Rebuilding My Creator Business: Updates and Lessons From the Last 60 Days

[00:05] creator business. Not my content, not my niche, not my mission, but the way my business runs behind the scenes. This is something that I shared in a recent YouTube video, but in case you haven't seen that video, basically what I shared

[00:18] was I noticed my business revenue was going backwards for the first time ever. My expenses were higher than they've ever been, and I was the bottleneck of my business. My team was never able to move forward because tasks were waiting

[00:31] on me or they needed to get approval from me on things. So, I created a game plan to determine what is it going to take to fix my business, clean it up a bit, and finally have it running and automated so that I could finally hit a

[00:45] seven-figure business year. That's what you missed in the last video, but in update. I want to share with you what's been going on behind the scenes so far, maybe stalled a little bit, what's working, what's not, and what I'm

[01:01] learning about what it means to go from being a content creator to stepping into like a CEO position. As always, timestamps are below. Use them if you need them, and let's jump in. Starting with a quick recap or status update. I

[01:16] goals that I had talked about in our last video, and I'll give you a status update of each of those first. When it comes to funnels, my goal is to get over 12,000 qualified leads. I feel like we're doing a good job with leads right

[01:31] now. We just switched systems, so pulling numbers for that didn't happen specific numbers on our next video. And this kind of leads me to like funnels overall. My goal is to increase our funnel conversion to 5%, which I think

[01:44] is like huge. Even like 3% would be awesome. This is one that I've been talking about since like last October, and unfortunately, we have not made the progress that I had hoped we would. We're just finalizing our first three

[01:57] by the end of this month. So, I'm extremely confident with the people we have on this now, and I'm excited to continue to build these out because I the progress that I initially thought we would timeline-wise, I feel like now we

[02:11] have the right people and the right traction going in the right direction. And so, it's like, "Okay, the snowball effect is starting." And I'm excited to funnels we are finalizing are the platform-specific funnels, so creators

[02:24] who are interested in Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Those are the first three we're going to fine-tune, and then we'll work on the other core funnels after that. Our next goal was like fixing systems. I knew we needed a

[02:36] getting dropped, tasks were getting forgotten about. I even wasn't working in our system builder that we had works. I'm like, "If I am not working in here, don't think anybody else is probably working in here." This goal, I think I

[02:51] was self-sabotaging myself a little bit. Like, I was waiting to make a decision on it. It took me maybe 2 months to finally decide what to do. But, now that currently working with a team who is completely restructuring our internal

[03:06] operations and systems. This process will probably take a few months, like might go until June or July. But again, I have this feeling and I know that we are going into the right direction. The first month of working with them we're

[03:19] filming this, and basically they're coming into our current system, they're asking questions about like the direction that we want to go as a business, what the dream team looks like, what the dream business operates

[03:34] like. And so, they're going to create like a new framework and blueprint of like for your business to be running. Like, these are the metrics that you need to be doing." So, I'm really excited to have another set of eyes on

[03:47] this and also more guidance and direction of how to properly set this up hundreds of other businesses. I don't know what this transformational new system will look like. So, when we do have more clarity of like what exactly

[04:01] changed or like oh, our content calendar went from this to this, I could give in that audit phase where they're just kind of creating the new blueprint and will show us that in a few weeks. And then the final goal is like becoming a

[04:14] then the final goal is like becoming a CEO instead of me being the content creator or employee in my business. When I wrote this, I have no idea what it going to continue to be a work in progress. All I knew was like I need to

[04:28] up-level as a person, as a business owner, and we're going to figure out what this means together. So, the rest of this video is going to be about this. I want to share with you the four biggest things that I've learned when it

[04:40] comes to making this shift for me. Like what does this shift actually look like? Because I think a lot of people talk about okay, you need to be a CEO instead >> be CEO-minded. >> Like what does that mean? And so, I just

[04:52] want to break down those mindset shifts or changes I've made to help me actually practically do that. So, one thing I suggest is to take a look at this free resource from HubSpot called the CEO Masterclass. I'll link it down below. It

[05:07] teaches four lessons that separates decent leaders from great ones with practical frameworks that you can apply to up-level your leadership skills and take your business to that next level. These frameworks are taught by Sam and

[05:20] Shaan who are co-hosts of the My First Million podcast, where inside you learn about setting company values, frameworks for how to have hard conversations, and my favorite section is on delegation. This is where I learned about the what,

[05:36] how, when motivation framework when onboarding a new team member. With the what, you're going to explain what you expect, how you're going to show them through training, when you're going to set deadlines and schedule follow-ups.

