← The Amy Porterfield Show
The Amy Porterfield Show
Identifying Your Unique Success Markers (That Aren't Tied To Revenue) with Tara McMullin
00:58:45
Feeling Like Success Has to Equal Exhaustion? Discover How to Scale Your Business Without Sacrificing What Matters Most
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- [00:02]
Amy Porterfield
Hey there. Welcome to the Amy Porterfield Show.
- [00:12]
Tara McMullen
At the end of the day, what a business really is is a system for meeting needs. And our needs as business owners have to be first and foremost. Once we figure out what those needs are and how we want to live our lives and the kind of work we actually want to do, then we can start to run the numbers the revenue serves the needs meeting as opposed to the other way around.
- [00:36]
Amy Porterfield
How does an email list actually create money for your business? Well, that's a great question. And as a girl whose email list has earned her over $100 million, I'd love to tell you. Better yet, I would love to show you. So I'm hosting a free masterclass this week to teach you how to not only start and grow an email list, but but how to monetize it from the beginning, even when you only have a handful of subscribers. So in this masterclass, I'll have real email list to revenue data to give you an idea of realistic sales conversions from email lists of all sizes. Plus, I'll show you exactly how it works in my business and how it would work in yours too. All you have to do is go to amyporterfield.com listbuilding and I'll send you the free link to join me when it's time. So that's amyporterfield.com forward/list building. I'll see you there. When I was in high school, my best friend was Valerie. And Val and I did everything together. We were cheerleaders together. We would hang out at each other's houses on the weekend. She actually lived close enough that we got to walk to each other's houses. And when we both got our license because we were around the same age, she wasn't allowed to drive on the freeways for the first few months of getting her license, which is the weirdest thing now that I think about it. And we lived in Southern California. You couldn't really go anywhere without getting on a freeway. So the entire first summer that we both could drive, I had to drive us around everywhere because I could drive on the freeways. And the one time, and I mean, the only time that we tried to sneak out of her house in the middle of the night to go meet some boys, of course we were caught and her dad caught us. And then the first call he made was to my dad. And the thing is, I got grounded and she didn't. To this day we still talk about the fact that I was grounded and she wasn't. I don't even know how that happened. But at the time, when we were in high school, Val and I started to date these two boys that were friends. And we were probably 17 at the time. And these two boys were in the military, but they weren't much older than us. I dated Brandon, and she dated Gary, and it was the kind of relationship that, like a girl in high school falls madly in love for the boy that was us. I was madly in love with Brandon. However, both guys were very good boyfriends. We were young. I think they both probably cheated on us. They just were really great boyfriends. But yet again, we thought they were wonderful, even though we knew they were bad news. I'd like to say that my taste in men has gotten a lot better because obviously, Hope he's a great guy, but back then, I didn't really choose great boyfriends. So, anyway, we would talk about breaking up with Brandon and Gary all the time. And the running joke was she'd look at me and say, if you break up with Brandon, I'll break up with Gary. Like, she couldn't do it on her own. She didn't get the courage to do it on her own. But if I would break up with Brandon, she would break up with Gary. And it was a joke, but I think she was dead serious. Just so you know, we definitely all broke up, and the rest is history. But it got me thinking, because when I was thinking about this episode today, I was thinking about. For some reason, I was thinking about Val and her silly plan for us both to break up at the same time. And it reminded me of one of my friends a few years ago who was building a business. She was in her first year, and it was hard. Things weren't working out.
- [04:09]
Tara McMullen
She.
- [04:09]
Amy Porterfield
She wasn't making the kind of money she thought she would make. Everything seemed difficult, but she didn't want to be a quitter, and she definitely didn't want to be a quitter on her own. So she would tease me, amy, if you end your business all in mine, like, if you take your business, like, burn it down, I'll burn mine down. And she knew I loved my business and that would never happen, but she just didn't want to be alone on the island of, like, wanting just to burn her business down. But the truth is, at one point or another, we all kind of want to burn our business down. There's, like, no way. I'm 16 years in. There have been moments where I thought, this is too hard. Like, what if I just end it all? What if I just close things quietly down and just kind of fade off into the sunset. And I haven't had that moment a lot, but definitely a few times. And, you know, my good friend Jenna Kutcher, publicly on social media, she has mentioned, you know, one day I want to quit it all and go live on a farm and grow a garden, and then the next day, I can't wait to do a big launch and just crush it. And I think that's just really normal for business builders, really, at doesn't matter what stage you're in. But the point is, there are always times that we think this is really hard and this is tough, and I just don't know if I can keep going. If you haven't gotten there yet, I can promise you you will at one point or another. My guest today is Tara McMullen. She's an author, aspiring philosopher, and the host of what Works. It's a podcast with over 4 million downloads that explores how entrepreneurs can navigate work without falling into hustle culture. Because, to be honest, hustle culture is often what gets us to the point that says, let's burn it all down. That makes us feel like we want to burn it all down. If you stay in hustle, hustle culture too much, I promise you, you'll get there. Now, when I asked her on the show, she said she was surprised that I asked her because she's somewhat of a radical. Those are her words. And I kind of laughed because getting to know her and understanding her philosophies and how she thinks she is very different than how most of us think about building businesses. And I have to admit, I was a little nervous to bring her on the show. Number one, I don't know her personally, and I've only done, you know, the research I can do on the work that she does. But the research that I did do, I realized she's going to make me nervous. Like this episode is