113. The Truth About How to Stay Consistent (It's Not What You Think)

Welcome to the Go Get Great podcast, the perfect spot for aspiring entrepreneurs and ambitious small business owners. I'm Brittany, your host, an online marketing strategist and mom of 5. Here you'll discover how to start or scale your small business with practical marketing and business strategies that even the busiest entrepreneurs can implement. But we don't just stop at business insight because we know that what you do when you're not wearing your entrepreneur hat is just as important to the success of your business. As a fellow mom, I understand the importance of having a space for real Talk, where we share the relatable, messy moments of balancing motherhood and a business. So let's dive in and start your journey from good to great. All right, I'm going to say something you're probably not going to like hearing, but that doesn't mean that it's not true, and I really think that it needs to be said. Uh, but before we dive into that, today's conversation topic is going to be all about consistency, and this is something that I feel comes up in conversation over and over and over again in Conversations that I have with other small business owners and conversations that I have with my clients, potential clients, sometimes even myself, honestly, consistency always seems to be, um, an element of frustration for everyone. And one of the biggest questions that I get asked all the time is, Brittany, how are you so consistent? Um, and I mean, truthfully speaking, I'm not. It's just that my definition of consistent is probably a little bit different than yours, but you can be consistent in business. And there have been seasons where I have been more consistent and some seasons where other business owners are more consistent. But if you come to me and you ask me how to be consistent in your business or how I'm consistent in my business, I will tell you the truth, but you're probably not going to like what I have to tell you. So in my eyes, the first thing that we need to do is understand that consistency does not mean perfect, because I think that there's a really big mindset piece around consistency, uh, where entrepreneurs think that consistent means— consistency might mean showing up every single day on social media. It might mean consistently sending one or more emails a week. And you can define consistently— consistency like that, and it's not an inaccurate definition. By definition, that is being consistent. But you also need to know that there is no one in the world who has stayed consistent 100% of the time. And I feel like this is where entrepreneurs throw themselves off track because, you know, they may miss a day on social media or they may miss sending an email, and then one missed thing turns into two missed things, which turns into three missed things, and then they just don't do it again because now they're out of the habit of being consistent. Well, if you miss one thing, the world's not gonna end. Truthfully speaking, no one's probably going to notice that you missed a day. But oftentimes the internal dialogue, and I know this because I've been there, the internal dialogue is, I missed it, I messed up, why bother? So we see it, I see it as a small business owner in myself and sometimes how I run my business, but I see it in a lot of other areas too. And I think it's easier to relate to the other examples where it's like, oh, you know, I'm on a diet and, you know, I have to go and visit family and the family doesn't cook the food that's on my diet. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, my My diet's all messed up. I have to wait till next Sunday to restart. Or, oh, life got busy and I'm supposed to work out 3 times a week and I didn't get to work out at all this week. So, you know, let's hope next week's better. Be like, okay, yes, that's giving yourself grace. That's fine. But the downside about that is, is, you know, let's say that you had a bad day on your diet on Monday. Now you're waiting until next Sunday to reset. Well, you've now lost 6 days of opportunity of being consistent again, and then oftentimes you miss it again. And I think that there's an expression by a famous author that I haven't read, but I've heard it on social media a couple times, and it's like, never miss something twice. So it's like you have a bad day, fine, you start over the next day. You miss a workout. It's okay, do it the next day. You forget to send an email, that's fine, send it the next day, send it the next week, whatever your consistency is for things like that. You don't get a social media post out today, no big deal, do it tomorrow. But still do it. Don't just let that be the end of the road for you, because that's why so many diets and weight loss journeys fail. It's why so many people give up on things, because they have one bad day, which turns into two, which turns into three, and then all of a sudden it's been two weeks and they haven't done the thing that they're supposed to be doing. Consistency does not mean being perfect. It just means trying to do the thing that you're supposed to be doing. And even if the schedule changes or you're in a different season and you don't get around to doing it, it is what it is. I would still say that I'm a consistent podcaster because I do, on average, post an episode a week. Did I have an entire season where I went like 7 months without posting an episode? Yes. Yes, I did. But I also went into that knowing that I was going to