Bad investments can not only cause you to have PTSD when looking to invest again, but they can very well also tank your business. In today’s episode, I go over 5 investments to make in your business and WHEN to know it’s time to make them.

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Connect me on LinkedIn: (Lauren Loreto) & follow with me on Instagram: @shesbusyaf

 

Welcome back to another episode of She’s Busy AF – welcome to season three. Oh my gosh. So much change. We have a new year, new season. I just started work this past Monday, after maternity leave officially. It doesn’t even feel real – I still feel like I’m one foot in one foot out, because I’m still trying to nail down this nanny situation of being a working mom.

But I’m really excited, now that she’s down for a nap. So I’m just sitting here recording an episode, and it feels really nice! So today’s topic is one that is spinning off of my last episode. If you didn’t listen, basically there was a common theme from the three stories I shared of quitting your business due to bad investments being made. That being said, if I could help one person from making a bad investment that will ultimately cause them to quit their business, then that would mean a lot to me.

So that is the point of today’s episode. Again, to kick off season three, I really want to talk to you about four ways you can invest in your business, and when it’s time to do it so that you can avoid making really bad investments. My goal with this episode is to empower you to make the right decisions in what you should be investing in. All of these four different investments you can make will come with when to know you should be investing in them. So grab a notebook or, you know, your notes app, a piece of pen and paper, and listen up!

 

Sales Training

So number one is gonna be sales training. Sales training – why would you invest in sales training? Because you have to sell as a business owner, whether you are actively selling or not. You should be investing in sales training for yourself, or for your team because consumer behaviors are always changing.

So how do you know it’s time to invest in sales training? If you are a solopreneur and you are intimidated by sales, if you are the person in your business selling, and you feel intimidated by sales and it is holding your business back – you should invest in sales training. If you are getting ghosted by prospects, more often than not, there is a reason for that.

Maybe a sales consultant can come in, and help you figure out why that is and help you get back on track and closing more clients. You might be losing sales to competitors – this again comes down to the sales process and your conversations with these people. Get a sales consultant or a sales trainer in to help you figure that out.

You’re rolling out a new product or a service. This could be great because again, there’s a way to sell that and you may not be privy to that. You’ve onboarded new employees or contractors who will be selling, and you want them to have sales training but maybe you don’t have the time to train them up to speed on how you sell – then you want an outside sales consultant to come in and do that for you.

Lastly, you are ready to stop a relying on word of mouth or referrals and go after clients – you want a sales consultant and sales training can very much help with that. I hired someone to help me do exactly that and it has put me in a great place.

 

Systems and Automations

The next thing to consider investing in and when to know, to do it would be systems and automations. What do I mean by that? I mean, automating things in your business, spending money on software, spending money on someone to come in and tell you what software to help you set up that software. This can save you a lot of time, and we all know time is money.

So when to know, it’s time to invest in systems and automations in your business is when you are spending a crap ton of time on things that are non-billable within your business, and it’s starting to catch up. You’re starting to realize you’re having a hard time growing or scaling because you are spending so much time doing things that are non-billable – track your time to find out what this is. The next would be when you’re losing track of what you need to do. When you’re overwhelmed by processes and you don’t know where to start, that is also a good indicator you should be looking into systems and automations, because in a time-sense it is holding you back from moving forward in your business.

The third thing to invest in (these last two are probably my favorite) is marketing strategies. So obviously we all know what marketing is, and we all know that you need a marketing strategy in your business. You can go all willy-nilly and wing things if you want, but really having a strategy, a written strategy of some sort that you can reference & your team can reference – anyone you bring on can reference, is really important.

So when to know it’s time to invest in that, is when your current marketing strategies or the way that you are marketing your business, isn’t really working for you. It’s no longer working, and a way to know this is that your metrics, your marketing metrics specifically, may be on the decline. Side note – really important to track those metrics. You may also notice less sales or no sales from marketing efforts, maybe just word of mouth, and you’re putting time and effort into marketing and you’re not seeing a result from that. Might be time to switch up your strategies.

 

Marketing Strategies

Another way to tell is when you’re ready to attract new clients in other ways besides word of mouth, like I just mentioned. If you were solely relying on word of mouth and you wanna get clients in other ways, maybe it’s time to look at your marketing strategies and invest in that. Lastly, when you want to build sustainable strategies that bring long-term revenue to your business.

So I say this for a reason, but I feel like a lot of people will go into Instagram and just post and go into Facebook and just post. Well, here’s the thing about social media – the lifespan of a social post is very, very short. So it’s important to build strategies that are sustainable! To give you a hint and my opinion, experience and expertise, podcasting YouTubeing blogging – those three things are absolutely what can bring in “long-term sustainable” because they are things people can search for or stumble upon in a long period of time.

