Hi!  I'm Tracey Watts Cirino, author of Beyond Common  "12 Essentials for Success in Life and in the Workplace" 

 and founder of Beyond Common Coaching and Training Company.

I love helping business owners get clarity and focus in their life and  business by using their strengths, to achieve beyond common results.

Today, we're going to share the best secrets to investing in yourself and what the most successful business owners and leaders do to get and maintain their competitive edge. The  topic of what's that next big thing?

It's basically like this. So, wow, we've been holding our breath and we've made it past Christmas of two thousand twenty and here we are in 2021.

Can you imagine this has been the fastest 12 months ever and you may be thinking now what or you may be thinking what's next for me?

If so, now is the time to give yourself the gift of personal and professional development.

Every time you do something to invest in yourself, you are 80 percent more likely to hit your goals. Now, that's a bet worth betting on. Betting on you.

I believe you are so worth it. And today we're going to talk about a few things that I would suggest that are worth your investment in yourself, because with nothing in this world ever being certain, which we all have known this, I think we're born innately knowing that tomorrow is never a guarantee and nothing is really all that certain.

I think the past year when we look back and reflect on it, we know right now that nothing is certain. If we want to be the best we can be in business  for ourselves, and for our families and for our team members and people that rely and count on us. A really great place to invest is in yourself and a really great bet if you're going to gamble or place risk on anything, bet on you.

You yourself our more than worth it!

Let's talk about how you're going to give yourself the gift of personal and professional development.

The way I see it is that the next big thing for business owners and how the most successful of business owners will rise and shine.

They're going to rise. They're going to shine, while others are going to fade into the background. Some business owners are going to become a distant memory. So I ask you to ask yourself, which one do you want to be?

I'm raising my hand up real, real, real tall here. 🙋🏼‍♀️

And I say that I want to be the type of business coach that rises and invests in myself so much. So that I can continue to level up my coaching and training programs and continue to serve all of my clients at a very high level.

Let's talk about what it truly, truly means to be successful and have that life and business of your dreams. So knowing now that and what you actually want for your life and business is so so important.

Investing in yourself is always a great idea, and it's always going to pay you back a bigger return than you can ever imagine, because for every hundred dollars you invest in yourself when you implement and take action, it can pay you back 10 times, which is amazing.

That's a great investment as far as I'm concerned. Nothing else is really guaranteeing that. Well, and of course, because gambling and buying stocks are never a guarantee. So I want you to know that you're absolutely worth it!

Here are some things that are totally worth your investment in yourself, number one would be to take a course on that one thing that if you could do it and do it well, it would totally change, even transform your business.

You would be so much more successful. You would be so proud of yourself. It would make your business run so much better.  Do that thing.

Now, that's going to be different for each and every one of you.

So let me give you an example. A few years back, I was struggling so much in my business because I kept hiring people that were so-called marketing experts and marketing gurus, and I needed help with a website and keeping up with all of the social and digital marketing demands that it takes in todays business world.

I needed help with a sales funnel (I didn’t  even know that or what it was so no judgment here). I needed marketing support. I've always been really great at training people and I like to make things as simple as possible.

 I've been blessed to be pretty successful in my everyday business.

However,  when I got to the point of hiring people for marketing, they would promise me the sun, moon and stars and then no one would deliver. And then social media became bigger and hotter. And you have to stay consistent on social media or you become absolutely irrelevant. In the life and world of a modern business owner, I felt like I was already struggling to keep everything flowing in the right direction as it was. To add another thing that you had to do was really challenging. So for me, it made sense that we would hire people to do it. Why not? We were making money and extremely profitable so hire experts right?

Turns out that was such a big mistake and huge loss of revenue, because when it comes to digital marketing & social media, nobody can be you or be your brand until you clearly define it for yourself and everyone else. And at the time I wasn't well educated enough to hire the right people or ask the right questions.

So it was like just pouring money down the drain. Now, fast forward a few years later, I decided, you know what?

I was really sick of wasting money on marketing and then not being able to measure results or even know if it was working?

Plus, I didn't really think that they were representing our brand in a way that all of us on our team could be proud of. Then we started training some of the younger associates and team members who were already were good at social media, because that's what other business coaches at the time we’re  suggesting was the only way to do this. Actually that was kind of a nightmare because people can only handle learning so much new information at a time. And just because people were good at social media, because they grew up with it, doesn't mean they know how to use it for business. So really that was kind of a shit show. If I'm really being honest. It was not the best thing for anyone involved either.

So you're probably wondering, where are you going with this? What's the point of the story? The point is that social media is something that's not going away.

I can't not do it. I saw social media and all the marketing and everything that's necessary as something that you need to consistently do and you need to do it really well to be relevant. So I often would say, OK, well, I was busy growing my business and everybody else was talking about it being successful on social media, so I had to play catch up in the end. So here's what I had to do.

I went back to college and started taking marketing classes and got my marketing certification so that I knew enough to be dangerous.