have a big break in my podcast. Granted, it was a little longer than I expected. Um, but I went into it knowing that, and it didn't impact my mental perceptions of my podcast consistency. I still record an episode a week. We aim to publish an episode a week. Did we publish one this week? No, we did not, because Grayson went back to work and then we were at my mom's and then, you know, the week is over and The episode didn't get edited to go out. It is what it is. You still ask me. I still say I post an episode every week. I still say I'm consistent with my podcasts, even though I missed a week. Because consistency to me is trying to hit that benchmark. And if I don't, then I just get up the next day and I try and do it then. Missed posting it on Tuesday, got up and tried to post it on Thursday because Wednesday we were at my mom's. That didn't happen. I tried to post it today. Didn't happen either because he wasn't feeling well. I'm like, okay, well. I would try and post it again tomorrow, but he's at work. So, you know, maybe it'll go up this weekend, but chances are it's going out next Tuesday. But my point is, you just need to understand that consistency does not mean perfect 100% of the time. So once you understand that, there are two ways that you can be consistent with something. The first way, the reason you're not going to like this, because the first way is to hire someone to do it for you. Because when you pay someone to do something, they're going to do it because you have hired them to do that job and they will get that job done 100% of the time. They will do that. The reason people don't like this is because they don't like to hear that the solution to their consistency problem is to spend money. But if you are not being consistent and you wanna be consistent, hire someone to do it because they'll get it done. You need to be consistent with your social media posting? Hire a social media manager. You need to be consistent with your podcast? Hire a podcast manager. Need to be consistent eating healthy? Hire a personal chef. Order meals online and have them delivered every week. They will show up on their specified dates because that is what you are giving them money in exchange for. You are paying for that consistency. Does it work? Absolutely, 100% of the time it does work. Most people just don't do that because they're not willing to spend the money on consistency. They don't value consistency high enough to see that the exchange of their money for the result of being consistent is worth it. And maybe you don't really want to lose that weight. That's fine. Don't order the meals online. Hope that you have time every day to do it, to get up, make a salad, whatever. But if you don't, then the solution is to pay someone money to do it for you so that you can stay on track. It's all about choosing your priorities, and that's okay if it's truly not that much of a priority for you. But if you tell me that you have a goal and that you can't be consistent with it, that consistency is a choice because there is always a solution. I guarantee you that whatever problem you have, you could pay someone to solve that problem for you. You might be frustrated that you don't have time to work. Okay, well, the solution is to hire a babysitter. You can make time to work even as like a stay-at-home mom, solopreneur, whatever. The solution is always available. You can pay a babysitter, they'll come watch your kids, and you can get work done. You don't have time to go to the grocery store? Grocery delivery services. You don't have time to do laundry? There's laundry services out there. Don't have time to cut your grass? Someone will come and cut it for you. You just have to pay for it. And I think that there's, like I said, just like a big block of people not being willing to invest the money and put, literally put their money where their mouth is to be consistent. And that's fine. It is what it is, but the same applies to your business. If you know that sending an email every week is going to help you generate more clients or more revenue in your business, and you physically are not willing to sit down and do it yourself. Then you can outsource that to someone, hire an email manager. That's what I do. You can hire me. I'll do it for you. And that email will go out every week, like clockwork, and it will bring in money. The trick is making sure that the money you're spending is going to actually generate an ROI in your business, because I've made the mistake of wanting to be consistent with something, investing in it, and then realizing that that didn't actually tie back to my ROI. So email's a super safe one. Emails always generate money. When they're done well, which is part of why not only am I an email manager, but I'm an email strategist, because you can send emails that don't generate revenue, but when done properly to support your business goals, sending emails does generally result in income. Caveats being size of your email list, et cetera, et cetera. But pretty consistently, see, pretty consistently, I can guarantee an ROI. On email sent. So the question then becomes, what is that consistency worth to you? If you knew that you could send an email out every week and it would result in one client a month, let's say, and on average your services are, I don't know, $1,000 a month, then can you find an email manager to send emails for you once a week that's going to cost you less than $1,000, so you're still making your profit margins, to get you that one