going to make me nervous. But here's the thing. My new show, the Amy Porterfield Show, I want to feel nervous. I want to bring people on that have different opinions, different philosophies than me so that I not only grow and start expanding my mind, but, you know, I have one way of doing things. I have a lot of opinions and I have a lot of experience behind me and a great track record that I could offer you advice and share with you the things that's worked for me and the things that haven't worked for me. But, you know, I only have my own experience. So bringing people on the show that have different Experiences and ideas and recommendations different than mine, I think is a really good idea. But if I start to do that, it's gonna make me a little uncomfortable. And the reason why Tara made me a little bit nervous. But I'm so glad I did this interview because it was fantastic, and you're going to get to hear it in a moment. But the reason I wanted to do this is because I talk a lot about making money, and I will never shy away from that, I believe, for. Especially for women. But the gentleman listening to this totally applies to you. Making your own money will allow you to create the kind of freedom that you want in your life. And I'm not saying you have to make tons of money. You know, I've been talking a lot about, you know, how to get to your first million dollars. You might not ever want to make a million dollars, but I know that everyone that is listening, you want to grow a business. And part of that, the joy of it, the excitement of it, is to see what's possible, to see what kind of money you can make, but also to do good in this world, to serve others, to be generous with the money that you make. Whatever it is that is important to you, you get to do that with the money you make. So I'm proud to talk about let's make some good money, because I know I do it in a way that I'm serving others, taking care of others, and I care deeply about the integrity of my business and how I make the money. And I know that you feel the same way. My point, though, is that it's not all about the money. And if we start making it all about the money, and the only goal we have is a revenue goal or a revenue and profit goal, we will suck the joy out of building this business. And also, when you are only concentrated on the metrics, the money, the followers, the conversions, and you lose sight of why you even started the business in the first place, you will lose that joy. You will say, if you burn it down, so will I. And so let's not get there. Or if you do get there, and like I said, I think most everyone gets there at one point or another. Let's get you out of there as fast as possible so you can love the business that you're building. And that is why I'm bringing Tara on the show. She gave me a different perspective. She allowed me to look at things differently, and I think that's important. So I won't make you wait any longer. Let's bring on my guests Tara McMullen, I am so thrilled. This is a topic I've been really looking forward to bringing to the show. And so right before we went on there, I told you who we're talking to. The. The entrepreneur that's getting their business up and running. And they have some sort of foundation, but they're looking to grow. And I feel like the conversation we're going to have today is exactly what they need for where they're at. So are you ready to dive in?
- [10:04]
Tara McMullen
Yeah, let's do it.
- [10:05]
Amy Porterfield
Okay, so first off, my audience might be new to your work, so tell me a little bit to what you do and how you got to where you are today.
- [10:15]
Tara McMullen
Yeah, so you mentioned 16 years. I have also been in business for 16 years, and so it's been a long journey, and I've done a lot of stuff in those 16 years. But now my work is predominantly as a writer and podcaster and critic. So I write a lot about business and I explore sort of the bigger picture themes behind business identity and economics and language and all of those kinds of things. But then I also run a podcast and video production company with my husband called Yellow House Media. And so I still get to see the insides of lots of people's businesses and how they're scaling up and how they make room for the kinds of projects that they want to work on. So I still get my fingers in there quite a bit, but those are sort of the two sides to my work today.
- [11:08]
Amy Porterfield
Fantastic. And I really just want to dive in because you spent years challenging conventional wisdom on success, productivity, and growth. So for someone new to your work, what's the biggest myth about success in business that if you just let go of, could completely change how they build their businesses?
- [11:32]
Tara McMullen
So I am not a big person on, like, here's the one thing, or here's the, you know, here's the silver bullet, but actually that might be a great place to start, is that there is no silver bullet. There is no one piece of information, no one idea or one insider secret that is going to make the difference between success or not success or the right mindset and the wrong mindset. Right. It's a constant process of recalibration and rethinking and re examining everything you know to be true. And I think that comes down to. Or I think that really is central to how I think about success and achievement today and growth today, both personally and professionally. It's an act of curiosity. So if I want to be successful, well, what does that actually mean to me? What you think is successful and what I think is successful, maybe two different things, and that's totally fine. And I think that one of the things that we get wrong about success or we get wrong about achievement, growth, all of these kind of goal oriented words that we put out there, is that we don't carefully define them. Right. We assume we know what growth means. We assume we know what success means. And when we assume, what we're often doing is inserting cultural scripts and social scripts that we've learned from watching tv, listening to the radio, you know, reading books. Right. We. We import those ideas into how we think as opposed to actually thinking about, all right, what does this actually look like? How do I define what's good and what's not? How do I define what's effective and what's not? Because again, what's effective for me is probably not effective for you, and it's probably not effective for people listening. So actually carefully defining those things, you know, figuring out what you mean when you say success, what you mean when you say stability, security, financial comfort, figuring out what those things actually mean helps you build a plan to achieve them, or it helps you create a metric that you can actually measure your progress against. And again, get curious about how you're going to actually achieve the thing that you've just defined.
