Leslie Presnol (0:01)

You are listening to the Grow youw Local Business podcast, where local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnol shares the strategies and the mindset to help you reach more people in your city and bring in a steady stream of clients. All right, let's dive in. Hello. Welcome to episode 99. Today I want to share how I grew my business by over 200% in one year. So basically tripling my income in one year and during one of the biggest life transition years, which has been this past year, where I became a mom. So I essentially grew my business by 200% from the time that I found out I was pregnant in July of 2023, so my first trimester, basically, to July of 2024, so all the way through having my baby in March and raising a newborn. So From July of 23 to July of 24, my business grew by more than 200%. And now actually since being pregnant and having my daughter, so the past, like, 15 months or so now, in total, my. My business has actually grown over 300%. And I wanted to record this episode because if I can do it, you can do it. If I can have this much growth in one of the biggest life transition years, you can, too. And I know I have other moms listening, other new moms listening to the podcast or future moms. And I am in communities and masterminds with new moms who are absolutely killing it and who are just being such an example to me and showing me what's possible. And that really changed everything for me, being able to see moms have their babies and have time with their babies and build their businesses. I was a bit older, becoming a mom. I was 35, and I had a lot of ideas going into it about my business and how it would suffer and how I couldn't do everything. And I am just so glad I put myself around other professional moms and entrepreneur moms who were running very successful businesses so I could watch them make lots of money and get amazing results for their clients and still be amazing moms. So I wanted to record this episode for you today, whether you're in this phase of life or not, because I know that's what I needed when I was becoming a new mom. Just all the evidence that it was possible that I could have both. That I could have an amazing business that is experiencing hyper growth and that my clients are also getting hyper growth and that I am getting to spend time with my baby, too. And look, if you're not in this phase of life, I want you to Listen to this episode anyway, because we will all have different life circumstances that come up and we will think that getting results in our business won't be possible, or that running our business will be harder, or that things will slow us down, or that we can't have a life that we want and the business that we want, or that we'll have times where we feel like we can't be as committed or we don't, don't have as much time as we would like to have in our business. So this episode is for you, or maybe you just want to know, like, how I grew my business by more than 200% and these are the same things that I am going to do to grow it by another 200% this coming year. Like that's my plan, is to do it again. And look, I didn't do it with anything fancy. Like, everything I did, everything I implemented in the past year, in the past 15 months, has been super simple. It's not even so much about the strategy or the tactics, which you will realize. I felt just so calm and organized. I didn't feel like I was hustling. I didn't feel like things are chaotic. I didn't feel pressure. I just felt really steady. And I worked really hard in tapping into that steadiness and that feeling every day. And at the same time, I was exhausted, I was sick, I had all the pregnancy things. And I will say though, I. I had an easy pregnancy. I had your like typical morning sickness that lasted all day and I was tired, I had the aches and pains, indigestion, heartburn. I waddled my back and ribs hurt all day like I had your normal things. But I was healthy. And my daughter Amelia, she was healthy. And now she's eight months old at the time that I'm recording this. So it's been. We've had 200% growth in the past year and a half, while also cutting my work time in basically half. So before I was a mom, I would work, let's just say, all day, every day. It felt like, you know, I was always thinking about my business. Just it was my business, that was my life. And I could just be in my office working whenever I wanted to. If I wanted to work on the weekends, I would, and often I did, or I would go to coffee shops and whatever I wanted. So that has obviously changed. So since January, so for the past eight months, I have only worked five hour days just to be able to spend time with Amelia. So I am working. It's really ends up less than 25 hours a week. It's definitely not a perfect five hours a day because of course there are breaks in there, there's lunch, there's running in for baby snuggles, but you know, it is probably between 20 to 25 hours a week for sure. But tripling my business less than five hours a day, also without any employees. So here's how I did it. Number one, I only focused on one to three key things in my business at a time. So one thing that I have really learned as I have been scaling my business is to focus on just one to three top priorities at a time. I look at my business in six month increments. That's just how I think of things like from January to June and then July to the end of the year. So it's really me thinking about like, what are my top one to three priorities right now? That if I could only focus on these things right now, that is what's going to move me forward. Because we cannot fix everything at once. That has been a very hard but profitable lesson. We are business owners. We are always going to look at our business and be able to have a list of a million things that we should fix or things that we could change. Like we have to allow things in our business to feel like, incomplete or that things are not their best. And I mean, that is so hard for me to say. Even like I'm very perfectionistic in my business. I like things to be tied up pretty with a bow and just letting things feel like they're not done or maybe