client? Well, yes, you probably can. Um, but you can apply that same sort of situation to anything. Podcasting, social media content, outsourcing website work. The list goes on and on. There's never a shortage of things you can invest on, invest in, in your business. Okay, so that's one. You want to be consistent? Pay someone to be consistent for you. Number two. Ways to be consistent. Just do it. And again, no one's gonna like to hear that, but consistency is a choice. If you're not choosing to spend money to be consistent, then you need to choose to dedicate your time to being consistent. And yes, you can make that happen because I'm consistent with my podcast, consistent with my emails. I'm not gonna say that I'm consistent with my social media content, but that's only because I have chose not to be consistent with my social media content in this season. Reason, but it can be done. When you decide what your priorities are, then you align your time with your priorities. So if I know that the 3 biggest things— sometimes I call these my needle movers— if I know that the 3 biggest things in my business are posting my podcast, sending my email, and, uh, lately one of my other needle movers has been working on blog content because that brings me in website traffic. So if I know each week those are the 3 things that absolutely have to get done, Those are the first 3 things I do. I don't answer my emails, I don't create social media content. I may do my client work, but you know, that's kind of a separate conversation. But like when I am working on my business, I am working on those 3 needle movers, not the 800 other ideas that are floating around in my head at any given time. Because trust me, they are there and I want to do them. But I know that I need to stay focused on my goals because that consistency is not only important to me and my integrity as a business owner, but it's important to the revenue generation of my business. And I can give you tips and tricks until I'm blue in the face about how to actually make the time to be consistent with it. But the truth is, you just have to do it. You just have to sit down and do the work. If you're not hiring someone to do it for you, you have to do it yourself. You have to have more or less the discipline and the self-control to sit down at your computer, know that those are your 3 needle movers for the week, and just get them done. Before you tackle all these other things that need to happen. And yes, like I said, there are tips and tricks that can help you be more consistent with it. A couple of them being, like I said, knowing what your 3 needle movers are and then creating the time to do them. So I understand things come up as a business owner. I minimize the amount of things come up to that would prevent me from doing that, but obviously I have sick kids, unexpected weather and holidays, and Heck, right now my partner being on different shifts every other week's not helping the situation, but I try and work around that with some of these other things. So a couple other things that help me be consistent is I have dedicated days where I record my podcast. So usually about once a month I will block a day on my calendar and I do absolutely nothing. Um, if I have guests, I record those episodes with the guests on those days. They're not available. They have to wait until my next recording day. That's, that's just how I run it because that makes it easier for me. So I know that today being March 27th, as an example, is my podcast day. I get up in the morning, I eat breakfast, I get dressed, set up my podcast equipment, and then I go. I know that my entire job today is to record podcasts and there is nothing else that I'm going to be doing until I'm done with those podcasts. Disciplined. A couple other things. I don't take client meetings on Mondays and I don't take client meetings on Fridays. In fact, I don't plan anything on those days really. Mondays are my work days in my business. So that's when I show up, do my emails, prep my blog post outlines. Um, if I'm prepping social media content, I'll do that. Um, that's where I'm working. On my business. So the big things that move the needle. Certain seasons it's creating courses, certain seasons it's designing email sequences, other seasons it's doing SEO for my website. What it is that I'm working on on those Mondays changes from any given season to another. But I know that on Monday, Mondays are what I call my CEO days. Every Monday I show up and I do stuff for my business. Not for my clients, for my business. And I know that as long as I dedicate at least one day a week to doing these things, I can get my 3 big needle movers done usually in the week because usually they're marketing and content related. It's all about bringing clients in. So it'll be things like planning, like I said, planning podcast episodes, scheduling my emails. Sometimes I'm writing email sequences, etc. Mondays are that. And then Fridays, I don't take meetings on. I like, I block my calendar. You literally cannot get ahold of me on Friday if you tried. You can send me an email, probably not going to respond to you. You can send me a message on Instagram, probably gonna ignore it. Uh, Fridays are my flex days. So if I have client work that I needed to do during the week that I didn't get done, I will finish that up on Friday, assuming that I have like an early Monday deadline and it needs to get done. But usually it's for overflow of anything that I may not have accomplished in my own