9 pieces of the best business advice I can give you for 2024

9 pieces of the best business advice that I have for you right now.

I've been in business for about eight years now, and it's pretty scary how it's just gone so quickly. There have been times where it's sped by and then there have been times when it feels like I've been stuck in Groundhog Day for a very, very long time. And throughout those eight years, I've had a lot of wins, a lot of failures, a lot of ups and a lot of downs.
And through all of that, I've learned some pretty big lessons, which I'm going to be sharing with you in today's blog. And I believe that if I'd known the nine things that I'm sharing with you, the entire journey might've been a whole lot smoother and a whole lot quicker for me. So hopefully this is going to help you.
If you are looking for hacks, shortcuts, quick wins, this is probably not going to be the blog for you because I'm sharing advice that is going to help you to build a business that is sustainable and profitable in the long term. Not one that's just capitalizing on the latest trend and then that's going to go belly up as soon as that trend stops.

Advice 1. Our foundations need to come first before anything else.

Unless you have those basic business foundations in place, you don't need more clients or more Instagram followers. Because without those foundations, adding more clients, more followers, more subscribers, that's just going to scale your existing stress and overwhelm.
Because you now suddenly have to deliver more work for more clients that you have. When I talk about foundations, I'm talking about things like your business model, your messaging, your sales processes, your operational systems, your content and marketing systems, all of the processes that you can start to delegate as your business grows.
And look, I made this mistake as well. I thought that the secret ingredient would be just making more sales. If I could make more sales, then I could afford to outsource and delegate. And I would have more time so I could keep growing my business. And unfortunately, this wasn't the case, because it grew, but I didn't have all of the processes and the systems and the foundations in place.
I'd started putting them into place and absolutely they helped with the growth that I had, but I hadn't completely crossed all my T's and dotted all my I's. So that made the whole process of growing a lot more stressful and a lot more overwhelming because suddenly I had all of these new customers. But I didn't have any customer support processes.
So I was scrambling to try and pull together all these processes so I could get things off my plate because I didn't have time to do all of the things. And as a result, I actually dropped the ball on customer support for a little while there because I couldn't reply to all of those emails. I physically did not have enough time in the day and I didn't have anyone else who could reply to them for me either.
So if you don't have time to do all of the things in your business right now, I want you to ask yourself, how on earth are you going to find the time to do? Things that need to be done. How are you going to do more when you have more clients or more sales or more growth? If you don't have enough time right now, you're only going to have less time when your business grows if you don't have those foundations in place.

 

Advice 2. If you are feeling overwhelmed, it's a big clue that you are missing basic systems and structures and foundations in your business.

And then when I say basic structure and systems, I don't mean you have to go and automate everything and spend hours learning tech. I mean real basics. For example, when you sit down at your desk first thing in the morning, what is the first thing you do? Structure would look like reviewing your objectives for the week, identifying those key tasks you need to work on that day to reach those objectives, doing those tasks first, and then doing the other things that distract you like checking emails and scrolling through Instagram, right?
Structure also looks like sitting down on a Monday morning and looking at your goals for the quarter, identifying what you need to get done this week to achieve those goals and then planning those tasks out so it's not you sitting down at your desk everyday thinking, what do I feel like working on today and working on that aimlessly. Now, I'm not naturally an organized person. I wish I could show you my desk, it's pretty bad. But I know that you know the occasional weeks when I don't map out what I'm working on and what I want to get done, then I end up being a lot more reactive. I chase shiny objects, I find the things to do that are more exciting, rather than the things that move us towards our goals as a business. I scroll social media. I waste time scrolling through cute puppy reels. I don't get the things done and it ends up being a wasted week. It ends up being a week where we've made no real forward progress as a business.

 

Advice 3. Focus on the hardest part of the problem first, rather than the easy or the exciting part.

