Leah Gervais: 

Hi, you guys, I am Leah. This is the weekly live stream of your biggest vision show all about supporting you in reaching your biggest vision for your life. I’m so excited to be here with you guys today. It’s an extra special day. Today is my last day as a 26 year old. I am turning 27 tomorrow. And so this episode is going to be all about how I built a six-figure business at age 26. It was a goal that I wasn’t sure if I could reach and I’m very proud to have done so, so I wanted to come share what I thought were the six biggest takeaways and reasons. And I’m really talking about how I hit six figures at 26 years old, the six biggest things. Thank you guys. So much tradition. You happy birthday. They’re so sweet. And I really want you guys to answer any questions that you got or ask any questions you have about six figures about quitting my job, you know, I will say that I did this last year.

About half of it. I was still in a nine to five jobs. So it wasn’t until the last six months when I was able to do this all on my own and still I was able to hit those six figures. So I’m really happy to answer any questions around, um, the, you know, whatever questions you have around what got me here, because I know that it was not the easiest path. It was definitely took a lot of hard work. And so I just want to come share with you what I thought of copy here. And before we dive into these six biggest supporters, I also want to share with you guys that I’m doing a very special birthday sale, all about sales, kind of a tongue twister. But when I was making this list, I was really thinking about how critical it was for me to learn about selling and learn about sales and learn about, um, you know, why people buy from me, why they, don’t, why I should be selling when I should be selling.

It can feel very counterintuitive at first, if you’ve never really sold anything before or done a sales call or put something on sale or price something. So, um, you know, I really had to learn a lot and I want to share that with you guys as well. 

So what this sale is, is I’m doing a masterclass about sales tomorrow only for those that are part of this. And this is going to dive deep. What are the best tips I have learned for your sales pages, your sales calls, converting people to sales. When you should know, if you should be selling to someone when you shouldn’t, how to stay in integrity when you’re selling, um, how to actually figure out your pricing, how to make sure that you’re offering things at the right price, how to get to your income goal. So it’s everything about sales and this class is going to be all about that tomorrow.

And then in addition to that, you get a free half hour calling is part of the bundle. So it’s not totally free, but it’s only $127 because it’s my 27th birthday. And usually a one-on-one call with me starts at 750. So it for 127 is a huge discount. It’s going to be really exciting. And during that one-on-one time together, we’re just going to dive deep into your sales and your income goals and what you’re selling and make sure that you are doing as much as you can for yourself to get you there. 

So if you’re interested in that, I’ll go ahead and put the link below this on Facebook and on Instagram, it’s the link in my bio. There are a limited amount of spots available. So if you’re excited about that, then I highly recommend, um, jumping on that and getting your spot. You immediately, once you sign up, you’ll get the link to this class tomorrow. You’ll also get a link to book the, uh, the spot when we have our one-on-one call, like right away. So we can do this as soon as this week, if that is what is exciting to you. So with that, um, I’m going to go ahead and dive into the six ways I hit six figures at 26, lots of sixes years old. Let me take a sip of water really quick, cause this is going to be a doozy.

Critical step number one in hitting six figures was that I had to definitely shift my priorities and the way I viewed myself as an entrepreneur and specifically what I mean by the shift, the shift was going from a doer to a planner. So I am a doer by nature. I like to take action. I’m not one of those people that, you know, procrastinates. Um, and I very much like getting things done. I like leave it in product productivity mode, productivity mode, whatever it is. And I think that at the beginning, that definitely helped me because you do have to like move so quickly and you have to turn out so much content and it does take a lot of legwork, but I had to get to a place where I realized that I was just doing so many things without actually creating things or without actually analyzing things or without actually looking big picture at how I was being strategic.

And I think it’s really common for people that are in nine to five, as well as people that are kind of action takers by nature to do a lot, to work a lot, to check out their, to do lists a lot. You know what I mean? And I loved doing that at first, but I realized that just by doing things, I was just doing the same things that I pretty much had always done. And yes, that did get me to a certain income place. 

Yes, that did get me pretty far, but it was going to keep me there unless I started turning more into a planner, a visionary, a, you know, looking big picture about how I was spending my time, how I was making sure I was getting the critical things done and how I could maybe get some things off my plate. 

So the shift came, I would say, when I started doing this, it was when I started doing five, five figures a month, you know, making over $10,000 a month. And I just remember, I kept track of my time for a little while, uh, for like a couple of days what I did all the time. And I categorize it between like resting, um, like resting and exercising time with friends and family working planning. And it made me realize that I spent like 90% of my time working, not enough with friends and family and definitely not enough planning. So I realized that what I needed to do, I hope this still works on Instagram.

