181: Focus for online growth

181: Focus for online growth Let’s talk about focus… focusing our efforts on the right things and keeping the blinders on, that is! This conversation is about personal experience as well as experiences with past and present clients -- and no, I’m not calling you out... I am sharing the fact that this doesn't go away. We all have priorities; we all have goals. And I know that our driving force is student success, studio profitability and work life balance. It always is. We want to make sure our studio is doing what it needs to for ourselves, for our employees or contractors, for our patrons or students or clients. It is often difficult to make sure that we're spending our time and focusing on the right thing. Let’s talk about focus in a few areas: Being deliberate It’s really hard to focus our efforts on a task if we are not clear about the reason for doing so. Here’s an example: If you are working on growing your Instagram following and creating connections and engagement, but you don't know how that's going to increase your studio, get your students greater success and help with your work life balance, it’s going to be an absolute drain to pull out your phone and be present on Instagram. We need to understand why, why are we spending time on instagram! In this case, it is so that we have more awareness for our studio, so that people can become interested in what it is that we offer. Which inturn becomes sales conversations to bring in new students, student success and creating that studio that we are envisioning for ourselves. Keeping this vision front of mind, and being deliberate when on the platform is going to lead to success. When we say every single time I'm going on Instagram I'm doing that so that I can bring in new students to my studio and for my current students to see that I am having success and that I am visible and that my studio is growing and that they are part of a movement! What that also means is that when you are on Instagram, you are there with intention not scrolling and double tapping and then clicking on a hashtag and going down a rabbit hole… you're there with focus, you're there with a purpose! You know what you need to do Mastering a platform Let’s talk about mastering Instagram… as an example, but you can choose any platform you want for this. Once you’ve made your choice of Instagram, don't dabble on LinkedIn, or start a Facebook group, or start a youtube channel or get on Tiktok. Stay on instagram until it is doing what you need to do or until you determine that it is the wrong platform. It is so easy to have the idea of being everywhere… the misconception is that if I'm everywhere, people are obviously going to find me. But unfortunately, it actually means that your message is being diluted and you're going to be forced to split your effort across the platforms instead of putting all your effort into a single one. Staying focused on getting everything you can out of a social media platform before adding another one, that is really your top priority. Remember, you picked that platform to begin with because you believed it was where you could have the greatest impact, don't doubt your past self… know that you picked it and that it is going to serve you when you put the effort in. We don't have to stay on just one platform forever. Mastery takes time, mastery takes effort and it's going to be faster and easier to master something when we avoid distractions, right? Stick to your core offering Focus on delivering the most valuable product/program you can and don’t worry about creating offers that don’t stick to your core expertise and where you truly shine. Don’t go down the rabbit hole of creating more offers, more freebies, more products, more courses. Be the best at what you do and your audience will believe you. We want to avoid bloating ours offer and getting to a point where we're diluting our genius. We all want to say yes as often as possible, but it's really important to stay focused on your core instrument and the best teaching that you can possibly do. It's better to say no to something that doesn’t align with your core offer and provide a quality referral instead of diluting yourself. Blind yourself to your competition Competition is a driver for innovation. But if you spend too much time looking at what other teachers or coaches are doing, you're not spending your time growing your audience, growing your authority and being the best that you can be for your current and future students. Competition is really important, it's important to see what other people are doing, but limit the competition voyeurism. It doesn't help you and it doesn't help the competitor and it definitely doesn't help your students and your studio. We want to make sure that we are putting out the best product all the time. And it doesn't matter what someone else is doing because they have their own driving forces and those are unique from yours. Keeping your blinders on and staying focused on what you need to deliver is going to help you find the success you seek faster and with far less stress! If you stay focused on your students and your studio and your goals, which you know, we've talked about throughout this entire episode, it is going to be far easier to attract the right students. It doesn't matter what your competitors are broadcasting, they have different goals and metrics from you. When you focus on being the best that you are and that you can be, you're going to just reap the benefits of that effort. My goal on the podcast is always to provide you with inspiration, motivation and a pathway forward, I would say right now, it might be worth writing down a few of the guiding principles, a few of the underlying themes and reasons why your business exists and why you want to expand online and keep those at the forefront of your mind, keep those visibly in front of you when you sit down to work, focus on what you can control, focus on where you spend your time and where you invest, your energy. Have you booked your free call with me yet? http://callwithjaime.com is where you do it :) It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.