There's a great mental model developed by Google's internal innovation team called the monkeys and pedestals mental model. Now, you are asked to train a monkey to stand on a pedestal and juggle flaming torches. And within this, you have two tasks. Task number one is build a pedestal for the monkey. Task number two is train the monkey to juggle flaming torches.
Most people would build that pedestal first because that's the easy part. We can tick it off and feel like we're making some forward momentum. But if you can't train your monkey to juggle flaming torches, then there's no point even building a pedestal. You've wasted your time. And some places where I see online business owners doing this is wanting to create an online course.
They think the first part is figure out where to host it or where to sell it and all of the tech before they've even outlined the course or done any research to find out whether it's a viable idea or wanting to launch a podcast but spending hours researching microphones before they've even decided what their show will be about or before they've even given it a name.  Or putting all of their time and energy into creating great social media content before they've even set up any sales processes that will turn those new followers into paying clients. Or trying to grow their audience before they've done any research into their client or identified their brand messaging and their offer messaging.
And I get it, like, it's so much easier to prioritize the easy part of the problem first, because we want to feel like we're getting somewhere. We want to feel like we are ticking off the tasks. But as Seth Godin puts it so beautifully, what has to happen for the rest to matter? There is no point having the best microphone if your podcast doesn't ever get off the ground because you can't decide what it should be about. There is no point growing your social media audience if you can't convert them into paying clients, what has to happen before the rest will matter?

 

Advice 4. Action is almost always the answer.

I named this show Imperfect Action because I honestly believe that is the secret source to success. Action, not hard work. Now, I know we can confuse the two. Action is taking those steps towards the unknown. Taking those steps towards the goal that you have in mind, even when you don't quite know what those steps are. Whereas we can get confused and believe that action is doing, doing, doing, replying to the emails, reconciling the bank accounts, posting things to social media, all of the little tasks that make us busy, that make us feel like we're taking action, but that aren't actually moving us any closer. Now we can get in to the cycle also of overthinking when it's something that we have never done before, something that's uncomfortable, something that's scary that can derail us. So when you are stuck on a decision or a challenge or a problem, or you are waiting for the right time before you can take that action towards your goal.
Ask yourself, what is that missing piece of information or what missing facts do I have that I need to solve this problem or make this decision or take this action and then ask yourself, what action can I take right now to collect that missing information or that missing fact? For example, I want to create a course about this topic, but I'm not sure if anyone will buy it. The only way to find out is to sell that course to your audience and find out if they pay money for it. That's the only way that you're going to find out if somebody will buy it or not. You can ask them, you can do all the research. You can ask them if they would pay money for it, but the only way that you will find out if somebody will pay money for something is to ask them to pay money for it.
And if there aren't any missing facts or information, then ask yourself, is this within my control? For example, I podcast, but I'm afraid people will judge me. Can you control whether they judge you? No, you can't. That's completely to do with them. But instead, what is within your control? Well, the topic, the content in your episodes, the way you deliver it, those are all in your control.
You can focus on those rather than focusing on this thing that you can't control, which is other people's reaction to you.

 

Advice 5. The beginner steps exist for a reason and you are not too advanced for them.

I have had so many Launch Magic students come into the program and they say that the very first step in the launch process is too basic for them because they've already done it.
And that first step is getting to know their ideal client and what's going on in their head. Guess what? I've been launching for nearly seven years now. And I still go through that step every single launch that I do. And I believe that is the one step that makes the biggest difference to the rest of your launch.
Right? Even when I have launched that same offer six times, I still go through that step every launch. And I know it's really tempting to want to skip ahead to the advanced stuff and the shiny parts because you think, well, there must be some big secret to getting it right. And that's got to be hidden in the advanced steps, the shiny steps, the things that I haven't learned before.
But the actual big secret is to just follow the process. And that includes the beginner steps. Even if those beginner steps feel really boring, even if you think you already know them, Just follow that process.

 

Advice 6. Get to know your ideal client really, really well, especially what is going on inside their head.