So my point was that I had to shift into more planning. So really make, you know, look at your calendar and think how much time am I planning out my days? How much time am I planning out my goals? How many times a week am I making sure that everything I have for my monthly goals or my quarterly goals or whatever we work on your goals are actually being checked off the to-do list because otherwise life gets in the way things get in the way you may get to a point where, you know, you are working on things that get you to a certain income level, but if you don’t start focusing more on planning, then you’re going to stay at that income level. So that was shift number one, going from a doer to a planner spending actually a obnoxious amount of time planning now, not, I mean, not obnoxious, but it makes me feel really guilty.

Sometimes I’ll be like, Oh, I need to answer emails or I need to be doing this and that. And the other thing, and you know, I shouldn’t be planning when I have all this to do on my to-do list, but it is more way more important. So that was a huge revelation for me. The second thing that I was completely critical for me to get to six figures before 27 was make decisions quickly. I cannot say this enough, I talk about it all the time. You guys are on my newsletter. You know that my word of 2018 was decisions. You have to get quick at making decisions. A human only has so much capacity a day to make decisions. And so if you are staying in indecision are wasting time and energy. Like I know that that may sound a little bit harsh because you want to consider things and you want to be careful. And I get that, but you are going to move much slower.

If you don’t keep deciding things very quickly every day to get you toward where you want to be. So if you know that you need to hire a mentor or hire someone or take an e-course or whatever, instead of sitting around for a week, deciding whether or not you can afford it and looking at your bank account and budgeting how you’re going to eat cheaper lunches or whatever you need to just decide, you’re going to do it, decide that you’re going to figure out how to make the money back, join it, learn what you need to do and watch your income growth so much quicker. 

These phases of indecision are not healthy for any of us in any place. You know, I’m planning my wedding right now. And I think that one of the reasons it’s so stressful and exhausting isn’t just because of, you know, maybe the normal reasons you would think that I think the reason that wedding planning is so hard for me is because you have to make so many decisions, so many little decisions, things that you don’t care about, you know, things like the color of invitations or what the, um, escort cards are gonna look like, like things that you don’t think should be a big deal, but they end up having to be.

So, um, the point is it ends up being really exhausting because you don’t have the capacity to make that many decisions. So just like with everything, I really try to make decisions very quickly so that I can go onto the next thing. Staying in indecision is the worst, worst thing you can do at any point in your life. I cannot reiterate it enough because it was a huge shift for me. I didn’t use to be, um, this quick I’m making decisions. And so if you need to get better at that, if you feel like you are someone who goes back and forth for a long time, uh, or who just, you know, has to ask the opinions of others, for things, what you can do is just try to start practicing, to make really quick decisions throughout the day. What am I going to need today?

I’m going to the gym right now. Um, you know, this is what I’m wearing. Like don’t think about it too much. Don’t overanalyze anything. Just keep deciding and keep moving. Start with little decisions, start getting that quick reflex. You’ll get to know your intuition better, you’’ll follow your gut more. And then when you do have to make big decisions, big business decisions, big decisions towards your vision, you can do it much quicker so that you were moving much quicker. All of this fear around making a wrong decision. I know almost no decision can’t be undone. If you end up deciding something and it wasn’t the right choice, or you’re unhappy, make another decision to get you out of it. But that is so much better. I don’t know why this keeps not working on Instagram.

That is so much better. It is so much better. Or to make quick decisions and move on and then have to make a bad decision later because you’ll learn something in the process. Whereas if you’re just saying it in decision, you’re going to go crazy in your head about all the possibilities of two different things, you know, pros and cons list, blah, blah, blah. Like it can be okay for a little while. And it’s nice to be thoughtful, but not if it’s going to cost you the time and energy you need to be putting toward making things happen. And another point I want to make here is I hit six, eight years because I decided I was going to do it. And I didn’t let anything stand in my way. And if I needed to grow my business, if I needed to learn something new, if I need to sell something bigger, I needed to get better at selling.

If I needed to get more education within myself so I could raise my prices higher. I didn’t care. I had decided that it was going to happen. And therefore it did. I cannot reiterate enough how important it is to not yo-yo diet with your goals, you know, and with, especially with your business. And like, oftentimes I’m being a little harsh right now. I’m not trying to be cold. I know that this isn’t the easiest thing, but I care out, you know, you hitting your goals. And I just want to be honest about what helped me. Um, but a lot of times clients will come to me and they’ll sort of say, like, I didn’t get a lot done this week because work was really crazy. Or I was family was in town or, you know, they have these excuses around why they weren’t able to actually meet their goal or something like that.

And I get that like gets in the way I don’t need all my goals all the time either, but you really do need to ask yourself, you know, are you treating your business, your goals, whatever you’re working toward, like you’re in high school. And you know, you’re coming to like me as the teacher and saying that you didn’t have time to do your homework and can you be excused? This is not high school. This is your life. You did not get to like go all in some of the time. And then not some of the other time unexpected, the all and results have to be consistent. Um, so making decisions, sticking with them no longer entertaining the possibility of them not happening hugely important. Um, okay. Factor number three free of hitting six figures was understanding sales. Like I just talked about, I went into this.

