in place. So we still offer that starter program. I realize that that was still a gap when I took away the option for people to go through Growth by Referrals or any of my other online programs.

But yeah, it’s really interesting kind of how as I think back through how much my business has changed, but it all started with, I’m going to scale and what that’s going to look like. And then always keeping my eye on, this is how I want to scale, but this is how I’m scaling now. And it’s different.

And it has allowed a lot of things to shift and change. And truly for me just to be happy, more happy in my business. I’m just not the type of person who can just sit behind a computer screen and record a bunch of stuff and then never talk to anybody. I gotta know what’s going on. I gotta figure out how I can help you.

I want you to make sure that the light bulb is going off and you’re putting what I teach correctly into practice. Because a lot of people at first glance think they know what I’m saying, and sometimes they actually have to take a minute and pause and really understand it.

And I can help them get there faster when they’re working with me, either in the coaching program called Building a Referrable Business, or as the VIP experience level, which is called Referrals in a Day. But it is so true.

Okay, so this was a big one for me. This was like, oh my gosh, that’s right. I created this mindset of looking to scale. And when I scaled the first time and changed how I was doing my business, I kept that mindset and was open to the fact that my business would evolve so many years later. And I would scale in a different way. and in a way that brings me so much joy.

I did also giggle at this part when I talk about, we’re in three countries now, because now I’m like, well, we’re in 14 countries now outside of the United States. So business, it’s growing and it’s always awesome and it’s always amazing.

Okay, stay with me. We have two more ways that I overcame a business failure and made business number two better than business number one. Let’s get to way number six.

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, pardon the interruption. I’m gonna make this super, super quick because as I’m talking about how I changed my business over the 11 years that I’ve been running this business, I’ve been talking about also the ways to work with me and how that has shifted and changed as well. So you probably don’t need a mid-episode commercial hearing about it all over again.

So here’s what I’m gonna say. If now is the time for you to take control of your referrals, if you want to start a year strong, end a year strong with having processes and procedures in place when it comes to your referrals, we need to talk. You need to reach out to me, email me, DM me, and let me know you’re ready to get serious about your referrals.

I can send you a calendar invite, you can get on my calendar, answer a couple questions so I understand where you are, and I can help you figure out what is the next best step for you. So, is it time you and I chat? I hope so. And I hope to see you in my inbox, in my DMs, or on my calendar very, very soon. Now back to the episode.

Stacey Brown Randall: Okay, number six. This one was really funny for me because I don’t do this one anymore. Number six is really interesting. Again, I’m not going to spoil it. Let’s listen to the number six way that I overcame a business failure and made business number two better than business number one. Alright, let’s listen in.

Stacey Brown Randall: Number six. Alright, this is the sixth way that business number two is different from business number one. And that is office space. Now wait, let me just say you don’t need office space. You don’t have to have it. You don’t have to need it.

But here’s what I learned by actually getting office space with my second business. It is not for everyone, but for me, having an office space meant a couple of things in my coaching practice could shift and change.

Now, the type of business you run dictates whether or not you need an office. Home offices are awesome, and if you can have it, do it. It’ll definitely save you money. But for me, there was a big mindset shift that had to happen coming off my first business failure.

So here’s a little bit about me that you don’t know. I have three kids. And right now, they’re 8, 9, and 10. And they are at home a lot, minus the time that they’re in school. I am also distraction and procrastination prone. Like, it’s pretty bad.

And I have a bad default habit that I kind of developed with business number one when things got tough, or I had a hard day. I would convince myself it was totally cool to do laundry at 2 p.m. in the afternoon versus working on my business.

Now going to an office, that distraction and that procrastination, it isn’t the same for me and that was really important. And having an office space that was separate from the home, it gave me a really clear space to work and for me to differentiate between I’m at work versus I’m at home.

And I made my office my own. And I think that’s what matters most. I have a huge whiteboard in my office, so I can always sketch things out. I’m a very visual person. I even have a rocking chair. And yep, I got a couch. And every once in a while, you can catch me taking a nap on it. And I definitely have been able to decorate that office to work for me.

Again, please hear me, you don’t have to have an office, but one way my business has been successful is because I broke the mental hold a home office had on me to the bad habits that I had developed working from home, particularly when things weren’t going well.

I was working with a business coach, and I’ll never forget, we were on one of our calls, this was my first business, I was sitting at home, I was taking our coaching call, and all of a sudden, out of the blue, she said, Stacey, where are you sitting right now? And I said, at the kitchen counter.

And she goes, why aren’t you in your office? And I had never said these words before, but I uttered, I hate it in there.

And that was a clear moment for me to know things weren’t working with my first business. And what I needed with my second business is a place to separate home from work. And to recognize that it’s okay to need to do that.

Now will I always have an office space? I don’t know. I just know when I started my second business and about 12 months after starting, I got my first lease on an office space. That has really changed the trajectory of my success because it’s allowed me to think different and perform differently with my business.