- [13:59]
Amy Porterfield
Okay, so one of the reasons I wanted you on the show, I'm glad we're talking about success because my audience knows I love to make money, not just because I want a bunch of money. And I think that makes me feel cool or a big ego, but I really like that money can lead to more freedom if you use it correctly. And I also like to show women what's possible, that we can talk about money, we can want to make a lot of money, we can go for it, and we can really get in the game that way. But I also know it is absolutely not all about the money, but when you were talking about, you know, what will frame your idea of success, TV and experiences. For me, it was my dad. And so my dad was a really hard worker. He was a firefighter, and then he had a job on the side when he wasn't firefighting. And his idea of success is hard work. And he even had this really. In my mind, now that I look at it, I know he was doing the best he can. But this terrible mantra that if it's hard work that you don't necessarily love, then you're really doing a good job. It was very weird. Like it's work you don't want to be doing, but you're doing it. So you're working hard, which is everything I don't want now as an adult. And so I was studying the work that you do and you, you talked about like, what if success was measured by how well your business supports your life, not just about revenue. And I want to talk about that because it sounds wonderful. My biggest fear is that if I take my eye off the revenue generation part of my, my ambition, that I won't make the kind of money I want to make. So one, I want to address that limited belief. I know it is. But two, what if success was measured by how well your business supports your life, not your revenue? I was like, okay, we need to talk about this. So, so give me your insight there.
- [16:01]
Tara McMullen
Sure. So one of the things that I always talk about with folks when we're talking about business models and sort of overall strategy is thinking about your business as an algebra problem. And what I mean by that is that there are a whole series of variables that we need to fill in in order to make a business that works works and that supports us and meets our needs and meets our customers needs and meets our employees needs. And so we have to figure out where we're going to start solving this algebra problem. Right. So don't worry, I'm not going to take anybody Back to like 8th grade math trauma because I'll be in trouble. Right. But basically we need, we need that first move, right? We need to figure out what that first constant is going to be for us in solving this algebra equation. And the first place I always start is with the personal variables. What are the non negotiables for you with your business? And that's exactly what I mean by, you know, making your business support your life. So that might mean that you want a really flexible schedule, it might mean that you want time to write all day. It might mean that you are homeschooling your kids and you've got to do this business on the side. It could be anything. Maybe you have a chronic illness and you need to balance the way you are. You're exerting your energy in order to take care of yourself and meet those needs. So those kinds of personal variables are the first thing I look at because once you start figuring out what those variables are, it starts to take other things off the table and other variables become easier to solve. So when we start with our personal variables, we're ensuring that the business takes care of us before we start making other decisions. For years people would say to me Something like, you know, I've got this idea for a business or for this offer, but it doesn't really scale or like, I think I want to do this, but everybody's saying, I've got to make a course or I've got to make a membership or I've got to have a podcast. And, you know, for this, that, or the other reason, that doesn't work for me, but I think I've got to do it anyway. It's like, no, you don't. And as soon as you decide on that variable over something you actually need, you're taking your need off the table, as opposed to taking that particular tactic that is, you know, hit or miss or, you know, come and go that you don't really need. You can always figure out how to solve the equation without that thing, as long as you're taking care of yourself first. So I think of a business as a meeting machine. Right. It is a way of creating value in the world and a way of helping other people. Yes. But at the end of the day, what a business really is is a system for meeting needs. And our needs as business owners have to be first and foremost. Now, to get to the revenue piece, meeting your needs costs money. Right? Right.
- [19:06]
Amy Porterfield
I was like, I hope she goes there.
- [19:08]
Tara McMullen
Yeah, meeting your needs costs money. And for some of us, it costs a lot of money. And when I say needs, I don't mean just like, you know, massive hierarchy of needs. Yeah, like, no, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, you know, what is the kind of life that would make you happy. And for some of us, that's an expensive life. For others, it's not so much. But once we figure out what those needs are and how we want to live our lives and the kind of work we actually want to do, then we can start to run the numbers the revenue serves, the needs meeting, as opposed to the other way around.
- [19:46]
Amy Porterfield
Yes. I love this. You know, I was listening to two of my girlfriends, Natalie Ellis and Jenna Kutcher are two of my good girlfriends that are kind of in the same world I'm in. And they were having a discussion. I think it was separately, but they had it together offline about when you set goals every year, that goal doesn't need to become bigger and bigger and bigger just to be chasing the goal and saying, look, I made more money this year than last year, and then the next year, I made more money for what at the end of the day? And so studying your work, one thing that I Loved is that you talked about honoring your capacity by setting goals that align with what you can realistically sustain without breaking down, without burning out. Will you talk about this concept? Because this is something that I wish I had learned 16 years ago before I started setting goals.
- [20:38]
Tara McMullen
Yeah, me too. It would have saved me a lot.
- [20:41]
Amy Porterfield
Of periods of burnout.