incomplete or not perfect or not their best, letting that be there while we focus on just a few projects or things, improvement things, skill sets, whatever we need to work on that's going to move the business forward the most. So for a six month period, I only focus on like one to three things at a time. Of course I'm still implementing my marketing. Like I'm still doing, you know, I'm still posting on social media, I'm still publishing the podcast, I'm still doing like my marketing plan and executing that. But there's just one to three, like essential priorities or like improvement projects is like how I like to think about it. I like to think like, what are the skills that I need to develop, what am I missing? What do I need to work on? Like, what's going to get my clients even better results and then maybe like I said, allowing other things to be undone. Like we're entrepreneurs, we're always going to have new ideas, new projects, new Ideas for events or new things that we want to fix or add. Like we are just creative. It is never going to end. So having just a couple of priorities really got me to focus on what is going to move my business forward the most. It's like putting my blinders on. Like, if I can only focus on this, I know it will drive me forward and bring in more clients. It reminds me of that famous quote by Gary Keller where he says, what's the one thing that you can do? Such by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary. Okay, so the second thing I did to grow my business BY More than 200% is I got coached and I got support. I have always had support in my business, whether that is from investing in an online course before I had ever even really started my business, before I'd ever even made my first dollars, all the way to investing in masterminds and one on one coaches. So I just want support at every single level. I have a human brain as well. I have different problems at, you know, at every level. So I also know now I'm even more in hindsight that I needed support more than ever at this specific time in my life as becoming a new mom, I did not know how bad I was going to need it. So I invested $25,000 to be in a six month mastermind. And then I found out I was pregnant. Like at the kickoff event for this mastermind, I was eight weeks pregnant, miserably sick. And there were also three other pregnant women in the same mastermind with me who had also invested in themselves at that level. And I was like, hell yeah. Like this is where I'm supposed to be. Like where we bet on ourselves all day long. Like it would have been so easy for me to say, okay, like this just isn't a good time. Like I really shouldn't invest 25k when I may not really use all of this. Like, I feel pretty sick right now. I don't really know what the future holds. Don't really know much about me being a mom. Don't know what my time's really going to look like. Like I should hold off. And I think that is what, what a lot. You know, it's very natural to do that as business owners when we're looking at scary investments and betting on ourselves, like that's valid. But I am so proud of myself for going for it. I am proud of myself for knowing what I needed, knowing what I needed for my business and knowing that I was a powerful CEO who was just Going to get what I needed no matter what. I talk to so many people who delay and put things off, like put their dreams off, their growth off, because it isn't convenient right now. And this mastermind was not convenient. Dropping 25k for a 6 month mastermind when you're 8 weeks pregnant is not convenient. But because I was willing to bet on myself and give myself support and put myself in a room of other powerful business owners, what I found is I also rose to the occasion. I showed up and I was supported when I couldn't. And I'm going to talk about that in a second. But I think so often we want to wait until there's a right time or a perfect time to really go for something or to really play all out in our business or in our life. And we've just got to make it happen, because there is never going to be a perfect time. I had been wanting to join this mastermind. I had been thinking about it for like years. And then I got pregnant. And we had been trying to get pregnant, so I knew there was a chance. But I also knew that there were very specific skill sets and mindset shifts in this program that I wanted. And I could have delayed it and I could have said, like, okay, you know what? I'm going to join later when it's more convenient, like after I've had Amelia, after I get my footing again, when I can be fully committed, when I can attend every call, when I can do everything perfectly, when I can commit 100%. But I also know that that's all or nothing thinking. And it's very rare in our life that that perfect time ever comes. Because the next thing she's going to be a toddler and then she's going to be in school and it's just going to be a whole other new set of circumstances. And I also knew that my business was happening now, my results were happening now, and they were going to continue to happen. And my life was happening now. Motherhood is happening now. And I wanted to know now how to make it all work together. And I've just always had that mentality like, this is my current reality. I might as well figure it out now. Like, this is my life. I might as well learn how to make it all work. I didn't want to delay figuring it out because like I said, my business is running now. Motherhood is happening now. Life is happening like this right now. Why put off until a better time? This is my life, this is my business. If I can make it all Work together now in the hardest, most inconvenient time ever, then nothing ever is going to be able to stop me. And how much further along am I going to be? Because I just got started now versus waiting, and the answer is 333% further. But just instead of panicking or thinking, like, this is a mistake. I shouldn't have invested this much money, or I'm gonna waste this investment, I took it as a sign to lean in more than ever. And that round ended in January, and I actually reinvested another 25k and went again, and this time to the live event