PP 696: Who Do You Want to Serve and How?
“Clarity helps me say NO to the opportunities which aren’t for me. And to say NO for the opportunities which don’t pay what I know I’m worth.” -Kim Sutton
The best thing about being an entrepreneur is the privilege to be of service to others. Yet, even the most successful businessman cannot serve everyone. So how do you find your niche? The best place to start is YOU! Gain clarity about what you truly want to do. Join Kim as she shares a simple practice you can do to gain clarity of who you are as an entrepreneur while maintaining boundaries and getting paid for what you’re worth.
Highlights:
00:40 What Do You Do?
05:00 When Clarity is a Blur
08:37 Have Your NO List
Inspirational Quotes:
06:47 “I don’t expect anybody to know what they want to do and who they want to work for on day one of their business. Sometimes we don’t have that clarity.” -Kim Sutton
08:37 “Clarity helps me say NO to the opportunities which aren’t for me. And to say NO for the opportunities which don’t pay what I know I’m worth.” -Kim Sutton
10:10 “When you’re NO list becomes big enough, you’ll have more clarity on what your YESes are.” -Kim Sutton
Meet Your Host!
Kim Sutton is a Business and Marketing Automation Mentor, Speaker, and Author. She is the host of the Positive Productivity Podcast. Having been through so much including depression, domestic violence, and lack of self-care, Kim’s mission is to help her clients be positively productive by empowering them to achieve success without the burnout. She believes that positive productivity stems from system+support+self-care. Positive productivity is not about perfection, it’s about having Prioritized Purposeful Actions. Today, Kim is out to help fellow entrepreneurs reclaim their lives and make their business work.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
Kim Sutton: The Positive Productivity Podcast was created to empower entrepreneurs to achieve and appreciate personal and professional success. I’m your host, Kim Sutton. And if you’re ready, let’s jump into today’s episode.
For the next few episodes, we’re going to be having a discussion about confidence and boundaries. I would love to hear what you think about any of these episodes, so be sure to head on over to my website at thekimsutton.com, and leave your comment down below the show notes on the episodes that you really find synergy with. When I started my business in 2012, I thought it was my job to serve anyone and everyone who came to me. I put out hundreds of project proposals on Elance, now Upwork, and anybody who hired me, I would work with. This wasn’t bad just financially, but it was also bad because I didn’t know how to answer the simple question, Kim, what do you do? It’s not even that it was friends or family asking me this question, but it was also clients. They had people, they had friends that they wanted to be able to refer to me, but they didn’t know what to refer to me as, or should I say who to refer to me as they didn’t know what I specialize in, who I wanted to work with. And to be honest, I didn’t know either. This hurt me in so many ways.
Let’s just start with financial because I didn’t know what I did. Because, hey, I was doing everything. I was marketing, or I was pricing myself way too low. You may have heard about this in previous episodes. But when I started the business in 2012. I started it because my husband Dave and I really needed to make some extra money. Dave started college and was in school full time. Actually more than full time because he had three years to complete, a four year degree. And at that time, I was an administrative assistant at a local car manufacturer. If this is your first episode, or in case you haven’t heard about it before, I have a degree. I have a four year degree in interior architecture. And prior to becoming an administrative assistant, I had designed high end residential luxury office spaces in schools here in Ohio. But in 2008 when the economy tanked my job, went with it, so you do what you have to do. You can do what you want to do sometimes, and I had taken on fast food jobs and wound up doing administrative assistant work. Now, that wasn’t enough to support my family.
Well, Ohio isn’t a huge cost of living area. At least my area of Ohio isn’t. I wasn’t bringing in enough money to support our then family of four. Now remember, now we have a family of seven so it would have been even tougher. I saw myself as having two options. One, get a night job, get a third shift job at a local gas station, or to try to start my own business. We know what I did? I went with a letter. That first year of the business was a big hot mess. I learned how to build websites. I did all types of research for people who wanted me to look up different sporting supplies, movie actors and actresses. I worked for a cosmetics company doing customer service. I worked for somebody across the world who just wanted customer support for $1.50 an hour. I just want you to let that sink in for a second because I didn’t know who I worked for or what I did. I was saying YES to everybody. And everyone regardless of what they asked me to do, or how much they would pay me. That year sucked because I wasn’t charging my fair worth because I didn’t know what I did.