- [20:42]
Tara McMullen
Learned at that. Yes. I don't, I don't talk about these things because I figured it all out at like 12. I talk about it because I figured it out at like 38. Yes. What I mean by that is that we all have different capacities for how we exert our various energy, how we apply our various resources. Right? And so capacity is always a function of the resources that we have access to at any given time. That's how I think of capacity. So by resources I mean things like time and money, of course, But I also mean things like emotional bandwidth, mental energy, the support that you have. So like literally the support network, your friends, the skills that you have, the knowledge that you have, these are all resources that we can rely on that expand our personal capacity. And so when we take real account of those things and when we're honest about where we have excess resources and where maybe we're a little low on those resources, we're much better able to say, do I have what I need to do this? And that's really the other question that for me has been a game changer, is instead of like just forcing a new goal or forcing something bigger and better, or forcing a project through or forcing in another phone call or whatever it might be, I ask myself, do I have what I need to do this well? Do I have what I need to do this well? Because one of the other things that we run into is that because we get so burnt out, strung out, thinned out in our energy and all of our various resources, we end up doing things not so well. And that takes a toll on our resources too, Right? It hurts our self efficacy, it hurts our confidence, it hurts our stick to it. Iveness our perseverance. Right? And those are all important resources that we need to be able to do the things we actually want to do well. So by by saying no, or by lowering the goal or by giving yourself more time, you can play with your resources so that you have what you need to do whatever it is that you want to do well.
- [23:07]
Amy Porterfield
Okay, so I think I know where you're going to go with this, but I still want to ask. I talk a lot about playing small and where imposter syndrome lack of confidence. All things that we have when we're starting a business. Fear of failure could keep you from getting in the game and doing what you need to do. So when you talk about redefining success and what do you really need and making sure it aligns with the life that you want to have, how do you ensure that your students don't just use it as an excuse to say, well, this is hard. I don't know if I'm going to do this well, so I'm not going to create that course or I'm not going to push myself to do this because I only want to do what I want to do and I want success to look like on my terms. But reality, they're fearful of actually moving forward.
- [23:55]
Tara McMullen
Yeah. Yes. So this is absolutely a for real problem. And the risk of playing small, the risk of trying to stay in your comfort zone, the risk of giving into fear, those are all very, very real things. And they're also things that have been used a lot in the discourse around online business as what they call thought terminating cliches. A thought terminating cliche is a thing that you say. It comes up a lot around like cult programming, so. I know, I know.
- [24:34]
Amy Porterfield
Did you just say that online marketing is like a cult? Because that's the first time. But you could be on to something a little parallel. There's pro.
- [24:44]
Tara McMullen
I believe I have an article like that somewhat something somewhere. But no, what I really mean is that. And we use them, we use them all the time. Right? Like, you know, somebody has a bad day and you tell them, hey, it's, it's going to be okay. That might be true, but it also might be a way to deflect their pain and get them to stop feeling what they're feeling and experiencing what they're experiencing. Right. It shuts down the thought. A thought terminating cliche. So when we say, oh, you know, you're not charging enough, you're playing small, we're not inviting a conversation around. Why are you charging that amount? Talk to me about the costs behind your service or the costs behind your course. Talk to me about the value that it's, it's delivering to folks. Talk to me about what your needs are. Is there fear there? Are you playing small? But you know, I hear it all the time. I, I am very much like agoraphobic to the core. My husband does a lot of, of networking and I get to hear these great stories. And you know, he'll say, you know, this is what I charge. Someone will say, well, that's you need to raise your prices. You're playing so small. Right.
- [26:03]
Amy Porterfield
It's like you don't have the whole story.
- [26:05]
Tara McMullen
No, exactly, exactly. And so while, again, I completely acknowledge that playing small, fear of failure and fear of success, those are all very, very real things that deserve to be interrogated. But we also have to be willing to say that sometimes those things are used as a way to get people to shut down their thinking because their discomfort makes us uncomfortable. Or we think we have the answer. Right. We heard Amy say it, we heard Tara say it. You must be playing small. Right. Or, you know, it's something that we say to ourselves as well. Right. We can tell ourselves thought terminating cliches instead of getting curious. So I, I don't think that there's any perfect solution to this, you know, to the idea of how do you balance the fear and also like not wanting to, like, overwork yourself and over strive. But I do think curiosity and context, those are two of my most important values. Those are two things that we can lean into to figure out where we're actually at and when we are bumping up against those fears of I'm playing small or someone told me I'm playing small, we can say, what's really going on here? Am I playing small? Is there room to grow? Should I try something different? Why did I make the decision that I made? What if I made a different decision? That kind of curiosity can really help you find the sweet spot between playing small and getting in over your head.
- [27:48]
Amy Porterfield
Ooh, that's so good. For a few reasons. Number one, I'm always looking to be a better coach and leader. And the more curious I am, I think the better leader and coach and mentor to my students I can be. So I feel like you just gave me a great gift. Curiosity and context, I love that. And also a lot of the women that I work with, they're very honest when, with themselves and with me. When I say what's behind that and why are you doing it? That way they, it will come out in the conversation if they're just scared or they're. They're unsure or no, this makes sense. My audience is not going to spend XYZ on this. I've done my research. I'm in my sweet spot and it makes sense for me. And then I'm great. But I'd love to understand where they're coming from. So any coaches that are listening, let's continue to ask more questions and be curious and get context versus, like, I'm going to be very Careful not to tell someone you're playing small because you decided not to do a big launch. That is not true at all. Yeah. Okay. It could be true based on if we go down, you know, and start asking questions, but it doesn't have to be true. So that's a gift for sure. Okay. One thing we were talking about earlier that I wanted to really ask you about kind of goes back to our other conversation is this concept that you talk about called validation spiral. So can you break down what it is and why it's problematic and why business owners so often fall into what they're trying to grow or fall into it when they're trying to grow?
