Welcome to Visionary’s Pursuit, a podcast where we explore what it takes to turn your bold and inspiring ideas into reality. I'm Carolina Zuleta. I'm a life and business coach and your host for this podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here.
This is episode 63 of the Visionaries Pursuit Podcast. Oh my gosh. I am starting to record this podcast after I had a meeting with my husband Andrew, who's also my business partner, and we received great news. We had set some revenue goals for the year and we've met them and we surpassed them. And I had a reaction that I wasn't expecting, and it was just that I was in tears and I couldn't stop crying. And um, so I'm still feeling a little bit of that as I join you all today, and I think it's because it just means so much to me.
Um, you know, this is the 10th year in my business and for the first eight years I was so proud of what I was doing. And every year I would feel that I didn't play a big game, that I was playing a game that I could do, but it felt a lot like I had a side hustle and my full-time really was a mom and I was prioritizing a lot of things for my family more than the business, but I always had the desire of this to be a real business with real revenue goals, significant for our family and the last two years since Andrew joined forces with me in this business, we have been focused, committed.
Working hard and blowing our own minds of what we've been capable of doing. So there's just so much satisfaction and, and I wanted to celebrate with all of you because all of you have been part of this journey.
And also because I think it relates to the topic for today. And what I wanna talk about today is these two questions that I often get from my clients and they are, " how do I know it's going to work?" "And is it the right time?" And what I'm going to say is that those questions are the wrong questions. Those questions kept me stuck for a lot of years because I was so scared.
You know, everything I was gonna do, I was calculating will it work? How will I know it's going to work? And the truth is that in entrepreneurship, there is no certainty. There is no way to know if something is going to work until you do it. Until you do it, and then you figure out if it worked or it didn't, or you decide to change it and adjust it and keep going at it.
But I hear this question so much and I hear it in newer entrepreneurs when they're going to launch their products or services, or when they're gonna start the business for the first time, worrying about, will I achieve this goal? Is this actually possible for me? Can I really sell this offer or make this amount of revenue?
But I also see it in my later stage entrepreneurs who are wanting to make a change of the type of clients they're gonna work with, or they're gonna hire more people, or they have to make a very important hire that is very costly. And again, what keeps them stuck is this question of will it work?
Which sometimes also comes in as, is this the right time? Because what those two questions are pointing to is certainty. It's our brain trying to find certainty because uncertainty feels so uncomfortable in our bodies. But here's the thing, here's the truth, it's that we need to expand our capacity to be with uncertainty in order to fulfill our dreams and play the bigger game, the certainty Game is a game of small numbers of what we already know of what is sure.
The big game is in the unknown is in, I have this beautiful idea, I'm gonna put all my heart and soul to it and money to it and time. And it may collapse, it may not work. It may fail. People may not like it. People may even disagree with you, and that is tough. That is tough to feel that uncertainty, but it's the only way we can actually play the biggest game and achieve those things that right now seem impossible.
You know, if you had told me two years ago in January of 2024 that I would be sitting here celebrating what I celebrated with Andrew today it would've been really hard for me to believe because I didn't have the belief, then. I had the desire. And I think that when we're trying to figure out if it's going to work, we're moving into fear and trying to control the outcome.
But if we step into desire, if we step into desire of the business we wanna have and the revenue we wanna make in the identity, the CEO, we wanna see ourselves as that's where the 10 x game is. But we have to deal with the uncertainty.
one of my guilty pleasures, fine, I'm confessing is watching the Kardashians.
And yes, I watch them because I think it's funny and all that, but I also think they're very clever and smart business women . This was the Jay Shetty interview. He was interviewing Chris Jenner, who's the mom of all the Kardashians, and one of the things she said is that at the beginning when they started, she said, oh my gosh, we threw so much spaghetti at the wall. We were just trying to see what stuck.
And I think this is the mindset we need to have as entrepreneurs. We need to run experiments. We need to throw spaghetti at the wall but we need to be okay with making a mistake with things not going our way.
Because when we stay in the question, is it going to work and we stay in our safe zone, if we do things that we for sure know a hundred percent that they're going to work we don't learn anything. So I'm even gonna say if you spend an entire year throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying things that don't work, let's say you fell miserably. I believe that what you learn in that year of failures is what's gonna take you to your goals the following year and the following year.
But if you spend the year only playing in your safe zone, then you're not gonna learn what you need to learn in order to get to the biggest dream, to play the biggest game you wanna play.
So my recommendation, my invitation is that from now on, when you notice yourself asking, is this going to work? To notice what's happening in your body, to notice how that's a question that comes from fear, and in turn, go to desire.