[05:51] And then motivation, you're going to keep them engaged and keep them encouraged. Then you're going to do that on repeat until someone's able to take process I plan to execute when bringing

[06:03] director. This resource was made by HubSpot, who's sponsoring this video. I love that they make free resources like this for businesses. It's completely in line with my own business core values. So, thank you, HubSpot. Lesson one. One

[06:17] of the first things that changed the whole trajectory of my business was book. John read this in December and he was like, "You need to read this." And I was like, "I agree." I just from reading the title, I knew I needed it because

[06:30] some traction." And when I say reading this book, I don't mean reading it. I mean like actually taking the time to apply it step by step. I honestly could probably make an entire video about all the revelations I had from reading this

[06:44] one book. But, I'm just going to focus on two of them for this video. The first one was revisiting and redoing my core values as a business. This is something like, "Make sure you know your values." And I did this. In 2021, I went to a

[07:00] it was like, "Woo, core values were set." And then I never really thought I'm going to take my business seriously and this book says, 'Okay, we're going though I'm like, "I don't know what this will do for me." Or like, even though I

[07:14] to do it anyway. I'm going to put in the starting as a content creator and everyone's like, "Pick a niche." And you're like, "That doesn't apply to me." But then when you actually like, "Oh,

[07:27] let me actually apply this and see how it works." That's when you go viral and thing with the core values. So, what this book kind of talks about doing is pick three key players or A players on your team and write down characteristics

[07:41] that make them A-players, make them your top performers. And so I did that and then I also wrote down a list of things that I felt like were missing from the business, like qualities and values that I'm like, "Oh, I feel like we're missing

[07:55] these things." Or like, "I wish this person had this aspect." Or "I wish this You know, so like all the things I wish I had. And then after I had that full list of characteristics, I separated them into kind of themes a little bit.

[08:08] And then after they were separated into themes, I kind of got rid of words that well. And from those themes I'm like, "Okay, let's pick the core pillars." And themes, I was like, "Okay, let me read these words out loud and whatever feels

[08:23] like, 'Ooh, that's good.' Let's write those down." So then I had the separate phase where it's like these main words, there's maybe like 15 to 20 and I was Then I narrowed it down to seven. I wanted to have like five pillars, three

[08:36] to five, but I had seven and I was like, "Cool, we're going to sit on these for do. I didn't want to do it, but I did it. Sit on these for 30 days, revisit them, see how you feel. After 30 days, I had so much more clarity of like, "Yes,

[08:49] days I was like, "Ooh, actually this one." So at the end of the 30 days, I still had seven words, but they felt so right. The core values that I landed on are excellence, above and beyond, human first, data-driven, innovative,

[09:05] initiative, and resourceful. Having these words have been just so everything I do in my business now, if it doesn't line up with these core values, it doesn't make sense to do. I've been able to say no more

[09:20] confidently because I'm like, "Ooh, this doesn't fall into alignment with my core value." I've also been able to prioritize my tasks of like, "Oh, I blah blah blah blah." I feel like I have a lot more clarity looking through a the

[09:33] lens of my core pillars and I'll touch more on this a little bit later in the video. After that exercise, the book talked about, "Okay, now you need to set your 10-year vision." And this was super eye-opening for me because I never

[09:46] would look like for me. I'd always think about maybe 1 to 3 years in the future. I mean, it's hard to think 10 years in the future for at least what I think my niche is because I don't know what social media is going to look like 10

[10:00] years from now, especially with elements of AI. I have no idea what my job or my business will look like. And honestly, honestly, when it said, "Think about your 10-year goal for your business," my first thought was, "I want to retire." I