- [29:18]
Tara McMullen
Yes, absolutely. So the validation spiral is that feeling of trying over and over and over again to discover how you can be useful, how you can be valuable to the world, how you can get, you know, just reinforcement, validation for who you are and what you're about and. And how you contribute to your community. And I think it's something that we all feel, right. It's a. It's a important part of the human condition, our ability to connect with one another and feel useful and valuable in the relationships that we have. Right. That is part of being human, and it's entirely valid. However, we live in a society that prioritizes more, more, more, more, more, faster, faster, faster, faster, more urgent. More urgent. Right? And so what happens is that as we're pursuing that feeling of being valuable and useful, we start to stack more and more things on. And so all of those resources that we were talking about earlier, our capacity gets filled up and filled up and filled up, or rather drained and drained and drained. And we don't have what we need to actually do what we've committed to. Well, we end up under committed to the things that we've committed to, right? We don't have the resources to actually do those things. When that happens, we feel crappy. Right? And that's where the spiral starts. So not only do we feel tired, not only do we feel spent, but we recognize when we're not meeting the bar that we've set for ourselves, we recognize when we're not feeling valued and useful because we're not doing the job that we want to do. And so because of that, then what do we do? We pile on more responsibilities. We say yes to more projects because we're trying so hard to get that feeling. And so that's why I call it a spiral, right? Because it spirals out of control really, really quickly. And so basically, the bottom of the spiral is either sort of saying, to heck with it all and it's done, I'm over, I quit. Even if it's just like a temporary quit or it's burnout, it's getting sick. It's like all of these things that we've experienced when we've pushed ourselves too far. And so in order to kind of avoid that validation spiral, we have to be careful about what we commit ourselves to. And I think one of the things that, you know, we get stuck on when we're striving for success, when we're going after that next merit badge, as I like to say, is that where we fall prey to stacking on more than we can possibly accomplish. Well, and so that's when, again, I come back to that question. Every time someone asks for something, a project comes up, I have an idea. I have to ask myself, do I have what I need to do this? Well, if I don't, one option is I go out and get what I need to do this. Well, right. Or I quit something else. If I'm so into whatever this thing is that's come across my desk, then I need to find the resources to do that. Or I can say to the person that's asked, or I can tell myself in my journal, like, here's a great idea. You do not have the capacity for this right now. Let's revisit it in a month, let's revisit it next year. Right. And so just being very willing to explore either of those options helps to keep us feeling useful, feeling valuable, feeling like we're contributing. And that builds our self efficacy. It reinforces the idea that, yeah, we can do whatever we say we are going to do as long as we have the resources for it.
- [33:27]
Amy Porterfield
As long as we have the resources. And is there also, coming back to your earlier conversation, also a true desire to want to do it?
- [33:37]
Tara McMullen
Right.
- [33:38]
Amy Porterfield
You, you had talked about this idea of, you know, create a course, do a membership, do a mastermind because everyone else is doing it, or this is a great idea, or we'll make you a lot of money, but at the end of the day, you have to really ask yourself, is this how I want to make money?
- [33:53]
Tara McMullen
Right. Yes. And not only is this how I want to make money, but is making money in this way enabling me to do the work that I want to do?
- [34:03]
Amy Porterfield
Okay.
- [34:04]
Tara McMullen
Yeah. So another thing that I've noticed over the years, and I've noticed for myself too, is that people will start in on. Let's, let's just take a course business because that's, that's probably pretty familiar for folks.
- [34:16]
Amy Porterfield
Be careful, my friend. Be careful.
- [34:19]
Tara McMullen
So when you start building a course business, you think maybe you're getting into education essentially. Right. You're in the education business now. You make courses and you teach people Now. I think anyone who's run any scale course business knows what you're really in is a media business. Right. You have to produce the content and the media that allows you to bring in the audience that can buy your course. What are we doing right now? Right. What we're doing right now is making the media that fuels your business, which is awesome. I love making media. I love making content. I would write all day long if I possibly could. I would podcast all day long if I possibly could. But a lot of people don't want to do that. And they don't realize that when they're kind of following these blueprints for a particular business model, that the work involved with that business model may not be the work that's sort of on the label. Right. So a course business is not an education business. It's a media business. If you don't want to make media all day long, don't build. Don't build online courses. Like, that's not a good thing.
- [35:35]
Amy Porterfield
I agree. That's such a great concept of. I got into courses because I love to educate and teach, and that genuinely is how I started this. But. And I've been in the world of courses forever, but if I didn't know what went into it, and I didn't like to, like you said, make the media. We're talking PDFs, videos, audio, Facebook groups, showing up for Q&As, all of it. If I didn't like any of that, it doesn't matter how much I want to teach people, I will hate my life building this business. So I think it's good. Anyone listening now, if you're thinking about doing something different, maybe you're adding something to your business that make sure you know what goes into that. And are you willing and wanting to do the stuff that goes into it? Yeah, I don't think we, we look at that enough. So I appreciate you saying that. It's a different perspective.
- [36:27]
Tara McMullen
Yeah. I mean, and it's something that you can hire for too. Right. So as your business goes up, there are things that you can do to sort of offset some of those. The, the requirements of that business. Right. Like Jeff Bezos isn't delivering packages to my door.
