BONUS EPISODE: I QUIT MY JOB!

Hello, hello, this is Jacqueline Twillie. And you're listening to power banking the podcast for women who work in male-dominated Industries today is a very special episode of the podcast because we are celebrating three years of being in business full-time. So for those of you who don't know my story, I'll get to share that with you. I am the host of the podcast Jacqueline's. Lee, I'm the best selling author of navigating the career jungle a guide for young professionals and I'm the founder and president of [company] Consultants which is based in Dallas, Texas, I started in this field.

Professional development when I was living in Atlanta and so my journey has been unique, it's been exciting. But when I left my full-time position at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia, I I was so excited, you know, I felt like I had it all together and I took a step and I just went out there. Now, of course I had a plan and I'm going to share that with you, but in today's episode, I'm going to share with you the 10 things that I've learned after being in business full-time, for three years. As I mentioned earlier, when I started out, I definitely had a plan. I definitely had invested in the business and I was already working the business for about two years before.

Or I took this step, so a lot of planning went into it. So I don't want you to think that. I woke up one day and I said, you know what? I'm out of here chunk. The deuce has, and I kept it moving.

That is not how it went. So this is how my story goes once. I left the CDC, I already had contracts lined up with several clients. So these were International clients as well as National clients for my business to business side. I also had a Full set of individual clients meeting b2c Hyatts people that I was coaching to help them achieve their career results.

I want to share with you some of the highlights over the past few years of people that I work with. I've worked with people who went from being underemployed, meaning they had a skill and talent level, the education, the experience to be in a higher position, but they could not unlock themselves and get unstuck. To get into a position, that would one, pay them what they were worth but to fulfill them in a way where they had challenges and that they were excited. So one person that I worked with, she went from being underemployed to being a regional manager of an international brand. Absolutely, loving her role traveling, very often, all of the things that she wanted to do and she and I worked together for a year, right?

When she experienced her shift. And left a company. She had been at for seven years and moved into her dream job. Another highlight is, I work with worked with a young lady who went from a job that she was excited about and fulfilled but she wanted to switch Industries and in her role she got a lot of opportunity to learn new things and to doing new things. But she just wanted something completely left field and her company saw that she was a top talent and they wanted to encourage her to do.

More. But they didn't want her to do. Something completely left. Well, what we did was we put a plan of action in place she worked her plan. She was able to transition to a new company in the role that she wanted.

And on top of all of that not having experience in the role that she was transitioning to. She got a thirty thousand dollar increase. Another story is young lady who attended one of my seminars. She took the advice from the seminar. She put it into action, she went to her Her supervisor at her current company and she negotiated to double her salary.

So y'all every time I get one of these messages, I pretty much cry out of excitement because it's just so fulfilling to realize when you help somebody get into a dream job, a thirty thousand dollar, increase, a double, the income increase it really changes people's lives. And I think that's the most gratifying part of my work. Now, my personal mission is to eliminate the Into wage Gap. And I started [company] with the idea of helping more women get into leadership roles and thrive in those roles so that they can also mately earn more and help more women to earn more by hiring them, bringing them up in the ranks.

And so we know when organizations are diverse, it increases their bottom line and that's what [company]. Does, we train women to elevate their leadership experiences so that they can be as effective and Fishin In Those roles to continue to grow and earn more. So, my entrepreneurial journey and summary. It's been a joy. I've had challenges along the way and that's what I'm going to get into with my 10 tips.

So, first of all, I want to thank you, thank you to everyone that I work with, whether you are a corporation or you are an individual, you all are very special to me. I would not be here today. If it were not for you, if it weren't for you, trusting, me to train. You to give you the coaching advice to work on the resumes to help you with your negotiation strategy. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. The second thing is y'all, there is power and having a plan, a lot of people think they can come up with an idea in their head and it stays there. It's just an idea in their head and they don't ever put it pen to paper or type it out. And I will tell you from direct experience by having in a clear plan, you might have to adjust and you might have to Pivot from time to time.

But having that plan in place helps you to stay focused, especially when there are different things going on different challenges that you may face. So, Never underestimate the power of having a plan. If you want to start a business, I would encourage you to find a template of a business plan and start there. I know several very successful entrepreneurs who didn't have a plan, but I will be honest with you and tell you. Those people are rare.

The people who experienced success and continued success year, after year, that didn't start with a plan. They now have a plan. They develop a strategy. So my advice to someone starting out would be to get a business plan, get a template, it's not all going to be perfect. You it's not a right or wrong.

You're going to try things, you're going to switch things, you're gonna change as you go along the way, especially as you learn. But you got to start with something. If you don't know where you're going you're just going to keep wondering if you might hop on opportunities that are great for the short term but they're not great for the long term. So there is definitely power in a plan. An number three nurture, your relationships.

