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Your Power as a Business Owner: From Pressure to Empowerment in Digital Entrepreneurship
Episode 2 • 3rd April 2024 • Cocktails, Coffee, & Conversations • Tracie Patterson
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In this episode of Cocktails, Coffee, and Conversations, host Tracie, a business rebel and digital entrepreneur, explores the challenges and misconceptions around selling within the online business realm. Tracie discusses how the fear and negativity surrounding sales tactics can drive entrepreneurs to either extreme approaches or complete avoidance, potentially harming their business.

Emphasizing the power of choice in how we present and conduct our business, she encourages listeners to take active steps in reshaping their sales approach to align with values that reject oppressive systems and embrace genuine, positive change. By observing, analyzing, and acting on our business practices, Tracie believes we can create a ripple effect that pushes against undesired norms and moves towards a business environment that reflects our aspirations and values.

00:00 Welcome to the Digital Entrepreneur Life: Unfolding True Stories and Insider Secrets

00:52 Flying Solo: Diving Deep into Business Strategies and Listener Questions

01:13 The Dilemma of Selling: Navigating the Challenges of Business Ethics and Self-Promotion

03:31 Breaking the Cycle: Finding Your Business's Goldilocks Fit

04:52 Harnessing Your Power: Changing the System from Within

09:45 Taking Action: A Three-Step Formula for Conscious Business Practices

11:23 The Ripple Effect: How Your Business Choices Shape Society

17:52 Closing Thoughts: Your Role in Shaping the Future of Business

A free tool or two from your host:

Got a question or comment?

www.traciepatterson.com/ama


Want Tracie's best trainings or to find out more?

www.traciepatterson.com/connection


Music Credit ColourfulSounds

Podcast Editor Maia McLachlan

Digital Marketing VA Lisa Harmatuk



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Transcripts

Tracie:

Hello, everyone, Tracie here, your resident business rebel, and

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you're listening to cocktails coffee

and conversations podcast, the show that

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lets true stories and insider secrets

of digital entrepreneur life unfold.

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Our business world is growing and as

an online business coach and digital

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product creator, I believe you didn't

become an entrepreneur to grin and

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bear your way through business.

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So I'll be your guide.

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As we drop in on coaching calls.

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Have intimate sit downs with online

personalities you love and discuss

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ideas, opportunities, and strategies

circulating our online world.

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So pop in your earbuds, tap,

follow, and join me as I demystify

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this thing called business.

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Hello, hello.

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Welcome to Cocktails,

Coffee and Conversations.

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I am Tracie, your host, who is

flying solo for this episode.

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In other episodes, you'll hear me

interview amazing online business owners

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and friends, or hash out some business

strategies and advice with fellow coaches.

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But when I'm flying solo, I'll be

answering your questions and sharing

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some inside business knowledge for

creating a sustainable business.

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And since we're getting to know each

other, I wanted to start with a message

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that I hope you'll find uplifting and

a way that you can see a path to a

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deeper impact pretty quick, because

there there's a lot about doing

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business that many people don't like.

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Right.

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Including that big hairy word selling

so much so that people will run

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themselves out of business to not

have to do this act effectively.

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And why?

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Because centuries of bad examples and

personal experiences that have left

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many thinking and conducting business

with a sign that says, I want to do this

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work, but don't ask me to charge you.

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You know, I don't want to

be labeled old business.

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I don't want online bro

marketing stigma either.

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I want to be out there doing good.

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I want to do what I love.

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I want to make the life I imagine,

but self promoting or using my face

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or using my voice or having that,

that need to do that, that ask.

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It's just a bit too much.

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Can't I do the work that I want and

money just magically flows to me.

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So what happens when, when we have

this kind of tension, you know, that

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this, this feel where we don't want

to be all these horrible examples.

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But at the same time, we

do want to make some money.

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We do want to make our life's work

out there and available to people and,

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you know, bring some change in and

do some good and bring our love of

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something out there to the world, right?

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What happens?

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Well, often is that

people will swing wildly.

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in the other direction, all in this

effort to like, take back their power.

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They attach concepts like worth or serving

or well, look, calling it, taking back

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their power to the act of assigning

prices and putting up sale signs to the

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point that like a 30 minute coaching

call ends up costing five figures.