In a noisy online world, I honestly believe that the best way to stand out is to show the right person that you get them. It's a lot harder to stand out if you're trying to resonate with everyone and you're trying to show everybody that you understand them rather than having a well-defined ideal client and understanding what is going on in their lives, what's going on in their heads.
This is probably the biggest hack that I have for marketing, selling, and writing copy is just listening to your audience and then showing them that you get what is going on in their lives, listening to your ideal client, showing them, “I know what you are going through” and if you can make that person feel understood and seen and show them that you have the solution to the specific thing that they are struggling with and you can show them that it's possible for them to achieve the outcome that they're dreaming of that is what sells.
And ideal client research isn't something that you do just once. I am constantly doing it. I survey my email list twice a year. I talk to my students and my clients all the time. I make notes of their pain points, their desires, the language that they use when we're talking. I make notes of questions that my students ask me in the live calls in my programs.
I chat to people who are similar to my ideal client every time I launch a new offer. I'm constantly looking for what is going on in my ideal client's mind. And I have a different ideal client for each offer as well. I will add that in because I know that sometimes you get a little concerned where you're like, Oh, I have multiple different ideal clients. How do I do this? It's okay to have different ideal clients.

 

Advice 7. Lead with loads of value and follow that up with a solid sales process.

Rather than thinking of social media or your podcast or your email list as something that you do just to get more clients and to sell more – start by delivering value, and value doesn't mean you are giving away everything that you know, or replacing that need to work with you.
And it doesn't mean that you can't ever sell to your audience, because absolutely you need to sell to your audience. But instead of using these platforms as a place to promote your offers, start thinking of yourself like you are a creator. You are somebody who is delivering content that is valuable to your ideal client.
And then you have sales processes in place to take that person from consuming your free content through to buying from you. So for example, maybe you are sending them from your free content to your free masterclass, where at the end of the masterclass, you are inviting them to join your course. Or maybe you are giving them a call to action to book in a discovery call, where at the end of that call, you are showing them what it would look like to work with you and giving them a call to action to start working with you, your audience isn't just going to naturally go from thinking, Oh, this is great value to, Oh, I'm ready to buy. There needs to be that missing piece in the middle, and that's where you nurture them.

You answer their questions, you address their hesitations. So that when you ask them to buy, they're ready to buy.

 

Advice 8. If you want a business that is profitable in the long term and gives you freedom, you have to prioritize the things that deliver long term results.

If you keep prioritizing the short term, you will never get off that hamster wheel because you constantly have to be spinning, keep doing the short term things to get more short term results. Let's say for example, that your long-term vision is to build a business where you only work with a handful of clients and you help hundreds of people every year through your programs or your courses.
Taking on a new client right now is great because yeah, that means cashflow in the short term, but that comes at the cost of the time that you could spend building out those programs. So you need to keep getting more and more new clients to keep creating that cashflow. Versus if you invest that time now into building that program, that's going to deliver that cashflow in the long term.
You're going to have less time needed to deliver that program because that's a more leveraged offer. So each person that comes in does not require necessarily more of your time the way that a one on one client would. And you can impact more people with that because it's much more scalable.

 

Advice 9. Your business model is the most important factor that determines how much freedom you have in your business.

Your business model includes things like what you sell, who you sell it to, how much you price it at, how you deliver it. Working with  one-on-one clients at say $500/hour might get you to 10k months. Great. But that is not scalable without sacrificing more of your time. Because to double your income, then you need to double the hours you work.
Or you need to double your prices or some combination of those two. And that's not to say that you can't work with clients, but you need to be thinking of what your business model as a whole looks like. What is this engine that is driving that revenue outside of just your time? Because if you are just trading time for money, your business model isn't supporting your vision for freedom.
Now you really need to take a step back and ask yourself, does my business model support my vision for freedom? Because I found myself in a position where I had a business that was making money, but it didn't give me the kind of freedom that I wanted. I was working with clients and I saw all of these awesome digital nomad freelancers working remotely and I modeled what they were doing.
I took on more clients and I thought, great, I can just bring in some more people to work for me and delegate to them. And it actually ended up with me just being constantly attached to my laptop, working from different Airbnbs and different cafes around the world, rather than getting to enjoy the time offline and working hard when I was online.
I didn't want a business where I couldn't be mentally away from it and was always thinking about what emails am I getting? What does my team need from me? Whereas now I've created my business in a way where when I'm not at my computer, I'm not constantly thinking about it. ─ And that's a huge shift because of the business model that I created.