I definitely will admit that when I started out sales were not all that natural to me. I had never sold to anyone before. Um, and it was, I was nervous. I had all these things holding me back. I used to fear that if I, if someone bought something from me, then that I meant that I was taking money from them. Maybe they wouldn’t have enough, not true. Right. Um, and afraid that I would come off salesy. 

I was afraid of what people would think of me. I had lots of different fears around that. And those, there was a couple of different reasons. Number one, I didn’t understand. I just didn’t understand sales. I didn’t understand that selling is not supposed to be something you do to someone it’s also not about you actually, you know, you have to get really clear on what it is that you can offer.

Don’t put pressure on yourself to offer like the most perfect thing in the world or groundbreaking thing. You don’t need to do that, but just have confidence in whatever you, whatever problem you can fix, no matter how small and just own that. And when you talk to someone and if they have that problem, you telling them that you can help them solve. It is not really about a sale transaction. That’s about helping. And that is, I guess it is a transaction because you offer a solution and they give you money in return. But it’s not about, for me, it has never been about what I say on the calls, or like, if I’m going to say the right thing or blah, blah, blah, you know, and I, I did for a little while, go down a rabbit hole of trying to like, look into discovery, call psychology.

And what’s the right thing to say and what the right copy is. And for some people that might be helpful, but what it really, what really changed for me was just understanding how I can make it as much about my clients and customers as possible and really owning that if I can help them, then I should. And if I can’t, then I shouldn’t because I don’t want to be selling something to someone that isn’t going to be helpful for them. So it’s really not that complicated, but it was completely critical for me to take the time and understand it, do some, some learnings about it. Um, I’ve taken classes on it and that is exactly what I’m shaping up my sales bundle to be. So if you are interested in learning more about sales and understanding how this works for you, even if you’re a new business, then I definitely would love to see you in our master class next or tomorrow.

Um, as well as do my one-on-one sales deep dive with you, you can sign up for that in the comments of this on Facebook or on Instagram, you can go to the link in my bio after this video, and you can grab one of those spots there, but learn how to sell, learn how sales work and learn how they work in your business. 

Okay. The next thing that I did to get to six figures, which was completely essential, was to charge what I was worth. Um, and I think a lot of times, especially women who struggled to understand how to value themselves, uh, and understand, or they get nervous about charging a lot or, you know, even, even what they’re worth. Um, and I think there’s lots of theories for why this is, I’m not really interested in what, you know, why I think it is that the truth is it’s just an often it’s something that often happens.

Um, but, and so I had to, you know, not let that happen to myself. I had to really understand that I had goals. I had, uh, something to offer, and this is what I was going to charge for it. And I think what was a big off, off for me was realizing that when I undercharged myself or when I gave someone a sale, because I didn’t think that they could afford it, or I gave someone a discount or anything like that, um, that was doing so much more harm than good. You know, I thought I was trying to help someone out, but really I was kind of treating them like children, like as if they couldn’t, you know, fund what they needed to do on their own. Um, and it also was just de-valuing things for all other women and all other entrepreneurs, because if one of us starts, you know, cheapening things or basically, um, says, it’s okay to charge less than what something is worth, then it’s really hard for anyone else to do the same thing.

Uh, and that helps no one. So charging what you’re worth is important for your sales goals. It’s also important for you to respect the people that buy from you and have to believe that they can hold their own. They don’t need a handout. This is not a charity and not treating them as such, so charge what you’re worth and be firm about it. 

Okay. Takeaway number five is focus on your goal. So it sounds a little bit obvious, but hear me out. Um, I see people suffer with shiny object syndrome, a ton, and I used to do it too. I like would take every webinar or sign up for any class or like download every opt-in I code, just because I kept thinking that someone else had an answer that I needed, that I was looking for and shiny object syndrome hurts us a lot more than we might think.

It can really keep you in a place of making you believe on a subconscious level that you don’t have, that you’re not good enough to reach your goal right now. And that is a damaging belief that will, that will stop you from doing way more than you will realize. Um, and shiny object syndrome. You know, it’s, it’s, you have to be focused when you’re trying to hit a big goal. You cannot be doing a bunch of different things. Okay. You need to be doing the things that are actually going to move the needle for you, um, in my, well, like you need to go all in on them. And so my motto for shiny object syndrome is to become like your own shiny object, be so shiny to yourself that you can’t help, but be, you know, you can’t help, but look at yourself and what you’re doing and you can’t help, but be distracted by your own glow.