And when I say nurture relationships, yes this is networking, but it's not going to events and swap in business cards. It's about building mutually beneficial relationships, that are long-term, so whether it's touching base with someone, maybe once, or twice a year, or just giving them a phone call, or when you're in the same city as them, taking them to lunch or dinner, you have to really be invested. And people and, you know, I know some people say, I'm not a people person, but in life, people do business with people. They like and so some of the relationships that I've nurtured over the years, I've traveled to different states just to have lunch or coffee with someone, and then I fly back home the same day.

All right? Be in town for a few days and I would meet with several people, but there is power and being face-to-face with someone and just talking to them, not even asking for For anything. Are they needing anything from you? It's just getting to know that person and I will tell you, you know, a lot of business has been done as a result of me, just being me and getting to know people. I worked with a young lady, a few years ago and she told me she wanted me to coach her in Niger and networking and her problem with networking issues.

She said every time I leave an event, I have friends but I don't have a bit. So she would leave the events and say, you know, I don't have any business contracts but I have friends and I'm doing it all wrong. I need to be leaving with business deals, my boss expects me to be networking for business. And when I told her, she was doing the right thing, you want to leave with people, getting to know who you are and you getting to know them. She was like well I'm going to lose my job because I got to bring in sales.

And so I remember just telling her to calm down over time Would develop those relationships and they would lead to business but she called me a year and a half later and she was still at the same company. She did not get fired for not having immediate sales right after a networking event. But she said those relationships that she developed when she was going out. And she thought she was not leaving with business still she was leaving work, friends. That's turned into more business for her than she could have ever imagined and that I share that story with you to underscore the importance Of nurturing your relationships and just being genuine you know, not asking people for anything and not expecting anything from them.

But just over time, continuing to develop those relationships number for invest in the business. j. Walker about two years ago and the book on her autobiography. Y'all it's long. It's several hundred pages.

I normally read. 200 Page book and a couple of days. This book was so thick. It took me several days. But one of the things that I learned from her story, and I'm glad I learned it my first year into the business, is that what she understood was?

The power of investing in her business? Every time she would make money, she would turn around and put it back into the business and because I learned that principal from her story, I was able to do the same thing. Thing. So, whether it was investing in resources, our equipment, marketing materials, digital tools are even a business coach, I learned how to take that money and put it back into the business and time and time. Again, it has come out to just be a huge benefit to me in more ways than I could have imagined.

And so understanding that you have to reinvest in the business, in order for the business to grow is very keen along the same lines. This, when I started the business, when I was still working full-time, I would take my entire paycheck sometimes and I would buy different tools are invest in software so that I could be prepared to run the business. And so, when I started the business, I didn't have to come well, when I started full-time, because I was already operating, but when I started full-time, I didn't have to start shelling out the money I saved because as I was gearing up to leave my job, I had Properly invested in all the equipment and resources that I knew, I would need a front.

So it is so, so important to invest in the business, one of the greatest things I have done that I've seen the rewards of the fifth thing is, I continue to learn. I am an expert in my field of negotiation, as well as women's leadership development. And the only way I can stay an expert is if I continue to invest in learning. So whether that's a In our book a podcast, reading articles going to conferences paying for additional certifications, which goes back to investing in the business, but I continue to learn. I can continue to be a ferocious reader.

I read maybe one book a week on a good week. I can get into books. Even when I'm traveling y'all, I'm still learning. I listen to audio books. Listen to podcast, when I'm waiting in line to clear, TSA I have my earbuds in and I'm listening.

So I'm maximizing every moment of my time when I'm traveling to meetings and I'm in the car, I'm listening to either a podcast or a book so you know why I have a lot of time where I'm in meetings and I can't be learning the time that I am free where I'm working out or I'm preparing a meal. I am still consuming information so that I can continue to think about how to be strategic as a business owner. But also how to Serve my clients in the best. Way number 6 is learning how to scale, so when I first started the business, I was not thinking about, how am I going to grow to the next level? I was thinking about, how do I get this rolling and be consistent.

And so, learning how to skill was really investing. In a coach who could show me the blueprint who's been there and done that and say if you want to grow this business and take it to the next level? These are the things that you're going to have to do. And so those things for me were challenging because I hadn't done them before. It was a lot of as you were learning how to ride a bicycle.

If you think back to when you learn how to ride a bicycle, or if you have kids in your life, when they learned how to ride a bicycle, you fall off, sometimes she scraped your knees, maybe elbows, but you get back on and you keep going. And so because of that having that mindset of I just got a grit and get through it. I Really learn how to take the business to the next level. And so as you will see, over the next couple of months and the next 18 months, really, you'll see some significant growth in [company] and that's because of the advice and wisdom of the coach, who's helping me to scale this business three years in to make it even greater than what it was when I first envisioned it and so number seven, whoo.