Google ranks these things, Google doesn’t really rank social media posts. They rank anything that has to do with SEO. So for that reason, it’s a really good idea to invest in sustainable strategies and have someone to come in and teach you how to do it. Don’t just start blogging. Don’t just start podcasting. You need a strategy for those things so that you are not wasting your time and money.

 

Team Growth

Okay, lastly is gonna be the growth of your team. Okay – so some indications that you probably need to spend the money and hire and spend this money the right way is when you’ve done the math and your business is making enough revenue that you can afford to hire a few people to expand and you actively want to do so that may look like you’re about to land a client. You don’t have the capacity, you need a team member, but you have the revenue to support that team member – great.

That could look like you just have enough revenue in your business right now, and you wanna bring on admin support – great. That’s something that can be taken off your plate so that you can spend time growing your client’s business and growing your business outside of doing like invoicing and emailing and billing and stuff like that. The next would be when you realize your at your max bandwidth in terms of energy, time, and where your team is as well. The reason why is cause we can’t be expected to do everything and then some. It’ll ultimately be more beneficial to your business if you or your team as an under exponential stress or exhaustion. All right. So I know I said four things, but I wanna throw in one more bonus one – surprise!

 

Business Coach

So this fun one is actually having a business coach. So the reason why I didn’t initially wanna include these in the first four, is because of this kind of like a left field investment and not one that I want businesses to take right away. It’s also why I’m putting it here at the end, because I know that having a business coach is not the answer to every problem you may have in business.

It is most certainly a “want” investment to be made, not a “need” investment to be made. So a want, not a need. You should not need a business coach to make X amount of revenue. You will end up sorely disappointed, and really mad about your investments. If you go in that way, because a business coach can’t do everything for you. So let’s talk about when you might be ready to hire a business coach.

This is when you want another set of eyes on the big picture of your business, or when you then want the accountability to pursue that big picture and someone to help you decide where your time, your energy and your resources are best spent. Again, business coaches shouldn’t be doing these things for you. They are guides, they are support, they are accountability.

So you need to be A) willing to put in the work, and B) know that this person’s going to, like I said, just be more of a guide than anything. They can absolutely provide ROI by guiding you in the right direction. But again, this should not be your first thought of an investment when you need to progress in areas of your business. The last thing would be when you have the revenue to support it. Again, this goes back to being a want, not a need.

If you are giving a business coach – let’s just call it like the whipped cream on top of your coffee, right? If you’re just giving them everything, and emptying your bank account on a monthly basis to pay this person or having to open a credit card to do so, it’s just not the right investment at this time. There are so many things you can do other than that. You can invest in strategies, invest in things that are implementation focused or that can, you know, statistically move the needle in your business.

That’s where you should put your time and money. So I know it’s hard to look at ways to spend money for your business, especially if you’ve had a few bad investments that have left that bad taste in your mouth. However please, please, please do not fall for the smoke mirrors, the instant results, the click gate traps that unfortunately have become a growing trend within the entrepreneurial community. I see it all the time.

 

Do Your Research

Do your due diligence – ask to see case studies, ask to know, ask to speak to clients, ask for references, because this is gonna give you the peace of mind that the investment you’re making is a sound one. Also just trust your gut at the end of the day, trust your gut. If your gut is saying, this is not an investment you should be making at this time, the amount of times I wish I listened to my gut, and didn’t – I’m telling you, man, your gut knows better than anyone.

But yeah, if someone’s promising instant results, run the other direction. What most people don’t realize when making investments, or just with business in general, is that it takes persistence and confidence to really achieve the results you want. So shameless plug, this is where I come in. So I offer two types of consulting services when it comes to working with me. I do brand intensives, and then long-term CMO services.

If you want more of a diy, give me the instructions and I’ll do it myself, in the realm of business sales and marketing, then my brand strategy intensives are definitely your go-to. These are customized uniquely to your business and your needs. This is perfect if you want more control with your business’ strategies and like implementing the strategies we come up with. If you’re more like “Lauren, I have million other things to do. I’m not sure if I can do it all,” then working with me as your remote CMO might be more your fit. So if you have a team who can help implement strategies or the ability to keep support on to do it for you, shoot me a message and let’s get started on bringing your business to the next level!

So you can shoot me a message on Instagram at Brand Good Time, or you can me Lauren@brandgoodtime.com. I don’t like making you have to fill out a form, just reach out we’ll chat. I will be honest with you. We can talk about if this is the right move for your business, custom marketing strategies. I also like to integrate a little bit of sales strategies, and obviously we look at big picture business strategies into your marketing strategies, because I believe they all go hand in hand and this is just what I’m really good at.

So with that being said, don’t be afraid to spend your money the right way, whether it is with marketing, whether it is with growing your team, whether it is with systems and automations, or whether it’s with the dang business coach, I don’t care do what you wanna do with your as long as it feels good to you. So I’m signing off now as your marketing BFF and business cheerleader, I’ll see you on the next episode.