What It's REALLY Like to Hit 7-Figures in Business | The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

I want a million dollar business how do I get there I'm glad I didn't quit because not quitting is what got me to this level make money moves like that and make those types of Investments Good the Bad and the Ugly of crossing Seven figures in your business [Music] hey hey Courtney Sanders here welcome back to my channel if you're new to me I'm a full-time online life and business coach as well as wife and mom I wear all the hats and do all the things but I do it because I'm passionate about helping you turn your success story into a six or even seven figure online coaching brand and speaking of online coaching brands in this video I want to talk to you specifically about how I've grown my brand to seven figures and The Good the Bad and the Ugly behind that right I know many people are just getting started in their coaching business they're like Courtney if I could just get a paid client I would be really excited and I know some of you are more established you're consistently getting paid clients but you feel like you're hitting a you know a brick wall from a revenue standpoint you're like ah we're skirting with six figures but if I could just cross six figures that would be fantastic and some of you are doing a great job where you're Crossing six figures you fully replace your income at your previous corporate job but you're like I want a million dollar business how do I get there and so I've been in all of those positions I remember even just last year wondering when I was finally going to cross the seven figure mark and we did it this year we did it really early this year and so now that we've been operating at this level for a while now in fact I even have a video that you can check out here that breaks down my revenue streams of how we clear over 100k in that video we talked about how we cleared over 200k per month so you can definitely check that out but I thought it would be fun to do a video sharing The Good the Bad and the Ugly of crossing Seven figures in your business so if this is a milestone that you cannot wait to hit stay tuned because I'm going to give you the real real on what it's like all right as I was outlining this video I was like oh man like what to talk about what's the good of crossing Seven figures obviously there's a lot of obvious things it's great to be able to make more income it's great to have more money to you know get some really cool toys I actually have a video that you can check out here all about how I got my Tesla and actually didn't pay cash for that Tesla I was able to invest in a rental property and my rental property pays for that Tesla but still getting to that level in your business where you can make money moves like that and make those types of Investments is really great traveling I've been to three countries just this summer alone so there's a lot of really amazing things that I think are kind of obvious when you make more money you know there's lots of new things that you can get into but if I had to summarize like what's the best thing of the true good of hitting seven figures in my business honestly it would be that I feel like I finally have the money to execute at the level that I want to operate in so take for instance even something like these videos right now I am a big proponent of starting where you are and do what you can so even on this here YouTube channel way back in like 2007 2008 2009 I was recording these videos myself on my little you know home camera and then when I decided to revamp my YouTube channel in 2020 during the pandemic you know I bought myself a better camera but I was still shooting those videos myself and they looked a lot better but I'm not an expert with the lighting I'm not an expert with my makeup like I look at those videos now and I'm like oh the content was good but there are ways that you know I wish that I could have made it better and so to be doing these videos with you here now to have a videographer that I work with to have a makeup artist who's able to do my makeup and just to really operate at a high level I would say that's one of the best things about crossing the seven figure Mark is that I feel like I can truly execute my vision now to the level that I want to see it and the biggest thing that has been evident with this that we see is in my program so I recently launched a new program called the next big name boot camp that program the first launch of it was over a half million dollars so that program has been really instrumental in creating a lot of my business Revenue but I'm super proud of it because I'm finally at a place where even in my programs we're operating at a super high level so the video in that program is shot you know professionally very high quality edited I was able to hire an instructional design team that was able to get in my head and really help me outline the program so that my clients could get the best results from it and I'm just so proud of it because I'm like yes I'm fine finally pushing out content and executing content at the level that I want to operate at and I'm I'm a big stickler I love doing things to my best like to the best of my abilities I love operating in excellence even if it's something as simple as the way my social media posts look and you know the graphics or making sure that we're getting back to emails that we received consistently I mean I remember a time where I was so overwhelmed with my emails it was taking me like a week to get back to people to have people on my team now and to have processes in place to manage all that I just love that we're operating at a high level which I feel like is really all I've ever wanted to do and so for me that's been the best part of crossing Seven figures and in fact it reminds me of this quote from Ira Glass so Ira Glass is the I think he's the creator and producer for the NPR show This American Life and I came across this quote from him a while ago I want to say like 10 years ago and it's always stuck with me but I feel like it really characterizes kind of how I felt before I crossed seven figures and how I feel now that we're able to operate at this level he says nobody tells this to people who are beginners and I wish someone would have told me all of us who do creative work we get into it because we have good taste but there's this gap for the first couple of years you make stuff it's just not that good it's trying to be good it has potential but it's