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And people get exhausted with

the show that they feel like they

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have to put on to say, it's okay.

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It's okay to sell.

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It's okay to have a business.

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It's okay.

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It's okay.

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And then they just want to, you

know, put it all away and, and

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start all over again somewhere else

because they're absolutely exhausted.

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It's one pendulum swing to the next.

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And I will say that none of that

was in any sort of judgment, but

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that was rather an observation.

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And an understanding that those

actions, those practices, that, that

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one pendulum swing to the next, those

places that we're coming from is trying.

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And that, that is okay.

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A beautiful part of entrepreneurship

is our ability to experiment.

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Sure, it feels like we have

extremely high stakes, right?

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Because we're having to have

families and have lives and have

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mortgages and, you know, eat.

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But these things in life are

not small that we're trying to

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accomplish with our business.

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Let alone that the grander

concepts that we're after.

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Yeah.

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That it's, it's very, very real, very

truthful, makes perfect sense that

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this feels like it's high stakes.

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are our businesses and we get

to adjust elements of them until

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we find our Goldilocks fit.

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So we can get off that pendulum and

away from, you know, those, those

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gender based business labels as well

while we're at it by looking at where

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our power does lie with our business

and what we are saying and what we can

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say with our business on a daily basis.

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without Instagram lives being required.

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And you might think like, wait, what

on earth are you talking about Tracie?

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Like how is this even possible?

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And it all comes back to the, these

elements that what we choose to engage

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in and create is what creates systems.

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And I don't just mean the ones in

our business, you know, that our VA

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is like begging you like, please,

for the love of God, make us SOP.

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Please make an SOP.

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I don't mean those kinds of systems.

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I mean the systems that we rile

against and curse the man for

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having spawned since centuries ago.

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You know, the ones that feel oppressive

and that take advantage of people and

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that very rightly need to be gone, right?

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Those kind, the systems with a capital S.

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And you might've heard

this concept as a consumer.

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It's been around for a very long

time, but especially with, you know,

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with the internet, you often hear

it called voting with your wallet.

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The idea that you have a say in

what gets made, but also in business

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practices because of who you back

through your purchasing power.

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Yeah.

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So to choose the businesses,

to choose the products that

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align with what you stand for.

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Now, of course, like anything,

especially anything online, there's

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controversy over that efficacy.

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But what I'm talking about here

is that business side of it.

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And as a business owner, you are

creating things to sell as well

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as buying from other businesses.

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So you're not just a consumer,

but as a business and often as

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a partner with other businesses,

this concept is now a hundred fold.

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You have a hell of a lot of power.

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Yes, you, the one listening right now

to change this system with a capital

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S to the kind that you envision, the

thing that you want different for

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not just the next generation or five

generations from now, but the one that

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we're currently in right now, you know,

there's already been a lot of change and

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a lot of unfolding and a lot of undoing

that's just happened in the last five

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years, last 10, last 15, you know, think

about what it was like when you were in

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elementary school and middle school, pre

COVID, post COVID, all the things, right?

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But there's still a lot of

other things that can happen.

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And there's a lot of things that maybe

you personally feel very strongly for.

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And this is the same in

our world of business.

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So right now, we're going to look

at this as this business owner.

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And especially because we live and breathe

in this online world and this online

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world that people are seeing, even if

they don't do it, what we do, right?

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So I work with people that own

businesses, but you might not.

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The people who buy from you might

be people that have completely

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different jobs or no jobs at all,

or all the other things in between.

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So our, our ripple effect

is fast and fast and wide.

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And we can use that in a positive way by

paying attention and consciously Making

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changes by what we do that we want to see.

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So if you don't like the way selling

is done, change how you do your own

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sales and how you engage with the people

who are doing sales, like the other

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businesses that you're working with.

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right?

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So like, that's kind of like

a top line option right there.

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It's like, if, if you don't like a

certain tactic, don't use that tactic.

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And that's what I mean when I talk

about, um, how that can feel, Oh, I

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don't know, but if this is supposed

to be this tactic that works really

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well, and of course I want my business

to succeed, then what do I do?

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What do I do?

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And that's where we want to break

that down into those base elements

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and think, okay, well, hang on.

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What is the purpose of this?

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And what are my other options?

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Yeah.

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And I'll save that for

a different episode.