You need to decide for you if it’s right. And in that freebie you can download on the show notes page for today’s episode, I’ll kind of walk you through some pros and cons to consider so you can figure it out for yourself.

Stacey Brown Randall: Okay, office space. Now, I felt like such a big girl, and I’ll be perfectly honest with you, like I was the real deal in 2014, less than a year into having my business, or I guess right out of year into having my business, that I got office space.

I remember being really scared to sign a year-long contract and realize that I was on the hook for that rent payment every single month, but I was in that office space from 2014 through 2020. A very long time.

And I love that office space. It served me really, really well at the time. I talk about in that little snippet that my kids were 8, 9, and 10, which effectively means they were in elementary school. And my office was like, I don’t know, 50 steps from the front of the elementary school.

It was like perfectly positioned to where we lived and where my kids went to school. And I could get home super quick. I could walk to work sometimes. Across the street was actually a Starbucks, too. Yes. you know, all good things.

And there was, like, two grocery stores that I could grab lunch if I needed to. It was, like, just super convenient to stay within my bubble in my life, which is, if you know me personally, you know I don’t leave my bubble unless I have to. And that’s just how I manage being as productive as possible in my business.

Now, my kids are older. And so I go out of my bubble all the time to take them and do things. And I’m like, oh, that’s really out of the bubble. But it’s so funny for me to say my kids are 8, 9, and 10. And now I’m like, yeah, well, now my kids are 17, 16, and 14. So it’s just kind of crazy.

But it’s funny because I did have office space through 2020, and it actually wasn’t COVID as the reason why I gave up my office space. Having access to the office space was actually really important when COVID first started because it was an escape that my husband or I could both use and go to the office.

The problem was, is before COVID started, a couple of months before COVID happened, we had moved. We had left our neighborhood. We were in an apartment looking for another house to buy, going further from our perspective in Charlotte, going a little further south in Charlotte.

And I knew when we moved in 2019 and landed in that apartment that where we were looking was going to now be out of my new bubble, and I wouldn’t be driving to that office space anymore. So it was only a matter of time before I let go of that office space.

Obviously, 2020 kind of accelerated that because now I was working from home. I would go into the office from time to time. But the house we purchased has a really cool log cabin at the end of the driveway. And I turned that into my office.

And so I feel like I have the ability to escape when I need to. It’s also a little bit easier, too, because the kids are older. And let’s be honest, they bother me less.

Actually, they try not to bother me because then they know I’m not checking on them to seeing how much time they’re spending on their phones and how little time they’re spending studying when it’s during the school year.

So I still think dedicated office space is important. I think it looks a lot of different ways for folks. I’ve definitely, I mean, I wouldn’t say I’ve like done a 180 on this. I think having office space is important. And if I didn’t have this log cabin, there’s no way I would work in the house that we have. I would have found office space somewhere else.

I just got lucky that it’s kind of like a combo unit and 15 steps from my kitchen door. So that works really well for me. But dedicated office space out of the house, if you can swing it, if you can help it, it just helped a lot. It helped a lot for who I am.

And the separation factor of getting distracted and procrastinating, that kind of still lingers in me. I’m a big girl, right? So I do know how to control it much better than I probably did in the past when my kids were younger.

But that separation factor of not having to leave my office and, you know, walk down the hallway to go anywhere or do anything and see all the things I could be doing around the house has been helpful having that separation factor. So definitely office space. I kind of feel like we can, it’s just different. And I think it’s whatever works best for you.

You don’t need independent office space outside of your house, but if you’re like me and you need that separation factor, it’s nice to have. I just feel like I have the best of both worlds right now.

Okay, we’re at the final one. Let’s listen in to the seventh way I talk about overcoming a business failure and making business number two better than business number one that failed.

Stacey Brown Randall: The seventh way that I am making business number two different from business number one, and that is my willingness to hire help and seek out support.

So I got really clear on what I didn’t want to do with business number two. And the minute I had money to afford it, I started outsourcing the things that I knew I could to someone who could do it better, faster, smarter than me, which means I outsource my bookkeeping, my graphic design, and even my website maintenance.

Those are just things that are not my jam. And that’s OK as long as you are in a place to be able to afford it and the time you’re going to save, you put back into growing your business, not, I don’t know, doing laundry at two o’clock in the afternoon.

And I looked for hiring a virtual assistant, which I think was really key to outsourcing some of the, I don’t know, the mundane tasks that I would have to do in my business. I don’t have to be the one that manages my calendar. Truly, anybody can, and they can manage it from anywhere, as long as I teach them what to expect when it comes to managing my calendar.

So don’t be afraid to hire help when the time is right for you, and you are ready. But be really clear on what you want to outsource and what you’re looking for if you decide to hire, like a virtual assistant.