I was working myself to the bone, and in the middle of it, I got pregnant unexpectedly. Actually not in the middle of it. As soon as I gave my notice to the company that I was working for, we found out we are pregnant. We had already been through four miscarriages in the year prior and we had given up on trying to have a child of our own. We each have two children from previous relationships and marriages, so we just thought it wasn’t in the cards for us. Well, God has other ways of making his own plans. And maybe he just knew that I was going to be at home. So yeah, that’s when I got pregnant.
I was working 18 hours a day. I had morning sickness like you wouldn’t believe. And we were probably in worse financial shape than we were when I was working as an administrative assistant. That’s not how it’s supposed to be done. It took another two years before I began to figure out what I was supposed to do. And the way that that happened was that I was sponsored by a client and a couple friends to go and get my Infusionsoft certification. I am no longer an Infusionsoft certified partner because there are so many different email marketing platforms and CRMs that I really love to use. And I don’t want to pigeonhole my clients into one, just because I earn a commission off of that one, and it’s the most expensive. Please know that I always keep the best interest of my clients in mind. And even if I might make 100 a month off of selling one program, if it’s not the best one for the client, I’m not going to push it down their throat.
Anyway, I became an Infusionsoft certified partner and started to become more clear about who I wanted to work for, about who I wanted to work with. This was 2014. By 2017, I really started to figure out that I wanted to work with business and life coaches. I wanted to do email marketing, and funnels, and websites, and really help them get their funnel out in front of their perfect clients. But I still didn’t have full comprehension of what I wanted to do. My friend, I want you to know that I don’t expect you or anybody to know what they want to do and who they want to work for on day one of their business. Sometimes, we don’t have that clarity. I am a multi passionate entrepreneur who loves to do a ton of different things, and it’s taken me time to figure out what my business is going to be built around. Today, it’s about helping multi passionate entrepreneurs, maybe not necessarily in one specific industry, focus on getting one project done at a time, within 90 days. A lot of the times that happens faster. But in order for multi passionate entrepreneurs like me and my clients to get those projects done, we still have to have the automation working in the background. So while it took some time for me to figure out how automation worked, while working with life and business coaches, I finally realized why I went through that part of my journey. I needed to figure it out so that I could use those skills and that expertise at this present moment of time. If you would ask me or my clients five years ago who was Kim Sutton? Who does she serve? What does she do? People wouldn’t have been able to say anything clear.
Four years ago, it probably would have been, she’s an Infusionsoft expert. Three years ago, it would have been, she does marketing, automation and builds funnels. But now, I finally have a clear, now I have what people call an elevator pitch. Now, I can go into a room and introduce myself with real clarity about who I serve and what I do. This clarity helps me say NO to the opportunities which aren’t for me. And to say no for the opportunities which don’t pay what I know I’m worth. Please know that when I say that I say no to opportunities that don’t pay what I’m worth, that’s because I need to keep myself and my family at the forefront. It’s not that I don’t want to help everybody, I certainly do, but I cannot let us get back into a state where I am working 20 to 22 hours a day again, and that my marriage is crumbling. I can’t ever let us get back to a place where we nearly lose our home. And yes, all those things happened when I was not clear about what I do and who I serve.
So today, this year, in the next couple years, maybe it’s not making a yes list, maybe it’s about making a no list. If you realize that you absolutely can’t stand performing certain tasks in your business, put them on your note list. Those either get deleted or delegated when you realize that there are certain types of clients that you don’t want to work with for whatever reason. Maybe they’re not making enough and they are in a scarcity mindset. Maybe you don’t like the industry that they’re in that bores you, add them to the no list. When your no list becomes big enough, you’ll have more clarity on what your yeses are. And if you already know what your yeses, if you know who you want to serve, how I would love to hear about it, so head on over to thekimsutton.com/pp696, I think, and leave a comment down below the show notes letting me know the answer to that question, who do you serve? And how?
I would love to hear your feedback on this episode, so make sure to leave a rating or review on your favorite podcasting platform, and keep in touch through your favorite social media platforms. With all this said, go forth and make it a positive and a productive day. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the positive productivity podcast. When I’m not podcasting, I’m supporting 6 to 7-figure business coaches with their marketing automation, and entrepreneurs like you through my coaching and mastermind programs. I want to invite you to visit thekimsutton.com to learn how I can help you take your business to the next level.