- [36:42]
Amy Porterfield
Right. Right.
- [36:43]
Tara McMullen
There's a, there's a whole bunch of delivery truck drivers out there. But I do think that in order to scale up, you have to be okay with the kind of work that that's going to require. And I just don't think that lots of folks think that again, because they're kind of thinking revenue first instead of thinking, how is this business going to meet my needs, and what needs do I even have that I want it to meet?
- [37:11]
Amy Porterfield
So very true. Because really, for so many of my listeners to the show, they're not ready to build a big team or, you know, get the people to deliver their packages, quote, unquote. But so they will be doing the work, at least in the beginning. And, you know, it's funny because there's a part of me that, as I'm listening to you, I'm like, yeah, but are you saying that, like, they just don't want to work hard? I know that's not true. It's my. My conditioned father, my father's lessons coming through my head right now. But because what's interesting right now, this is a brand new podcast. You know, we transitioned from my old one, and I couldn't believe how much work went into even just transitioning a show. How many decisions needed to be made. It was such hard work, and it took forever to get it to where it's at, and I loved every minute of it. So that's when I know I'm in the right place. When it's hard work and it's. I'm working longer hours than I want just for this season to get it out, but I really love it. Would you agree, like, paying attention to when, yeah, you're working a lot, but it's lightning lighting you up. That should be a good signal.
- [38:16]
Tara McMullen
Absolutely. I often talk about the difference between being busy and being squeezed. Being squeezed is like, when you are. When. When there's all of this external pressure that is making your life really difficult, that's making your work really difficult. And it could just be the amount of stuff that you have on your plate, but more likely it's like all of the Band Aid Sol and things like that that you've come up with over the years. But being busy is exactly what you just described, right? It has an end date. You know, there's gonna be a day when those decisions are all made, when the show is out into the world and everything is. Is going great. You know, that day is coming and you say, yeah, I'm willing to be busy for this season. I'm willing to do that work. I'm committed to Doing this well, and that's going to require some longer days, and then it'll be over. But the feeling squeezed. It never has that sense of kind of coming, relief. You never have that idea that, oh, okay, it's gonna let up. Or if you do, you learn after a little while that that day is never coming. And that makes you feel even worse. Yeah. So that's. I like to make that differentiation.
- [39:33]
Amy Porterfield
I love that. Busy versus squeeze. Anyone listening right now. If you're struggling right now, maybe it is because you're squeezed. And so take some of the lessons we're talking about now and really examine that. Speaking of lessons and different decisions that need to be made, I want to talk to you about the fact that you stepped away from Instagram, because there's a lot of people here that would like to. To be quite honest, especially right now, Instagram's a little bit funky right now, and so we're talking about it at a perfect time. But essentially, you stopped posting on Instagram.
- [40:05]
Tara McMullen
You.
- [40:06]
Amy Porterfield
I could find you on Instagram, but you're not posting. So despite having, I think, over 12,000 followers, which some of my listeners would be like, I would never walk away from 12,000 followers. So please share with us what led to this decision? And really, why did you walk away? It was a capacity issue. Was it based on what you teach? What was it about?
- [40:28]
Tara McMullen
Yeah, I mean, there were lots of things that went into that decision, but I think probably the one that's most salient is that you can have 12 or 13,000 followers, but if you're only reaching a hundred of them every time you post, and that post took you two hours to make, that's bad math. That's not doing anything for me. Why am I doing that work if no one's going to see it? So I've not only stepped away from Instagram, but I. I had moved on to substack. I moved off of substack. I stopped posting on LinkedIn. I'm still everywhere. You can still find me everywhere except for X. Twitter. I deleted my account from there, but I don't. I'm not interested in playing the platform game anymore. It stopped being useful years ago, possibly a decade ago. It stopped being useful for me. And I kept up with it and kept up with it. Because, yes, I had a following, I had an audience, people wanted to hear from me. But as time has gone on, even though the number of people who want to hear from me has gone way up, the number of people who actually hear from me on those platforms has Gone way, way, way down. And so whenever anyone asks me about stepping away from social media, especially something like Instagram, I'm always like, look at the numbers. What is this actually accomplishing for you? Do you get customers from this platform? Do you get clients from this platform? Are people seeing your stuff? I have a client, a video client, who has over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram, and we make a lot of Instagram content for her. It's not like I'm not still in all of that, but I get paid for making that Instagram content now instead of not. But, you know, I'm looking at her analytics. I'm looking at the. The reach that she gets on her reels. And even since we've started posting more content, like, even since I've started paying attention to it, it's gone down to the point where, you know, she might post something and it gets 20 likes. That's a hundred thousand followers, 130,000 followers to get 20 likes? I don't think so. That's not. That's not working. That's not. That's not doing you any. Any favors. Whether she stays or goes. That's. You know, there's. There's a whole lot more to think about there and a lot to be curious about, as we talked about earlier. But I do think that our fears about leaving these platforms, about leaving the audiences that we've built there, I think a lot of that is emotional and it's not based on reality, because the reality is the platform left you a long time ago.
- [43:24]
Amy Porterfield
Wow. Yeah.
- [43:24]
Tara McMullen
And so you leaving it is just you giving up work that isn't doing anything for you.