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We always have that choice.

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We always have that power and we

don't have to give into like those

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different kinds of emotional pressures.

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So if you don't like the type of

offers out there, if you don't like

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the way people are being spoken to or

spoken about, if you don't like the

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way things are being interacted with

or that people are being interacted

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with, you don't have to emulate that.

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You don't have to bring that

into your business on accident.

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So take an audit of how you are

doing the different pieces into

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your business to make sure that you

haven't accidentally copy and pasted

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those behaviors into yours, right?

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Because you were following somebody

else's model or template or, you know,

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trying to make it work for you, right?

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Cause again, like we feel this

pressure and it's like, Oh, okay.

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They're saying this model work.

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They're saying that this tactic

work, they're saying this phrasing

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worked and I want mine to work.

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I want to make sure mine gets out there.

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So let me do the same thing.

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But then whenever we see that

practice, like out in the wild, when

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you see it emulated, it makes us

kind of go, ew, I don't like that.

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But what we don't realize, what we kind of

forget is that, oh, wait, we accidentally

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use that on one of our pages too.

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Or, oh, wait, did I, did I do

that over, uh oh, wait a minute.

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Yeah.

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So we have to just ever

so often, we got it.

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We got to kind of step back and

we have to, to reflect on that.

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And, and I'm going to give you a nice

little three step formula to follow that.

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Okay.

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Cause we have to make sure that

we didn't accidentally bring

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those behaviors into our business.

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We have to clean up our stuff.

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Change who we engage with, and definitely

who we affiliate with, partner with,

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share stages with, you know, any

of those kinds of places, right?

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Because there's so much reflection in

communities, in our societies, of how

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we treat people, what we think about

people, that quote unquote value that

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we put on people, that is reflected in

selling and how business is conducted.

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Even to the point of like,

who's allowed to buy something?

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Who's marketed to?

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You know, how things are said, what's

even considered, all of that is a

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reflection of what, of what people

think about other communities.

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And, you know, we don't

always think about that.

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Sometimes like it's not even a

concept that ever entered into

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our thoughts and other times it's

like, Whoa, that feels so heavy.

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I don't even know what to do about that.

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Right.

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And, and again, like, that's okay.

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It's okay if you didn't think

about that originally, but whenever

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you're looking at these things,

you're like, Oh, I don't like this.

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I want to do something about it.

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Well, this is your escape hatch.

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This is the way to say, Oh,

here's something I can do is if

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you truly want that change, if

you want that gross to go away.

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As these business owners, we have

that right to do that because it's

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not some, you know, big corporation

somewhere, you know, in, in,

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in New York or London or Tokyo.

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It's not some like massive conglomeration

that has this kind of power anymore.

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It's not even like those ad companies on

Madison Avenue, like it was a century ago.

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It's those of us with online

businesses that now make these changes.

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Cause we're the ones that

are all over social media.

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We're the ones that are buying the

Facebook ads, the Instagram ads that are

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making the posts that are on videos that

are doing viral things on Tik Tok that

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are all over YouTube that are on podcasts.

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You know, we have more

control, more impact.

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We make more waves, more ripples than

any of those massive companies do now.

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So we can't just accidentally copy and

paste other people's strategies into

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our business if we want to consciously

create societal changes, right?

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And again, that's like.

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from that large kind of concept all

the way down to these small ones.

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Yeah.

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From the overall society impact to

our communities, to these different

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little elements that we can think of.

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So what can you actually do today?

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Well, we can observe, we

can analyze, and we can act.

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So observe.

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Today, as you're going about your

normal work and life, notice the ads,

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notice the sales messages, the captions,

the videos, all the messages that are

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coming from businesses that are taking

up space online, including your own.

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As you notice these messages, observe

any sort of gut reaction that you

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might be having, any sort of like

visceral feels that you've got.

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When you see something you don't like,

whether that's in your business or someone

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else's, if you hear something, take

screenshots, make notes, anything that

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will help you personally remember it.

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Okay.

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But then leave it there

because what we'll do later.

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Once you're out of kind of that, that

emotional state, once you're out of

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that, um, body reaction, that visceral

reaction, and definitely if you're not

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in the middle of like planning your own

launch or like in the middle of this,

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this kind of nerve wracking pitch prep.