[10:17] didn't see what I'm currently doing as something realistic to maintain. And that made me realize I didn't set up my business the way that I had intended to. Like, I was realizing if I continue down this path, I am going to burn out. I am

[10:32] going to want to quit. I'm going to want to retire. So, I needed to quickly make some changes to prevent that from happening because I want to continue doing this. So, when I had that clarity of like, "Okay, this is what I want my

[10:47] business to look like in 10 years." And not only that, but I also had a specific lens to look through, aka the core brand values, it has forced me to make some really difficult decisions. One of those being I have let go of three people

[11:02] since the last video I posted about rebuilding my creator business. Not because they didn't try hard, not because of XYZ, but because once I defined the value pillars and what the business needs to become, I realized

[11:17] some roles didn't align with where we were going. I have had to let go of people before, but I think this time it was probably one of the hardest ones for me, but I also trust my intuition because now I see things a lot more

[11:32] clearly. And with that clarity, we're actually going to be hiring two new about. So, this leads me to the second thing that I've been doing since we last talked. I have noticed how much Megan and I are in the daily business

[11:47] operations, like doing random-ish that we probably shouldn't be doing for our roles. So, I had myself and Megan give ourselves time audits. For those of digital business manager. She's basically my right-hand woman. If I'm

[12:03] visionary, she's integrator. She's been with me for five or six years now. So, we're like this through all of this. So, basically, when you let go of people, some people are like, "Okay, we need to fill those positions. Let's rehire."

[12:16] Instead of hiring to fill those positions, Megan and I are hiring to buy back our time. This is something that I learned from this book, Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell. I feel like this is something that I did when I first

[12:31] something that I did when I first started hiring. Like, I hired roles that things that I was spending most time on. I was like, "Oh, okay, let me hire somebody to take this." But then as my business grew, I started hiring for

[12:44] roles that I thought would grow my business. And I think that's where I started to kind of stall out because my time I was stretched thin. Other people couldn't keep up with the growth because I was still doing all these random

[12:59] tasks. So, basically, with this book, the whole strategy is you're going to hire people to buy back your time. And then with that time, you could reinvest it back into the business and work on things that are actually going to scale

[13:12] better return on your time. So, that's what we did. We tracked everything that we touched every single day. The random tasks, the secret projects, that's what we call them, recurring tasks that we think nobody else could do, or so we

[13:25] thought no one else could do. We tracked everything. Like every 15 minutes, what are we working on? Then with the results, what we recognized, what I did were doing and I plugged it into ChatGPT and I was like, of this, what could be

[13:38] delegated, automated, or deleted? We figured out there were a lot of things were like, cool, let's set up automations, get those off our plates. There were also things that we could probably delegate to other positions or

[13:52] needs to be a new position. And then there some things where it's like, why happen. Let's just delete it. The tasks that were left on our plates were the tasks that could be delegated and were the most time consuming. That's when we

[14:04] decided, okay, these are going to be the positions we hire for. So we have two We probably will have already hired them by the time this video goes up. One is a brand collaborations producer. I already have my manager who negotiates the deals

[14:20] for us. Megan and I both work on collabs together on the back end. And we spend, collectively, probably 20 hours a week on just collabs. Reading through deliverables, plugging it into our content calendar. Like 20 hours a week,

[14:36] easily, on just collabs. So that's one thing that we're hiring for is somebody to just take that role on. They're going to be the producer of collab content so that Megan and I don't have to think about it. We just kind of like, I show

[14:51] we've already worked through the scripts. And then it's done. I don't have to edit it. I'm not planning all the things, talking to the brands. I'm the relationship. Like we spend a good amount of time on collabs, so that's one

[15:05] of the positions. And then the other one is going to be like a VA position directly under Megan to help take off all those random admin tasks that Megan spends hours on every single week. Our goal is to onboard them as best as we

[15:20] can with playbooks, SOPs, all the things. I've noticed stepping into CEO mode, I have to become a better leader, especially during the onboarding phase of new members. So, we're creating SOPs and playbooks for both roles, and we

[15:34] plan to stop abdicating and start delegating the right way. I feel like that's been one of my fatal flaws, kind of onboarding someone and then throwing a project at them, not really properly explaining my expectations, or just like

[15:48] they've got it." I mentally check out, and then if it's not done right, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I have to redo it." So, that's on me. And instead, I want to take more ownership of the entire onboarding and delegation process. Like,

[16:01] actually take the time to train with someone and work with someone for a few weeks or months until they're fully confident they're able to take ownership of that role. Now, lesson three, I want to talk about hiring a business coach.