business that needs to happen. Sometimes it's overflow for personal life. If I have errands that I need to run or to-do list items that need to get tackled before The kids are all home for the weekend. I do that on Friday. So it's my flex day. I don't really plan anything specific on Fridays. I just know that it's an entire day where I don't have meetings, that I can do whatever it is that I need to accomplish. And usually by like Wednesday night, Thursday, I typically have a good idea of what it is that I'm going to be doing on Friday. So this Friday I did happen to be recording podcasts, um, which I don't usually do on Fridays. Uh, but like I said, it was only because Grayson was back to work this week and I knew my schedule was going to be wonky. So overflow, catching up. So those are two things that really, really help me. Um, another thing, if I need, like if I'm in a really busy season where I'm doing like a course launch or something, I will figure out, okay, I need 2 hours to write emails, 3 hours to design slides for a masterclass, you know, 4 hours for creating social media content, whatever it may be. And I will literally block that time on my calendar like it is a meeting with myself. Myself so that other people cannot book meetings with me at the same time. And then all of a sudden it's launch day and I haven't done what I needed to do because I treat those tasks as an appointment with myself and my business because they are, because if I don't get those things done, I don't generate revenue. So if you've decided that your podcast is a revenue generating tool in your business, you need to block time to record podcast episodes that can then get published. Because that's contributing to your revenue generation. And if you're not doing it, again, you're not going to like me saying this, it's because you're not staying focused. You're not staying disciplined enough. And I understand, okay, things happen. And if you are in a business that maybe has more client emergencies than me, then it might be more common for you to have things come up. So if you think you need 5 hours to record podcasts, One day, block it in your calendar. And if you're worried about client emergencies coming up, block two 5-hour blocks in your calendar so that if something comes up for the first one, you have the second one as a backup. And even if something comes up and it takes you an hour and a half, still finish recording for the rest of those 5 hours because you've blocked that time. And then you can use the overflow block for anything that you didn't get finished in that first 5 hours. And if you're like, okay, well, that sounds good, but you know, I sit down to do something, Brittany, and I think it's going to take me an hour and it actually takes me 4 hours. That is, my friend, a separate problem. That's not about consistency. That is about time management and the fact that you don't know how long your tasks take. And trust me, I have been there. You are not alone in this at all. But what needs to happen is you need to go and you need to find a time management tool. You can go old school. You can go pen and paper. Be like, okay, 10:05, I'm sitting down at my computer. I'm going to answer my emails. And then you look at the clock when you're done and you're like, shoot, it's 11:37. I have spent more than an hour answering emails. That's a lot more time than I realized. That's exactly the purpose of this activity. You need to track how long it takes you to do each activity. And if you're like, I'm not gonna write it down, that's fine. Go digital. I love using Toggl. Free to use. And you just click start. You type in what it is that you're working on. You can label, you can color code, you can assign, you know, client projects. I've got like a color for my own business and then a color for each of my clients. Uh, and I track how long it takes me to do each activity, sending emails, recording podcasts, scheduling podcasts, creating social media content. And then depending on how often you need to go and do this, I usually do it once a month. I'll go back through and be like, okay, I spent, you know, 5 hours this month working on my podcast. It averages out to about an hour a week. Uh, it's like, all right, so if that's how long it takes me, I would usually track it for a couple months if I were you, but Obviously in the beginning you need to start somewhere. So look at your first month or your first week and be like, okay, this is how long I spend on each of these activities. So next week I need to make sure that I have this amount of time available to do these activities because I have determined that these are the most important things for me to be doing. Awareness. Get it done. Those are the only ways to be consistent. Like I said, aside from paying someone else to do it. You can be consistent, but you have to choose to be consistent, and you need to make your actions align with those choices. So if I decide, hey, I wanna lose weight, I wanna drop 20 pounds in the next 2 months, and then I'm eating burgers and staying up late so that I'm not getting up early and I'm not exercising, my choices did not align with the goal that I had. Weight loss isn't necessarily something you can outsource, although I could hire a personal trainer, have them either come to the house or I go to the gym and meet them to to help me be consistent with the actions that help me lose weight, but I need to make sure that I'm creating that time and that space for me to be consistent. So that