- [43:32]
Amy Porterfield
And if anyone's feeling that way, they're like, yeah, Terri, you're making sense. Yes. Then imagine if that's your reality and you really don't want to be on social platforms, and you really. You're doing the work and you're not seeing the results. Imagine where you can channel that energy and that effort. Right?
- [43:50]
Tara McMullen
Yes. Yeah. So that's classic opportunity cost. Right. And where we get mixed up with thinking about opportunity cost, we ascribe a ton of opportunity to these platforms because people like you and I have told them that there's a lot of opportunity there, because there was 16 years ago, 12 years ago. Right. We did really well. And the platforms, of course, have marketed themselves and have got really good at marketing themselves as these founts of opportunity, but we forget to measure the kinds of things we could be doing with that time against the time that we're actually spending on these platforms and the results that we're getting. So, for instance, you know, if someone is looking to, you know, get extra coaching clients. Well, coaching clients are not really something that typically. There are plenty of exceptions, but typically isn't coming from social media. Right. That kind of business gets is referrals, right? It's word of mouth, it's networking. It's making sure that you're developing relationships with people so they feel like they can trust you when they hire you as a coach. Social media isn't actually all that great for it. It can get the ball rolling, of course. Even still. But let's say you're putting three hours a week, which is a very low number, into Instagram, right? What else could you do with that? Three hours a week? Well, you could set up three coffee dates, right? You could meet three new people that week who know another 20 people who might be interested in having a coffee date with you. You could make a podcast. You could write a really great article and send it to 20 friends or send it to your email list. Right? So many times I hear people say, well, I don't have time for this, that or the other thing. Okay, is the time that you're putting into social media actually benefiting you? And if it is, great, like, I'm not here to tell people to get off of platforms. What I'm saying is, is this actually working for you? Is it effective? Is it successful for you based on how you specifically define that? And then if that's what you want, if that's what you need, what are all of the other things that you could be doing to achieve that same result? And which of those is more appealing to you?
- [46:32]
Amy Porterfield
That's a great question. That's a great question. For those of you who are feeling like maybe I don't want to be on it. I love the idea of what could you be doing instead that could possibly even be so much better for your anxiety and overwhelm that you're feeling from it, but also for the business. I love that question. So good. Okay, so I've got another question about goal setting, because I thought if Tara's coming on the show, this is one I've got to talk to her about because I love goal setting. So you've talked about how traditional goal setting can leave us feeling miserable. Like, either because we don't hit the goal, I've been there before, or feel like we failed or because we, you know, we didn't achieve something specific that now we've screwed up and it's over, and there's something wrong with us, but then we start chasing the next goal. So how can we rethink goal setting so it feels more fulfilling and sustainable?
- [47:30]
Tara McMullen
Yeah. So I think about today, I think about projects a lot more than goals. In my book, I write about sort of replacing goals with commitments, and I still absolutely do that.
- [47:40]
Amy Porterfield
I like that. Yes.
- [47:41]
Tara McMullen
Yeah. Commitments are sort of like a higher level. Here's how I'm going to approach the world, right. So I'm committed to rigorous creation. Right. So. And rigorous research like that, for me, is one of the things that I am most committed to. And so any project that I start, I want to make sure that I am prioritizing my ability to do it rigorously, always right. And so that kind of sort of intrinsic feeling of success, that intrinsic confidence that you build by just be doing things the way you feel really good doing them, is very important. Like, that's. That's sort of the big picture part. But then when it comes to the more concrete things, actually, you know, achieving a revenue goal or putting out, you know, switching your podcast around. I just consolidated 16 years of work on various online platforms into a single website. That was a really big project. I like to think about, you know, what is. What is the project that I'm trying to accomplish? What do I need, right. Going back to the resources and the capacity piece, what do I need to actually accomplish that thing? And then what does it actually look like when it's done? Because I think that with goals, often we're pretty bad about defining what the end point is, especially when it's not a revenue goal. Like a revenue goal. Okay. You can say, I want to do $1 million this year. And, you know, if you've hit $1 million or not, and, you know, if. You know that like, 975,000 is almost a million, so, like, pat yourself around anyhow, it's fine, right? That's. That's easy. But the kinds of projects that we're actually kind of have our fingers in on a daily basis, the things that are actually driving our work forward, we tend to not really recognize when they're done or what finished looks like or what success looks like. So really, to swing it way back to where we started, it comes. It comes down to that idea of clearly and. And concisely defining this is what I mean when I say I am doing this project. Right? What does it mean to have the podcast relaunched? What does it mean to have the website consolidated? What does it mean to add this new offer into my Business. What does it mean to launch this new course? Right. There are certain things that you can check off of a box, check the box off for, but there are other things that you want to check in with, like how it makes you feel, how it's impacting your family life, how it's impacting your anxiety, how it's impacting, you know, whatever it is that's important to you. Those are things that I think can, can be and should be really easily incorporated into how we plan out projects which are in effect, little goals that we're embarking on all the time, that we have our fingers in all the time. So that's where I put most of my goal oriented energy now, is thinking very intentionally and strategically about the projects that I'm working on so that my projects feed me as opposed to deplete me.