[16:14] Because speaking of hiring, last video, I touched on the fact that I hired a business coach. I think I was a little vague with it, so I wanted to talk more about what that looked like, and yeah, the behind the scenes a little. So,

[16:26] looking back at my career, I had noticed every single time my business up-leveled dramatically, it was because I had a coach, or because I was learning an online course. I have known this is something that I needed. I literally

[16:42] wrote in my New Year's resolutions, I just wrote, "I need help." Because I knew I needed help. I needed guidance. I needed somebody who had years beyond me and experience, and I just needed help. When I wrote that, I wasn't sure who I

[16:57] was going to land on. I had a lot of people I looked up to, but I wasn't 100% But, spoiler alert, and maybe you already know, the person I chose was Dan already know, the person I chose was Dan Martell. So, I am in Dan Martell's group

[17:12] coaching program. It's called Elite, and I'm in it for basically this whole year. >> The reason I joined his coaching and not anyone else's that I had on my radar was because I feel like he's completely the exact opposite of me in a way, like in

[17:27] in the best way. In the sense of everything that I know I lack, I know he has. He has a personal brand. His coaching makes him multiple millions of dollars every year where he only has to show up maybe 2 hours a week and he's

[17:42] making multiple millions. He knows how to leverage AI strategically. He is an investor in other businesses. Also, his coaching style is not my coaching style. He is very like no fluff. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm going to tell you

[17:58] to hear. And I felt like that was someone I needed. I needed somebody that was going to be brutally honest with me and kick me in the butt and not just be like, "Oh well, Milly, you're doing so great." Like I didn't want someone like

[18:11] me. I don't [laughter] know. I feel like that's like sometimes style is like very like, "Oh, optimistic coaching." And he's just like, "I'm going to tell you." The moment I knew I had made the right decision with joining his coaching

[18:24] program was one of the very first lessons that I watched in his coaching program. He says he wants to help you create an empire. And an empire is a life of unlimited creation that you never have to retire from. That blew my

[18:39] mind because like I had said earlier, I was feeling exhausted and I knew if I continued down this path, I was creating a life that I wanted to retire from. I was like, "I want to be retired in 10 years." And so he has shifted my mindset

[18:54] and allowed me to think about what would need to change to allow me to continue what I do. So what needs to change to make that possible? This is honestly like another thing I can make a whole video on of just like everything I've

[19:08] been learning so far in that coaching program or mindset shifts that have just been super impactful. But, that's just some context of the coaching program some context of the coaching program that I joined, who I decided to choose,

[19:22] wasn't, you know, who I decided to go with and like why I decided to go with them. All right, let's go to the next lesson that I've learned. The reason I program, because I knew I needed coaching, was actually a form of

[19:37] And this is just another realization that I had is one of my biggest self-sabotaging behaviors waiting, waiting for the right time, waiting for a sign, waiting for someone to validate an idea, or even to make the decision

[19:51] for me. I had recognized this pattern was coming up a lot. I was waiting to update our systems, waiting to start a podcast, waiting to change my content format, waiting to hire positions I knew I needed, waiting to get a business

[20:06] coach, to buy a car, literally my car handle broke off in my hand and I'm like, "I could keep this car." The car I drive right now is my first it. And I know I need a new one, but I'm like, "Let me just wait." For some

[20:20] reason, decisions feel identity binding for me. Like, every decision I make, I associate it with who I am, or like what I choose says something permanent about who I am. Therefore, decisions, my brain

[20:35] treats them as like a threat instead of just simple choices. Like, for me, it's not just deciding about what to eat, that's not the decision. It's about the that's not the decision. It's about the type of person I am if I choose to order