was when I was more actively losing weight, which you're not really supposed to do while you're pregnant, so I'm not doing this right now, but I have done it in the past. Block a couple hours on Saturday or on Friday to meal plan. Block a couple hours on Saturday to go to the grocery store and pick up your groceries. Block a couple hours on Sunday to do your meal prep. Um, and then usually I would block a couple hours on Wednesday afternoon, evening to like catch up or to make more stuff. Cuz you know, obviously food goes bad. I had to decide on the goal and then take action steps to be consistent with it. Was I perfect? No, I was not consistent with it all the time. That's where that mental mindset comes in of understanding that, you know, not every day is gonna be a perfect. Workout, feel great, get good sleep, eat the right food kind of day. But next day is an entirely new day and I just have to get up and keep going even if I had a bad day before. And that's how eventually consistently doing all those habits did help me lose that weight. Actually, I lost way more than 20 pounds. Did take me way longer than 2 months, but, um, it can be done, but it has to be your priority, your focus, and then you need to take the action steps to support it. So those are my tips and tricks for being consistent. Hire somebody to do it, make it a priority, do it yourself, and that's really about it. There's, truthfully speaking, nothing that I can say or do to make you be consistent in your business, and that's what I wish— or in your personal life— and that's what I wish more people understood. It's not like I have some magic secret potion that I take every day that helps me be consistent. I've just chosen my priorities. I've outsourced anything that I don't want to be my priority, aka editing my podcast. Hello, Grayson. There are seasons too where I've had copywriters, um, sometimes writing emails for me, but mostly writing blog posts because I want to be, I wanted to be consistent with my blog post creation and also my blog post optimization. Almost done wrapping up the blog post optimization project. That's exciting because I've been working on that for more than a year and a half. Um, but that's another area where I was consistent. It's like each month between my copywriter and one of the AI tools that I use, I was creating and optimizing about 12 to 14 posts a month, which is a lot. It took me a lot of time. Truthfully speaking, it did. Wouldn't recommend that as a benchmark for, or a goal for anybody else. It's too much. Um, but I did it. I made it a priority. So that was, you know, one of my needle movers at the beginning of the week would be, you know, optimize 2 blog posts, build a new blog post, etc., etc. And I was consistent with it for, like I said, it's been over a year, almost a year and a half now. Um, and I'm about a month and a half away from having, um, a written blog post that is SEO optimized for every single episode of the Go Get Great podcast. I'm gonna give myself a round of applause for that one because I'm very proud of myself. Took a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy, and a lot of focus, but we're getting it done. So you can do these things, and those are the ways you do them. It just has to become a practice, a habit, something that you live in every day. That is consistency. That is how you become consistent. I so wish that there was a magic pill that I could sell you. To make it work. I guess that magic pill that I can sell you is my services. You can hire me to be consistent for you. Uh, and if that's something that you're interested in, I would definitely love to reach out and chat. Um, my details are always in the episode show notes. You can find me on Instagram at Brittany Miller Socials or my website brittanymillersocials.ca. Book a discovery call. We can chat about what consistency looks like to you and see how I can help you bring that to life. Because we are very good at helping our clients be consistent. Uh, and with that, I'm going to wrap up this episode. I hope that you found something in here that's useful because I don't mean to sound negative or condescending. I just really wanted to bring to light a mentality that I think all entrepreneurs should have that I don't think most do. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Go Get Great podcast. I will see you next week. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Go Get Great. I hope that you found some inspiration and practical tips to help you take your life and business from good to great. If you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to leave a review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. We've got so much more valuable content and amazing guests coming your way. And don't forget to follow us on social media for marketing tips and marketing tips, and a whole lot of relatable mom content. You can find us on Instagram @BrittanyMillerSocials and @BrittanyNMiller_. And if you're ready to elevate your marketing game, I would love to work with you. Whether you need help with social media strategy, email marketing, or growing a podcast of your own, Brittany Miller Socials is here to support you every step of the way. Visit my website at www.brittanymillersocials.com. To learn more about how we can work together. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, keep going, keep growing, and go get great. I started Ornaught in 2013 and we make bike apparel. 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