not but your taste the thing that got you in this game is still killer and your taste is why your work disappoints you a lot of people never get past this phase and they quit and so I'm so glad I didn't quit even when I was looking at the videos I was producing I was looking at what I was coming up with and it was you know it was good but I knew the vision of where it wanted to be I'm glad I didn't quit because not quitting is what got me to this level we're now we are generating seven figures and I can start to fully execute my vision at The Taste level that I've always had so I would say that's the best thing truly about crossing Seven figures all right another great thing about crossing Seven figures that I mentioned before is that I can finally afford a team and I'm just so glad that all this is happening at this time time because I also had my daughter during the pandemic and so as my business was growing it was really a lot of a lot of freedom and a lot of relief for me to be able to hire people to support me in my business and I always say look my first hire in my business was actually hired in my home so I know technically I feel like I have to say this for my accountant no I'm not writing off my housekeeper on my books but mentally I felt like my housekeeper was my first business expense so that was my first business hire because she freed up a lot of time for me to work on my business on the weekends because I wasn't spending my Saturdays cleaning the entire house and then working with my nanny my nanny's fantastic because she doubles as my makeup artist she's really fantastic but her being here during the day with my daughter while my son is at school and allowing me to do things like this like record videos from you having a meal prep Chef who comes once a week who prepares healthy meals for my family so I can focus on my children and my business and my clients and all of those things having a videographer who can come and help me so I'm not fumbling with the cameras and the lights and setting these things up myself sell my executive assistant I have a project manager content writer like I have so many people now who are supported by the revenue in my business that again allows me to operate at that level so that has been such a huge relief and it's crazy because I was always reluctant to hire people because I had a bad experience in 2017 where I hired a bunch of people and my business was growing and then I got pregnant with my son and because I couldn't do all of the one-on-one coaching that at the time my business was really built around I ended up having to let people go and so I was very like scared to get into hiring people again because I never wanted to be in a position where I couldn't afford to pay someone but I will say since hiring people it's amazing every time I hire someone I end up making more money because it just frees me to do more so trust me building a team that has been the best part of generating seven figures and the last good part of creating seven figures is that it's really allowed me to attract even more clients so it's no surprise when people see your success they see you're winning they want to sign with you right I always say that in terms of coaching people want to go with people who are winning and so just hitting this Milestone I know it's a big milestone that a lot of my own clients aspire to and so if they were on the fence so they weren't sure that they wanted to work with me crossing the seven figure Milestone has really had a lot of people raising their hand and they're saying okay whatever it is that you're doing Courtney like I want to be a part of that but not only has it enabled me to attract new clients I've noticed that a lot of my old clients are re-steining with me and so I'm a big proponent of always focusing on your own journey and investing yourself in part because your current clients are watching to see if you are growing and my clients know I'm always investing in myself I'm always learning new things I'm always growing and so I love that my existing clients are resigning with me because they're like oh she's hit a new Milestone she's on to the next thing we want to learn the new thing that she's learning because they know that when I invest in myself really I'm investing in them because they get access to the knowledge that I'm learning as well so those have been the best things of crossing Seven figures all right now let's get into the bad of creating seven figures because you know it's mostly cogn candy and Pie in the Sky but I mean there's always something some not so great things that come along with it and I'll say one of the quote-unquote bad things for me because I'm you know I put a lot of pressure on myself is just the pressure that comes with that so it's kind of a double-edged sword on one hand I'm like oh my goodness I can afford a team and I'm having people support me and this is really fantastic but on the other hand I'm like oh my goodness I have a team I have payroll right I have to look at this money and hit the button and make sure that everybody's going to get their direct deposit in two weeks like like I have real staff that I pay like actual bi-weekly payroll on and I'm like paying taxes for people and all of this and so there is a sense of pressure that I have on myself now that I didn't have before where I'm like wow I really need to maintain this and I need to keep this going because it's not just me that I'm supporting but it's like actual people's livelihoods that I am supporting so it's not that I don't like to do it but you know I don't want to say it stresses me out because it doesn't but there is a low grade pressure of like Courtney make sure you show it make sure you do these things thing so even you know I have days where I'm like uh I'm tired I'm feeling lazy I don't want to do things I'm feeling overwhelmed I find that having this staff that I'm supporting really holds me accountable where I show up no matter what because I'm like no we need to keep the wheels turning and keep the lights on in the business because now people's paychecks depend on you but beyond even the team just the pressure again to keep continue operating at a high level I know I have a lot of Industry peers that look up to me again my clients are like wow you give me hope and inspiration and so while I'm like wow I'm really happy that I hit this level I'm also like oh girl you better stay at this level because people are counting on you even if not for you know financially