in Nashville. At eight months pregnant, it was literally the last week that my doctor would let me fly. I was like, you better let me on that plane. I am going. And I was so miserable. But again, I didn't say, well, I can't do it. I can't invest this month because, you know, I'm about to be a mom. It's going to be really inconvenient. I don't know what's about to happen. I don't know what my life's about to be like. I found every new mom, every mom in that group, and I looked to them as examples of what was possible. And I was like, please help. And then once Amelia was born, like, a month or so later, so many of them, the other coaches in the mastermind that I was in, so many of them just held the space for me, let me cry. Let me just be the exhausted human that I was. And then they just helped me get to work on whatever it was that I needed, like, whatever my very next step was. I remember I actually got coaching a couple of days after I got home from the hospital, and the coach on the call was like, what are you doing? Like, why are you not sleeping right now? And I was like, I just need you to tell me that this gets easier, because if you're ever a new mom, like, you feel isolated, like your body is broken, your husband has no idea what is happening in your brain and body. Like, he's trying to help, but everything he does just makes you mad. And he's so well rested, and you haven't slept in six days, and you're hallucinating. Like, that was my life, and I just needed someone to tell me that this wasn't forever. And that's what I told her. And the coach who peer coached me in my mastermind that day, she told me that she has four kids. And I don't even remember, but I just remember her talking to me about Changing diapers and how right now I was struggling in the middle of the night to change a diaper. And one day I'm going to go in there in the middle of the night, and I'm just going to be able to change that diaper so fast, and it's going to be nothing to me. And that was what I needed. I just didn't know what my capacity was at that time. I didn't know what I could handle. And I just needed someone to tell me that I could handle this, that it's okay if it feels hard. It's supposed to, and it gets easier. I didn't want someone. I had so many friends and just people who were not business owners telling me that, oh, you're not going to care about your business at all when your baby's born. You're just going to want to hold your baby. That was what I heard over and over. And I didn't want people telling me that. I wanted to be around the powerful women who were powerful mamas, amazing mamas raising amazing babies and amazing businesses. And I. I had so much fear that I was going to lose my drive when I had my baby. And because I had just heard from, you know, so many friends and family, whoever that were, like, oh, you're just going to take one look at your baby and just not care about anything else at all. And that terrified me. I didn't know what to expect, but I knew I wanted both. Like, I wanted a business and I wanted the baby. And my coach told me, she was like, listen, she's like, I see a fire in you. She's like, I watch you. She's like, I just know that's not going to happen for you. And just being witnessed, being seen, being able to tell people what my fear was and having someone else say, I've been through this. This isn't going to happen to you. You may have had a lot of friends who that happened to. That's not going to be your experience having other business owners who are moms. Being around me was absolutely everything. And of course, after the initial newborn stage, it got more strategic again. Like, okay, like, let's keep going. But I just didn't know how bad I would need that support. In the beginning, um, I also remember there was just this weird time that I. I did not know my address. It was just this, like, black hole in my mind. I always had to call my husband when I had to fill out forms and ask him what our address was. And there were times, like, one point I Introduced myself as my mom's name. It was just very strange things. And I was like, how can I possibly coach my clients, get my clients results when I don't know my address, I don't know my name? I'm like hallucinating in here because of no sleep. Like, everything is crazy. But having, you know, my coach say, everything feels like a tornado right now. Everything feels chaotic, but you will find your way back to you. And I remember just holding on to that. Like, I remember thinking like, okay, I don't feel like myself. This doesn't feel like my life. I'm exhausted. I don't know what sleep is. But one day I will be me again. I will find me. And I did. And a lot quicker than I thought. Or I found a new version of me that feels like me again. And I know so much of that is because I gave myself the support. I didn't let myself be isolated. Motherhood is isolating enough. Running a business is isolating enough. I needed a community. I needed people to coach me and to support me and just to see me. I needed people telling me that I would be myself again. And for me, I'll tell you, like, strategy wise, I had so much value that I had already created that I could just reshare and repurpose while I was going through it. The days I didn't know my name, the days I didn't know my address, that's when you guys got a nice little MVP podcast episode or I was able to repost older things on Instagram. And look, no shame. I coached one of my clients who's trying to get pregnant on this recently, and she has a lot of fear around cutting back in her business and slowing down and as she's going through her pregnancy and maternity leave. But I told her, I said my audience actually loved me reusing my old stuff. My podcast downloads increased, my social media continued to grow, my client conversion rate increased, and it's all because I reshared my best content. I went through all of my content that has performed the best over the past couple of years, and it just allowed me time and space to be a human and to have the new mom experience while still growing my business. But that was a lot of my strategy, allowing myself to reuse. Okay, so the next thing