[20:48] out, if I choose to eat out, if I choose to eat healthy, it all says, "Oh, well, you're this type of person if you choose this." Like, it feels like an identity thing. If I just like, "Oh, maybe I'll let other people decide." It maybe

[21:03] allows me to unintentionally push the blame on someone else if something goes wrong or if I just wait to make the decision, it feels like I still have a sense of control about the choice even though that that's not the case. So, I

[21:18] have been starting to set some new rules for myself. First thing I ask myself is like, "What am I waiting on? Like legitimately, honestly, is there something I do need to wait on? Or like, what are you waiting on?" And then I

[21:30] also have chosen to create like ownership rules or decision rules. So, if I haven't decided something by this date, then I will decide yes or then I the last video was kind of like a statement that I'm like starting to live

[21:47] by to help me make decisions for my business is, "If this doesn't scale revenue or protect my energy, it's no." Does this align with my business's values? Those are some decision makers that have helped me. Once I realized I

[22:00] actually coming back to bite me in the butt, I've been like way more decisive. I'm just not saying like yes to everything, but I'm like quick to say yes and no. So, hiring new people, knowing who to hire, starting a podcast,

[22:16] buying a car, building a new business because like, "Why not? Why not just go for it?" And I honestly think deciding yes and no on things that I've just been mind, like it actually makes me feel

[22:30] more excited about my business and more fired up to take action and work towards something. So, I'm really glad that I had that revelation and I hope to continue to unpack that and get better at this. Okay, so where are we going?

[22:44] What is next for this business transformation? Well, we're going to continue working on funnels and systems. I want to update BSP this year. That will likely be like a ongoing throughout the year. Probably going to be best

[22:57] version of BSP we've ever had. I will be hiring at least two new team members by the time you see the another video. Hopefully they'll be trained and I will have more time to start working new things, like maybe launching a podcast

[23:12] or offering group coaching, starting a new business. I also think by the end of this year my team might look like completely different. So I'm excited to see where that goes. I've noticed the theme this year. I know I want to scale,

[23:26] right? It's like the seven-figure year, but for some reason scaling doesn't feel like this upward trajectory. It feels more about depth. Like before when I thought about scaling, I would think like rapid growth and churning out a

[23:40] bunch of content or getting new email list subscribers, posting videos, sales, and that's not really the type of scaling that I'm striving for right now. I want my business to do what it already does, but like better. I want to lean

[23:56] into BSP and make it better. I want to spend time with my students, but make that time quality time. Instead of just thinking about the next video and churning out content, I want to focus on like creating YouTube videos as assets

[24:11] and being intentional. And I think that sort of thinking of depth and just making what I already do better, I think naturally that growth or typical scaling will come with time, but this year I'm feeling it's more about like depth. This

[24:26] season of my business feels completely different than anything before. I feel like it's forcing me to literally have to think outside the box of what my usual content creator routine looks like. Because I don't want to be the

[24:38] bottleneck anymore, but I'm also the face of the brand. So you got to get creative with like scaling but not burning out. I don't want any more duct tape systems where it's like, "Well, done's better than perfect." Like I

[24:50] don't want that good enough energy for, "Oh, let's just slap a band-aid on it and call it a day." I don't want to feel busy, but also feel like I'm not going anywhere anymore. I really want leverage like clarity, longevity, and I want to

[25:05] build a system and a business that I never have to retire from. If you enjoy me documenting and sharing this journey in real time, let me know down in the comments below because these types of videos feel so out of the norm for me to

[25:20] make. I get a little self-conscious posting something like this. Not because scenes." It's just because it's not my traditional educational, "Here's three things that you could apply today." It's more like about me. So, it feels weird

[25:34] to like share that instead of teaching steps. So, if you like this style of video, I could use a little extra confirmation from all of you in the comments below if this video is even like landing well with you. I'd also be

[25:47] curious to hear from you what sort of questions you have or if there's anything you want me to talk about in the next follow-up video about this. As and I'll see you in the next one. Follow your joy. Bye.

[26:02] your joy. Bye. Woohoo!