All right, taking care of. Of myself, I read a quote once and it said an entrepreneur is the only person who will quit a job working 40 hours a week to work, 80 hours a week and it's true, you will work really, really hard building and starting a business. And for me, I wasn't listening to my body and I got to a point where I just got sick. I just wasn't eating, right? I wasn't drinking enough water.

I wasn't working out and Myself for a week. Not being able to really do anything because I was just wiped out. And so that was a true wake-up call for me to remember that if I'm not, well, I can't grow the business. So I have to take care of me first, really, this probably should have been number one on the list instead of number 7, but investing in self care, is important. So I work out several times a day, not the days when it's 110 degrees in Texas, but if I'm not, outrunning, I will at least do some yoga at the house or first thing in the morning before the sun comes up when it's a little bit, cool.

So and just drinking a ton of alkaline water and eating fruits and veggies. Staying away from fast foods, and processed foods. That's been a huge, huge Catalyst, and helping me to keep going especially when I travel a lot and I'm on airplanes and you know the different things that you come in contact with being in a large public space. So, Note to all of you, take care of yourself. Number 8, consistency is key.

When I first left my job, I asked my mom who have been in business for 20 years. What's the one piece of advice you would give me and she said being in business for 20 years I will tell you what I've seen. Is that consistency matters. The people who are consistent, they're still around the people who weren't consistent. You see them, then they go away.

Then you see him again, you wonder, hey, what happened to that person and then eventually you don't see them anymore, you know, their business because they're not consistent, they kind of Fade Out of memory and so I have learned to be consistent. And what I do, not only with my clients, but with my actions with putting my business out there, with being in front of people, with traveling was speaking. So, consistency is really one of those things where it just takes discipline even when I was starting out, And I would do videos on YouTube. Every Wednesday, I would do them live and sometimes I would only have five or ten people watching live.

But over time, I continue to grow that and now that I don't do that every day. I now have a large category of large catalog of videos on YouTube, so it definitely pays off and I still pop in and do some videos on there. But consistency, definitely helped get a lot of momentum for the business for me. Number nine, step outside of the comfort zone. True growth happens when you step out of the comfort zone.

Now, when I started my first year, everything was outside of the comfort zone, but I had adrenal inand excitement, so it was a different type of comfort like, stepping out of the comfort zone. It was that optimistic rose-colored glasses, I can do anything. The second year after I had been bruised a couple of times. I found myself staying more In the comfort zone because inside of that comfort zone is where I was able to say. Okay you know I know how to do this well and it's working so I'm not going to try anything else.

But probably within somewhere I would say right around 26 months into it, I started stepping out of that comfort zone again and that's when I started experiencing even more success greater rewards. You know without a risk, there is no reward. So you got to put yourself out there. So stepping out of that comfort zone and consistently being self-aware to understand when me and my team are in a mode where we're just coasting, we need to shake it up. We need to go on a retreat.

Will bring in some type of activity where we will continue to hold each other's feet to the fire so that we can grow. And so that leads me into number 10, focus on the end goal. It's Very easy to get distracted by what other people are doing by the next shiny object by seeing different Trends, and you can get caught up in the hype and that part of getting caught in the hype can have you sticking inside of your comfort zone. So when you focus on the end, goal going back to number. What what number said, nurturing relationships number three, number three, nurturing relationships and focusing on the end, goal is really important.

Because you have to surround yourself with the right set of people in business. Jim Rohn says, you are the sum of The Five People. You spend the most time with So think about that, you are the, some of the Five People You spend the most time with. So who are you spending your time with? And what are they doing?

And when you are in a circle where everyone is driven and everyone is going iron, sharpens iron. And so, with iron sharpening iron, one of the great things about that is you're able to really expand and push yourself out of your comfort zone. I also, I don't know who said this, but I know there's a quote that says if you're the smartest person in the room you are in the wrong room. And so I've learned over the years to continuously put myself in circles, where I am not the smartest person in the room. I still have a great value to contribute, but that is help my business grow as well.

And hiring contractors, who know more than me and certain areas, that's been a huge Catalyst for the business. So, I just wanted to share with you, as I celebrate three years in business. Whoa, some of the things I've learned and I hope that you can learn something from these nuggets and apply it to your business and your life as well. And like I said, earlier, within the next 18 months, you're going to see [company]. Doing some new things that are quite Exciting and I again want to go back to my number one thing saying, thank you.

Thank you, thank you for being clients, for being supporters for bringing friends of the business, and the things that I have done because I could not have done it without you. I truly believe that no one achieves success alone, and I would not be where I am, if it were not for you all. So as I continue to work with people, in a coaching capacity in a training capacity, I want to, you know, say I'm looking forward to the next chapter. I'm looking forward to what the next year will bring. I'm looking forward to servicing you and serving you.

As I help you reach your goals and elevate your Brands. And so let's keep doing it. Until next time, y'all keep emulating excellence and eliminating excuses.