because they're your employees they're counting on you from like an emotional or an inspirational standpoint so there is a new level of pressure that I have that I feel like I didn't have before and another bad thing I'll say that comes with hitting seven figures is that I'm finding people do start to separate from you and it's not because of the money you have but it's because of the mindset that you have that allow to get you the money so I am very focused right like not just from a financial standpoint but I'm focused on my goals I'm focused on my business and I found that I have a lot less patience and a lot less tolerance for foolishness essentially right negativity people who complain a lot people who just want to gossip and talk about nothing and um people who just who want to do crazy things or go out and get drunk or whatever I was never one to go out and get drunk anyway but you know what I mean like they just want to spend their time doing things that don't Advance their goals and don't move the ball forward when you get to this level it's almost like being an Olympic Athlete where you start to notice if any slight thing is off it really has a downstream effect where it affects your whole performance so you know before it was just like oh if I'm off and I have a bad day or I have a bad week it's not a big deal but like I said now I have people depending on me I have a larger group of clients that I'm supporting I have you know payroll and stuff like there's a lot going on it's so important for me to continue showing up and operating at a high level for me to keep my mind clear for me to keep my environment peaceful and so because I demand a certain standard now you know in terms of how I operate in my life and the people that I like to surround myself with because I'm stricter about that standard because I have to be in order to maintain business at this level I do find that people will naturally kind of separate from you and that they don't want to be held to that standard they don't want to operate at the super high level that's something that you've chosen for your business right but they don't want to operate at their level they're cool doing what they do and so you'll just find that they'll call you less or they just don't want to be in your space anymore and so you know that's something that I've had to accept but like I said I am so locked in on this I feel like this is beyond just my professional work this is really my purpose work this ties into all the people that are attached to me whether it's my employees my clients even my children my husband the generational wealth that I'm building for them I'm okay with that right I'm okay with people separating themselves from me but I will say it is a bad and that I wish it didn't have to happen like that like I wish that when one person levels up that it always inspired the people around them to want to level up too but that's not always the case and that's you know something that I've just come to accept but it doesn't mean that I'm gonna stop moving towards my goals so it is what it is all right I have more where that came from but first I want to hear from you what do you worry about when it comes to hitting six or seven figures share in the comments below okay now let's talk about the ugly that comes with hitting seven figures like I said most of it has been cotton candy pie in the sky but you know there's always not so amazing things that you have to consider and if I had to really say the ugly right like we already talked about the bad but the ugly I think the one ugly thing that really comes with hitting seven figures is that you become a Target right and I mean really I had to wrestle with even sharing this like sharing that my business is crossing Seven figures but I felt like it would have been hypocritical for me because from the very beginning I mean like when I was still working my nine-to-five job and I was just blogging and talking about my business if I made four thousand dollars that month or five thousand dollars that month I was documenting that and sharing that with people because I wanted people to see what was possible and also to hold myself accountable so that people could see my journey I mean that's literally how I got my start the reason I started my blog was because I was very serious about achieving certain goals after messing up in college and so all my friends graduated ahead of me because I originally went to school for chemical engineering I lost my scholarship when I tried to pursue business and the business failed and my grades failed as well and so I ended up spending an extra two years at school while I was trying to get it together so it took me six years to graduate undergrad and my friends all graduated and went to their new jobs and were living their life and so I started blogging in the hopes that some readers somewhere on the internet would see me documenting my goals and would keep checking back and holding me accountable that's literally how all of this got started so I feel like that's really true to my DNA and to my brand Roots this idea of like radical transparency and bringing my audience along for the ride and crossing the seven figure Mark is such a big milestone in business I don't have the statistics in front of me but I know you know a very small percentage of women entrepreneurs ever crossed the seven figure Mark and an even smaller percentage of black women entrepreneurs ever cross a seven figure Mark so I knew that it was something that I had to share it would almost be incongruent with me not sharing it but the only downside of that is when you do share it because there's low level people out there who want to take what you have or who are jealous or whatever it just it does make you a Target and so there's a lot of um time money and effort that I've had to put in place just to make sure that myself and my family are protected whether that's just legal protection setting things up in my business you know asset protection trust you know those different things um brand protection and even just protection from the standpoint of donating money right like you know more and more groups and non-profits and Ministries you know they want they want to hit you up and they're like oh can you support this right but not every organization is well run um not every organization is doing the right things with the money so I will say the ugly is that to me it's ugly that we have to spend so much time so much effort and so much money again protecting