But if you are one of those people that scrolls through social media or Pinterest or anything else like that, and signs up from everything that you see, because you think that they all have, um, something that you don’t, it’s really, it’s damaging you on a subconscious level more than you might realize. And yeah, my new motto things ain’t everybody like that. 

My new motto is be so shiny that you’re your own shiny object. Okay. The final takeaway that I needed to do to hit this goal is the most important by far. And it is just to dream bigger, excuse my language, but I’m really passive, passionate about this. And so I want you guys, when you get off this or stop listening to it, to go look at your goals or your vision board or whatever. And if you are, have a goal to make a thousand dollars this month add a zero to the end of it.

If you have a house you want to move into, have some luxury that you want to put into it. If you have a trip you want to go on, you know, buy the plane tickets this this week, or whatever, just demand the best for your own life. Alice is going to give you what you want. You need to put yourself constantly to think that you might be able to have something bigger and better than what you’re experiencing now. And I still do this all the time. It’s not like you get to a goal. And you’re like, okay, now that I pushed myself, I have arrived. Uh, it never really ends, but, you know, I wanted to hit, I thought growing up that if I had a six figure salary by age 30 or so, then that would be pretty good. And I’m really grateful that I was able to do it four years beforehand, but it was only because I questioned what I had originally thought was possible for myself and what I thought I deserved and kept pushing myself to think bigger and bigger and bigger.

Um, you know, I’ve always been a big dreamer, but really putting it into action as a whole nother thing. And I think that that’s where a lot of people get caught up is they think that things will happen in the future, or they’re not even sure how to start making something happen now. And you know, there can be all these reasons why you might not be going for something that you really want. So you have to think every single day, how can I demand more for my life? How can I make this more of a masterpiece? How can I have the grandest most incredible life that I could ever imagine? Because this is your one shot. Okay. Just to summarize the sick six crucial things that got me to six figures at 26, lots of sixes are number one, become more of a planner than a doer strategize, more, do less.

Number two, make decisions quickly and be consistent. Number three, understand how to sell, understand what makes people buy, understanding when you should be selling. And when you shouldn’t just understand sales, number four, charge what you’re worth and don’t discount your worth. Number five, focus on one goal at a time and get rid of shiny object syndrome and number six, dream bigger. I hope you guys found this helpful. Let me see if there are any questions about six figures. So on Instagram, on Facebook, if anyone has any questions, let me know happy Monday to you too, Don. Thanks so much. And I’m so glad that you liked that takeaway. Thank you for the birthday wishes. Thank you, Landry for the birthday wishes. Okay. Um, what tips can you share about your first few months? Self-employed biggest learnings and takeaway? Great question in week. I think it’ll actually be six months.

So I’m doing a whole podcast episode on that I think next week or the week after, but in the next two weeks about everything that I learned doing. So, um, and how I kind of quit. So if you guys have any questions about the transition or making the leap, please let me know. So I can include it in that, but right off the top of my head, my biggest takeaways are, you know, a lot of what I talked about here today, keep making decisions quickly, keep focusing, keep planning and just really stand strong in the decision that you’ve made to be. Self-employed. You know, I think a lot of times people have a fear of having to go back to a nine to five job and that’s never even crossed my mind because it’s just not an option. I’ve just decided that this is the path I want and that’s the end of the sentence.

So, uh, it’s been the best six months of my life. You know, entrepreneurship is definitely for me. I don’t think it’s for everyone and that’s okay. It is really challenging. And there are a lot of things that would stop someone from liking it. I work almost every day. You know, you don’t have a nine to five schedule. There is no such thing as coming home and being able to turn off. Um, and it’s really hard to take things, not to take things personally, as an entrepreneur, you know, and separate you from your business. If like someone has a judgment about the place where you work, it’s not a huge deal, uh, in the end because it’s your, it’s like the business, but when it’s your business and people have opinions or they, you know, have something that they think about it or want to say, or something like that, not taking it personally and realizing that it’s not about you, it’s about your business.

That is one of the challenges just because when you’re an entrepreneur, your business, it does feel so close to you overall. I just think that having routines is really helpful working for yourself. You know, it’s still get up at four 30, even though I don’t technically have to, because I don’t have a job to go, um, have a routine. Don’t get distracted, stay focused, stay grateful, enjoy every minute because self-employed is a really great gift and a really big adventure. 

All right, you guys, those are my takeaways. I hope you guys enjoyed this. If you have any questions, let me know. Um, we will be sharing this, the whole transcript of this on my podcast tomorrow morning. So you can just go to my website and it’ll be there. Uh, thanks for your question. And if you guys ever want to ask anything else, just put your questions below this video, or email Contact@LeahGervais.com, I would love to talk to you, but I hope you have a great, great day. Thank you guys for tuning in and here is to your biggest vision to keep your vision alive. 

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