The other thing is, is look for support. Don’t be afraid to get the support you need, just preferably the positive support you need. So I joined a mastermind group, and actually I’m on my second one now.

Mastermind groups come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes you pay for them, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you get together with a group of like-minded people, which is how my first one worked, and it’s actually how the second one is working.

And you really spend the time diving in with the people in that group, so that you can share your business concerns and what you need help with. And then you can support other people.

Having a community of like-minded people is so key for people who are on your side and want the best for you. And let’s be honest, aren’t afraid to call you on your stuff when you need to be called out. So consider joining a mastermind.

Or, now let’s be honest, I’m a little biased on the next one, but hire help if you need it. Like a coach, like a business coach, productivity coach, an executive coach, whatever type of coach you need, there’s great ones to hire.

But that’s not the only help that you can hire. Right? You can also consider maybe hiring a fractional CFO. A fractional CFO will come in and help you with your books if you need to get them figured out.

When I made a major shift in 2016 to how I ran my business, I was making a massive model shift. And I’ll be honest with you, I was scared to death. It was raising my rates. It was changing how I worked with my clients. And I was so afraid, which was, of course, all up in my head, that my business was going to fall apart on January 1, 2017.

And it didn’t, but I hired a fractional CFO, which is a CFO for hire. It’s effectively what it is. I hired a CFO to come in and just run my numbers for me and make sure I was doing it right.

And what he said to me after he came in, he’s like, Stacey, you know your numbers better than anyone I know. Why am I here? And I laughed and I said, I really need someone to give me permission.

I just needed one other person to look at what I was doing and say, yep, I think this is great. Sometimes you’re going to need that. So consider hiring the resources that you may need to help you grow your business.

Stacey Brown Randall: Oh, yes. Welcome back to present day Stacey. Yes, that willingness to hire help and seek out support. I got to tell you, I’m a master at this now. I just, I think everything changes.

You know, as your business grows and develops and starts becoming successful, you do start looking at things differently. You look at the value of dollars differently. You look at the value of your time differently. You look at things that are I get much better about putting things in priority order.

Like, hey, these are seven things I could solve in my business, just for sake of argument. Like, if I was thinking through, hey, these are a couple things I could solve in my business, and I clearly recognize which ones are revenue-producing things that need to be fixed and which ones aren’t and put them in a priority order.

All that stuff just kind of comes with being a business owner year after year after year. I’ve been doing this for over a decade. But that first major shift that I talk about did happen in 2016 when I changed the model of how I worked with my clients.

It also got me used to doing it so that when the big shift again came a few years later in 2021, I was ready for it. I was confident in my decision-making process. I had thought through how to make this work, and I was ready to do it.

So definitely doing that first major shift in late 2016, which would have been, what is that, three, four years from starting my business. It certainly made it easier to make all the other shifts in my business that I have made as well.

And the ability to hire help and the willingness to do so, as soon as you can afford it, nothing has changed my belief in this, that what I said five years ago still rings true today, or whatever that was, six years ago on that podcast episode. Still rings true today.

When you can, hire help and seek out support. Do it. There are people who can do things better, faster, and easier than you can, and you should involve them in your business as soon as you can. Adding team members, outsourcing, delegating, all the things. You should be doing them.

I talk about in that clip how, like, what I first started outsourcing, and all those things are things today that I still outsource. I just outsource, like, triple the number of things that I used to and I have more of a permanent part-time assistant that has been a game changer as well. Shout out to Kathy. We love Kathy. She is amazing.

So I outsource everything that I can and I keep the things that I really love but also is my zone of genius and where my sweet spot is in the business too. I’m not saying you have to outsource and get support for everything and completely be hands off in your business, unless that’s what you want. That’s not what I want. That’s not the kind of business I want to build.

I think that’s the other thing, too, is I think as a business owner, hopefully people will get to this point faster than I did, but it’s that evolving into your comfort zone. And I don’t mean comfort zone like something that holds you back.

I mean evolving into the comfort zone of knowing here’s what I’m good at, here’s what I enjoy, and having all your confidence come from that, and here’s how I want to build my business.

I’m going to build my business so it works for me. It’s okay if it doesn’t work for you, right? You don’t have to build a business just like me. And that’s very, very important.

So yes, I completely agree with everything I said about hire help, get support, hire the experts that can do things better than you can do them. Super, super important.

Okay, so this is really fun, I’m really glad I finally did this. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it a year ago as well, if I had done it last year, like I had planned. But we did mention some other episodes that you can certainly check out.

That downloadable resource that we mentioned way back in episode one, it’s still available too. So we’re going to link to all the resources on the show notes page for this episode. And those resources can be found in the show notes page for this episode is StaceyBrownRandall.com/336.

We’re back with another great episode next week created with you and your needs in mind. Until then, you know what to do, my friend. Take control of your referrals and build a referable business. Bye for now.