our ourselves legally protecting our assets um investigating you know these groups and these non-profits that want donations like it's sad that we live in a society of people who are sharks and are like out for self that we even have to take these precautions when we really just want to do good in the world so I will say that that's one like frustrating thing and another ugly that comes with this is making sure your kids stay down to earth so my husband and I like I would say out of everything this is like the one thing that keeps us up at night we have several conversations all the time about what are we gonna do to make sure that our kids stay grounded and that the level of privilege that is going going to be normal to them because they are very young and for the most part this is the only lifestyle that they've known how do we make it so that they have an appreciation for everything that they've been given because if there's one thing I'm not going to do I am not going to raise spoiled kids but I am finding not that it's hard because my kids are young right they're like four um and 18 19 months so they're so young it's very difficult for them to even exhibit spoiled Behavior but what I have noticed is a lack of awareness for how other people live or how other people experience things and I know a big one that kind of rocked my husband and I to our core is one day we were at church and we were coming out and there was this woman um she was but well she wasn't by herself she had I think two small children and she had who I thought was her mom like an elderly woman with her and she was trying to um you know load everybody in the car after church and her her bumper like the back end of her car was all smashed up it wasn't just like a fender bender like oh you got into a little accident it was bad where I was like wow like concerned about the structural Integrity of her car I was shocked that she was even still driving it that way and I remember that she had small kids because I noticed that she had a car seat even in the back of the car and I was like kind of thinking to myself like oh man you know I hope I hope she's able to you know get that fixed because there's you know she's got a baby with her and you know if something else happens or she gets another accident like it wasn't clear that the car was like even safe for everybody to be in and so my uh my husband and I you know I'm carrying my daughter and my four-year-old is walking with us and we parked like a few spots down from her and we're walking and my son like loud you know how young kids are starts pointing to her car in her bumper and he's like Mommy that car is broken what's wrong with that car that car is broken and I'm like oh my goodness I'm so sorry you know shuffling him in like be quiet you know trying to get him in the car but we just we just felt really bad because we were like wow like you know we imagine perhaps she's a single mom like she she has either her mother or an elderly person with her she's got these two young kids like I was so embarrassed we just scrambled in the car and we're like okay we need to go but later my husband and I we were like you know what next time we go to church like if we see her we see that car like we're just gonna like don't donate some money hopefully where she can get you know her car fixed but I felt bad because I was like wow my son has no concept of like a car would be broken you know like if if either of us get in a little fender bender or something like that like we would immediately take the car to a shop we would get a rental car we drive nice cars so the dealer would probably or the whoever our insurance would probably give us a nice replacement car you know or we're waiting like there's just basic things that he doesn't understand whether it's doordash like Mommy I'm hungry and he just expects door uh the food to just show up at the door there I am noticing a level of privilege that he has that I didn't even have growing up and I'm like wow he doesn't appreciate like what he has and how good he has it so it's not his fault and he's young right but I will say just that situation that is something that could be potentially ugly about hitting this level of success in the business and so that's just something that my husband and I have a lot of conversations around whether it's in terms of like volunteering or just different groups that we're a part of Ministries whatever how do we keep our kids grounded and down to earth so that they understand that this is privilege that they have and that this isn't given to them and that we need to be grateful we need to be grateful to God for our circumstances and that more importantly we need to reach back and give to others who are in less fortunate circumstances all right that's all I got for you I hope you enjoyed this video if you did you are going to love my nail your Niche challenge because I would have never gotten to seven figures had I not nailed my Niche nailing your Niche is so important in business and once you just lock in on that and you can go full steam ahead with your products programs attracting your clients it's going to allow you to cross the six and even seven figure marks so if you want access to this training it's actually a live five day free challenge I can't promise that it's gonna be free forever but at the time of this recording it is free you can click the link below to register if you see spots available make sure you sign up right away because we do limit the spots as I do have an option where you can upgrade to VIP and get direct coaching from me after the sessions each day but I like to limit it to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to get their questions answered so if that's something that you want to be a part of and you see spots available go ahead and register and if you don't see spots available but you do see a wait list make sure that you sign up on the waitlist to be notified the next time that know your Niche challenge is live alright I hope you enjoyed this video make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe if you did and if you want even more where this came from make sure you are following me on my podcast the Courtney Sanders show and if you want even more you can't wait to my next podcast or my next video make sure that you are following me on Instagram that's Courtney L Sanders on Instagram and with that I'll see you in the next video bye [Music]

2022-11-17 12:07

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