I did to grow my business by 200% is I stopped consuming from everyone. So I practiced really hard constraint over the past year and a half with who I consume business advice from. So I picked the coach's process that I wanted to follow. I knew it worked. There were so many success stories. So I picked it, I chose it. I decided I was gonna go all in and follow it to a T and extract every ounce of value from it that I could, and then put my blinders on to everything else. I don't know about you, but my Instagram and my social media is so full of business coaches and all these gurus, all the things, and everyone has different advice, and that does not make their advice wrong. I think I know that any process can work, but what I see so many people doing is jumping from thing to thing versus sticking to one process or choosing what they want to do and making it work and going through the process to make it work, which is a process. So many people try something once and then they're like, well, that didn't work. Next. Versus like repping it out, troubleshooting it, and sticking, sticking to it until they make it work. And I know that without a doubt, the reason I have seen so much hyper growth in the past year is I did the same things over and over. And I put my blinders on to everyone else's advices and processes out in the world. I. I knew what my marketing plan was. I knew the things that I was going to do over and over to market myself and to grow my audience and convert them into clients. And I knew the one coach that I was going to consume content from and receive coaching from, and that made all the difference in the world. I have learned from experience and I've just seen from coaching so many people myself. We slow ourselves down when we start and stop things when we jump from thing to thing or when this coach tells us to do one thing and then this coach says something different. We. We spin in confusion, we switch up our strategy, we change what was working. We stopped doing something that was about to start working. It's like two steps forward, one step back, over and over. So constraint with what I consume. And then I'll add on, as a little bonus to that, not just like consuming from a coach or a mentor, but once you do pick them and you pick, okay, I'm going to follow their process or implement what they're teaching, but actually taking the action from it to make what they're teaching work. So if you're listening to my podcast, not just consuming, but taking action like, this is where your results are going to come from. It's like that Tony Robbins quote where he says, knowledge is not power, it's only potential power. Action is power. And obviously taking action and staying in Action during this past year has been a huge part of my growth. And it also wasn't a perfect action year either. Like, a lot of stuff I did, I tried and it totally failed. I didn't get the result I wanted, but I just kept going again because again, that is part of the process. And giving myself the support and coaching through that was just absolutely invaluable. Okay, so those are the main things that I know had the biggest impact on my business over the past year and really helped me to triple my business. Like, nothing was fancy about my strategy. Like, you guys follow me. I post on social media, I publish a podcast, I do live trainings, live webinars, some challenges, I send emails. Everything I do is pretty basic. Nothing is fancy. But combining my marketing strategy, the things I'm doing to market myself with my essential priorities, and not trying to focus on everything at once, getting coaching and support and then practicing constraint with what I consume and picking one process and just sticking with it until I make it work. Okay, so I hope you found that helpful today. And the best news is I think I'm drawn to this type of support and this has really worked for me because it's the same type of support that I offer my students inside the localpreneur Academy. Like, I don't let my students come in and try to do everything at once. That's usually how a lot of people come to me, trying to fix everything at once. And I reel them in. We create their really simple, doable local marketing plans and we're going to figure out, like, what are the few key things for you to really focus on over the next six months to grow your business? You're in for life. It's a lifetime access program, but knowing what your priorities are is really going to help you get organized. Like, some people are like, I really want to get my email list off the ground, or I really want to focus on growing my local following, or I really want to build up this local event, or I really want to start doing local workshops, or I really want to build a website. Like, everyone comes with different priorities. So getting you organized so you know exactly how to spend your time, that instantly sets you up for more success. And then being in the community that you can come to for feedback, questions, support and coaching and being able to personalize and customize everything to you, knowing what's keeping you stuck, or if you go through any big life transitions like I did this year, like, being in the space, that's going to help you and support you through that and then giving you a proven process that you can just follow so that you can stop trying to piece everything together. I give you the step by step blueprint. We customize your marketing plan. You know exactly what to do to reach more people in your city, to grow your local following by at least a hundred new people every month to create your local go to content and to sell and you just doing that on repeat and getting better and better at it every single month like that is what we do inside the LocalPreneur Academy and I would love to have you join us. So check it out in the show notes and I will see you inside. Hey if you enjoyed today's episode I want to invite you to check out my program the LocalPreneur Academy. This is the only program program for small business owners who want to become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more information@lesliepressnel.com and I'll see you inside.