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But instead when you're in a place

where you can have some kind of

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outward observation, we're going to

look back at those screenshots, at

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those notes, at whatever that you

used to remember, we're going to do

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step two, which is to analyze it.

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So figure out, go like bit by bit.

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What was, or was not working that

kind of gave you that, that reaction?

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Was it the images, the phrases,

the layout, the color choices?

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Was it like an overall feel?

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Did it feel forced or desperate?

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Anything at all that made

you kind of squint your face?

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Note it.

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If it was your own work, go back and

think about ways to fix it, right?

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Were there other ways that

you could have said something?

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Was there other image choices that maybe

would have reflected what you were trying

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to accomplish in a more accurate way or

in a more uplifting way, or in something

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that actually felt like it was a little

bit closer to where your most recent buyer

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would actually be versus some, you know,

super far off kind of transformation.

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Transcribed Right?

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If it was someone else's work, then

use it as an example of what you don't

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want to bring into your business.

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Almost like an anti swipe file, you know?

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So that way, anytime you are making

copy, you know, you're making sales

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pages, you're making social media

posts, you're making anything, any sort

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of content, any sort of sales stuff,

then it's like, okay, I love these

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things, but I don't want these things.

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We don't want to accidentally

bring these into our business.

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Yeah.

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And you can do this exact same process.

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You can observe, you can analyze, and

you can act for things that you do like,

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the things that you do want to emulate

that do make you feel excited, that

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make you feel expansive for all of the

good feels that you want to bring into

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your business and your community, right?

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Cause as we observe and act more

and more things will change.

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And guess what?

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The high pressure tactics, all

those things that made you feel

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gross and like, I can't sell, I

can't put my message out there.

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I can't be out there.

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Like all of that stuff will no longer be

the recommended way to do things because

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they won't have worked anymore because

we won't have interacted with them.

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If we don't interact with these

things and the conversions won't

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be there, they will have tanked and

then something else will have tried.

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Right?

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That is that direct cause and effect.

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If something makes you feel gross, if

you're like, Oh, I feel desperately like I

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really need this product, but I don't like

the way they're talking to me, walk away.

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And then that tactic

won't be tried anymore.

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If you're like, Oh my gosh, I

can't believe that they're using

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this message to sell this thing.

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Oh, but I'm going to buy it

anyway because I really want it.

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Well, then they are going to

think that that message is the

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reason why somebody bought it.

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Right?

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Do you see that?

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It's the same thing in

our own business, right?

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Whenever we're doing those, those,

you know, post launch analysis,

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anytime that we're looking at our

conversion numbers, we're having to.

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match up our data any way that we can.

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Yeah.

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Because we don't know, you know, person

by person, exactly what happened for

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the most part, unless it really is

high touch and you can ask every single

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one of them, then, you know, it's

impossible to know, especially with, um,

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you know, any sort of the high volume

kind of things that are out there.

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So what do we do?

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Well, we look at our funnel data.

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We look at the things

that people clicked on.

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We looked at exactly which page, which

button, which form did they fill out?

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You know, at what timing, what was going

on in this, which post, which email?

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And then we, we assume then, that that

was the message that brought them in.

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So if you don't like the message,

don't let that one be the one that

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brings you in to someone's offer.

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Yeah?

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That works the same way

handed in for ourselves.

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as the sellers and as the buyers.

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That's how we can squash the

things that we don't like is

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by not allowing them to work.

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Right?

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Cause if you leave this kind of thing to

other people, then the changes that get

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made may not be the ones that you want.

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Right?

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And I think we've all seen that

in our own lives over and over

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again on, on many different levels.

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And this is the way that, that

you can have this, this choice.

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And again, this exact

same kind of process.

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I'm breaking this down for how to

use this in your online business.

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But it's the same kind of

thing that you can bring into

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other parts of the community.

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They can bring into other

parts of society as a whole.

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Of course, there are

other layers to this idea.

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And of course there's other examples,

but I want to leave you with something

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that's very tangible with this observe,

analyze, and act exercise today.

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And if you want to talk more about this,

please tell me, you know, if you want to

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talk about this idea or really anything

else, let me know, leave a comment or go

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to Tracie Patterson dot com slash AMA.

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And I would love to hear from

you until the next episode,

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be well and have some fun.

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