- [51:05]
Amy Porterfield
That's right there. That your projects feed you versus deplete you. And I think that's such an important message, again, one that I really wasn't taught early on that I think could have saved me a lot of stress and overwhelm. And so for my last question, this also could have saved me a lot of stress and overwhelm, your answer to this question. So I'm very curious about it. And that is if you could wave a magic wand based on your knowledge and skillset and all the research you've done, you could wave a magic wand and get entrepreneurs to stop obsessing over traditional metrics like revenue and follower count on Instagram. What's one measure of success that you would love to see them focus on instead?
- [51:50]
Tara McMullen
Hmm, this is a great question. As I was kind of thinking about what we were going to talk about and preparing, I reminded myself of, of an idea that I absolutely love from Peter Drucker, who was.
- [52:04]
Amy Porterfield
I love Peter. Yeah, yeah.
- [52:06]
Tara McMullen
So 20th century management thinker, like hugely influential. He wrote an op ed, I want to say, in the early 80s for the wall Street Journal where he talks about how there is no such thing as profit, there's only costs. And so what he means by that is that the, the extra that we make in our business, this thing that we've labeled profit on our profit and loss statements is really something. It, it's money that is allocated for future costs. And so when I think about this magic wand that I have now, what I'd love is for people to think about what they want to spend that money on in their own businesses. Yes, you should have profit that you pay yourself as well. Like, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about like being, you know, hand to mouth financially, but I do think that there is a, there's a real tendency to focus on revenue and focus on profit over focusing on well funded operations. And I think well funded operations make you happier. It makes your customers happier, it makes, you know, your future team members happier. When you're actually investing in how the business works, works, or how you work, everything else works better. And so profit, instead of thinking about profit, thinking about costs and how you actually want to spend the money that your business makes on your business to make it better is to me like, it's the secret sauce that I think is very easy to completely miss in our online business world because frankly it's very easy to make profit on the Internet. Right. We're running tiny businesses, but I think a lot of those tiny businesses could run a lot better. I don't think, I know that a lot of those tiny businesses could work a lot better if they, if they had better funded operational capacity.
- [54:13]
Amy Porterfield
Like, give me an example.
- [54:14]
Tara McMullen
Yeah.
- [54:15]
Amy Porterfield
What's an example of that?
- [54:16]
Tara McMullen
Yeah. So, you know, I think one thing that people are not quick to spend money on is customer support. So if you're thinking about like a course business or even a, you know, a coaching business where you're working with clients or you're working with groups, investing in someone whose job it is to take care of your customers, whether that's a contractor, whether that's a part time employee, a full time employee, depending on the size of your business, that is an investment that will make your life so much easier. Because even if you have, you know, other folks kind of scaveng it together, having a dedicated person, having someone who, that's what they love to do, is take care of people and you pay them well, your, your life will be better, their life will be better because you're paying them well to do work that they love. And your customers lives will be better because they don't have to think twice about whether they're emailing you or are they bothering you or should they have figured this out by themselves? No, they know who to go to. Right. And so that's one of those things where like I see over and over and over again, people run, you know, they're trying to scale up, they're trying to go for a big revenue goal and in the process they burn themselves out and grind themselves into the ground because they're not funding the operations that actually create the capacity, the resources to make that happen.
- [55:41]
Amy Porterfield
So smart. I love that we ended on that note, because that makes. Makes perfect sense. And those that are listening, that's where they are right now. And so to kind of reevaluate how they're spending their profit is such a good way to look at it. Tara, this has been such a pleasure. I have to tell you how I found you because I think it's kind of fascinating in the sense that when I was getting ready for the new show that I have now, I was telling Chat GPT about who my audience is, the elevated conversations I want to have, what I want to really focus on. And I asked Chat GPT to give me 10 ideas for guests for this new show, and you were on the list. And I think that's really cool that I found my first guest. We had never met. I didn't know your work yet. Now I love it. And it all came from Chat GPT, so I thought that was really cool.
- [56:31]
Tara McMullen
Well, that is extremely cool and.
- [56:34]
Amy Porterfield
Right.
- [56:35]
Tara McMullen
I know that we haven't spoken before. However, the first time I knew of you was at. It was at an event in New York City probably 15 years ago. It was Danielle Laporte and Marie Forleo's Selling your soul.
- [56:48]
Amy Porterfield
Stop it.
- [56:50]
Tara McMullen
Yes. So I think, yeah, we were both sort of in that really early stage.
- [56:57]
Amy Porterfield
And there is questioning everything at that point. Wow. Well, it's really nice to meet you. And who knew that years ago here we would be talking about our. Our businesses and connecting this way. That's really cool.
- [57:12]
Tara McMullen
Yeah. Yeah.
- [57:13]
Amy Porterfield
Well, thank you for that. You have been a true pleasure. What a wonderful guest, truly. I love the conversations we're having. I have to tell you, some of it made me uncomfortable because I have to kind of look at how I. How I'm looking at my business. So you gave me a gift. But if they're. If we're not going to follow you on social media, where do we find you then?
- [57:31]
Tara McMullen
Yes. So the best place to find me is at what Works, FYI. Or you could listen to the what works podcast wherever you listen to. To the Amy Porterfield show.
- [57:42]
Amy Porterfield
Wonderful, Tara, thank you so much and I really appreciate you coming on the show.
- [57:46]
Tara McMullen
Thank you. This was a real treatment.