I got a certification that says I can open a marketing agency because I wanted to know what I was doing and how to do it really well.

At the time, I had no intention ever of actually opening a marketing agency.

I just wanted to know what I was talking about, hire the right people and give them the right information about our branding, our marketing and make sure our marketing story would be on point because that was what people were looking for from us. So interestingly enough, so much has changed since then.

I'm not kidding you at all when I say take a course.

 What's that one thing that, if you could do it and do it well, it would totally change your business?

Identify that as your starting point. In all of my years of being successful, we always had a waiting list of guests (clients) that wanted to get serviced and be our customer.

If anything, our struggle was to hire and train people fast enough to keep up with our business demands. So there is something to say about marketing.

I was blessed enough to know that, hey, this isn't working. And I was sick of struggling.  I felt like that commercial of where you would bash your face through glass. I just didn't understand why I kept pouring money into something and then didn't have anything to show for it. So it made sense for me to go and get my marketing certification as if I was going to open my own agency because I needed to talk the talk and walk the marketing walk you know, know the lingo.

As a natural trainer myself ,I don't like to use all that techno mumbo jumbo or don't like what I used to call hairdresser speak at the salon.

I like to speak in words that are easy to understand and make things more simple for all of my clients and customers. Once I started doing that in my business , then it was so easy. It was like the heavens opened up and it was yay.

Then as we hired new associates and new assistants, I could give them a couple of tasks that were necessary when it came to the social media and the marketing. And then they felt empowered and they were part of something from the very start. Then it was a way to help them get on boarded on our team even quicker and it became a very useful tool. It was very successful to understand that, once I applied all of my simple speak, and started actually knowing what  I was doing and how I could train other to do it too.

I guess my biggest lesson here was I had tried to hire enough people to do our marketing and it just wasn't working.

So in my case, taking a course, knowing what you're not good at was key.

I'm always the first to say, hey, let's hire the professionals. After wasting so much money and it becoming  a bleeding hole for us, I  knew there was something I was missing. Fast forward to now. It's hilarious because some of my clients that I coach, train, and mentor, they want me to do more marketing and branding stuff for them. Who would have thought?

You just always have to be prepared for everything. And I do love to dumb it down and simplifying teaching marketing too, especially for salon owners, and  super busy business owners because they're so busy and they have a million things going on and have no time to waste what’s so ever.

I've learned to streamline things and create a step by step approach, making it so much easier for Salon owners. Most creative business owners, even some of the clients I've worked with and coached before, they have their own marketing firms, but it's so hard for them to market for themselves. So having a coach simplify and  talk them through how to develop their own marketing system is actually really helpful. It's so funny because sometimes they're so good at doing it for everyone else. They forget to take the time for themselves. So whatever the course is that would benefit you and your business, by all means, invest in yourself and go take it.

I promise you, it'll pay you dividends for years.

You'll get all the money back, and more!

Trust me, buy a book, buy a great business book, like mine

Beyond Common "12 Essentials for Success in Life in the Workplace".

Obviously, that's always a good place to start and a low cost option to get you started. Or consider The Success Principles by Jack Canfield or the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. You can read all of these and start there. Even a low cost investment like a good business book will pay you back tenfold. Dive in if there is something that you like. I always have kept on my phone a running list of books to read. When I'm at a conference or at a lunch or on a Zoom call chatting it up with other business owner friends. I always have that running list of books that I want to read. When I  buy a book and  read it I spend time after reflecting and figuring out how to implement new ideas.

Then if you really love the book and you think that you want to know or you even need more help about this  topic, or you’re  just confused thinking I need some help implementing it, I want to take action. But I don’t know where to start? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Most authors and trainers have online courses that you can purchase.

So take an online course with the author or coach of a book you really love.

A lot of us have amazing courses that will walk you through how to take action and implement everything that you've read about a specific topic.

Like the DIY at home version, that type of thing that you can dive into and do on your own time at home. Some even have deeper training courses that are "train the trainer" courses. Ask and you shall receive. It's that simple. 

I can tell you why. As somebody who is a course creator or content creator, I have been asked, "hey, do you have this type of course? " And if I don't, I'll put it together for people. So ask and you shall receive,. If you read a book that you really love and you want to put it into action, I can almost guarantee the author has some type of online course that you can take in the comfort of your living room or wherever you choose.

Don't be afraid to ask because ask and you shall receive!

What's the gift that you want to give to yourself?

I hope you decide to give yourself the gift of personal and professional development. And remember, you are totally worth the investment and you are worth investing in.

You are actually the best investment you can make!

So to give you some guidance and help in creating your goal setting and planning , I have created a goal setting guidebook as my gift to you that will help you map out the next 90 days of goals, including your personal and professional development plan. Go to BeyondCommonBusinessSecrets.com/guide to get your free gift, that is my gift to you. To help you map out a plan and get started on giving yourself the gift of personal and professional development.

 I hope this was super helpful for you and I hope to hear from you soon!

Take care and Happy Goal Setting,

Tracey Watts Cirino