What is that you desire to create? What is it that excites you? What is it that you wanna share with your clients? people? Who are the new people you wanna bring into your company? What are the goals that you really, really, really wanna work towards?
If you build a business from fear, there are no guarantees that you won't fail. Like you can build it trying to be as conservative as possible, and still fail. But you're still gonna play a small game if you build your business from desire. You still can fail, but it's gonna be a much more exciting, expansive journey that I am sure that if you don't give up, you are gonna figure it out.
One of the things my coach told me some years ago, because part of what I did in my business trying to figure out what's going to work is change my offer. So I went from selling leadership coaching, selling only to women, selling in Spanish, selling in English. And I was having a hard time really choosing an offer because the question in my head is, how do I know which offer is going to work? And what she told me was, it's not about choosing the right offer, it's by making an offer and then making it right.
And that's what I've been doing. My one-on-one coaching package has gone through some iterations in the last few years, and we're making another one for next year.
And the reason why it's evolving and changing is because I'm evolving and changing, and I'm getting every day more clear on the type of people, the type of people I wanna work with, and the impact I wanna have on them. I couldn't know what I know now. Two years ago, I had to go out and try the different things, talk to different clients so I could get this clarity.
Same thing with my group offer with the Visionary Mindset Program. Listen, it was an idea that came out of my head. I had no idea if it was gonna work or not, but we've run it twice this year and we're gonna launch it again at the end of January next year.
And I could never be more excited and proud and committed to that offer because by delivering it, I've become so clear how I can do it better. What are the changes I need to make so my clients can get even more results? That said, the clients who have been in it this year have had amazing results too.
So whatever it is, if you're hiring someone, you might need to hire the wrong person first, so you can really get clear on the type of person you need.
If you are launching a new product, you might launch it and it may not be very desirable for your clients, or maybe the marketing doesn't work that well, but if you stick to it, you're going to figure it out.
So here's a little bit behind the scenes of how Andrew and I think about marketing or making an offer. The first thing we think about is how do we add value to our clients? When we're thinking about the Visionary Mindset Program, we sat down and we really thought about what are the problems our clients have? What are the most common conversations? And how can we solve those problems in this group program?
So the first thing is we really focus on our client's problems and on the solution we think could best serve them and the value we're going to give them. And we estimate that value at a certain amount of money then we decide to put that same amount of value for free into the world.
So one of the things that we did this year was Founder's Consult Week. I spent an entire week coaching people who didn't pay me a penny, but I coached them as if they were my highest end clients because I knew that if I delivered value to them, the money was gonna come later. So that's a principle that we believe is if we put out the amount of value we wanna get in revenue, it'll happen.
The question that I get asked the most, let's say you wanna make a million dollars of revenue in a year, is what does a million dollars of revenue look like? How do you know that that value equals that amount of money? And here's the thing, you don't know, right? That's another version of is this going to work? You don't know. You make an estimate and then you take it out to the public, to your potential clients.
I decided that I was gonna put an entire week of free coaching to get three clients, three new clients. That was my guess, and it worked, but in the past it has required more than a week, or it has required other things, which is fine. So you don't know. So you make an estimate of, okay, you know, I'm gonna put this amount of value out into the world because this is the amount of revenue I wanna make.
And I think these things are gonna be equal to that, this marketing campaign, this podcast, this sales conversations, whatever the way you want to deliver that value. And then you see, was your estimate accurate? Was the amount of value put in the world received as that amount of value, or was it received as more or less?
So for example, as Andrew and I are thinking about our revenue goals for 2026 we are thinking about how we're gonna put out the value that is equivalent to the revenue you wanna make. And we're gonna put this value into the world for free, and then we're gonna receive it in paying clients, but we're also gonna deliver value to our clients. One of my favorite things to do with all of my clients is to over deliver, to give them more than they expected when they purchase a coaching package for me .
So to summarize if you're thinking about next year, if you're thinking about your revenue next year, first, connect with your desire.
How do you wanna grow your business? What are the clients that you would love to have? What is the product or service that you would be super excited to sell. Then decide a revenue target, then decide how you're gonna put value out into the world that is equivalent to that revenue target. Do it from generosity, from love, from desire, instead of from asking yourself the question, is this going to work? And go all in. And maybe part of it will work, maybe part won't, but you will figure it out once you put it out into the world and you will adjust it, you will increase it. You will do whatever it takes until it meets the amount of value that you want it to offer.
Courage is your currency. Having the courage to follow your desires, having the courage to make a guess of what you think is going to work and putting it out there in the world, even when you're scared, is there requirement for you to reach your goals and learning to be with uncertainty and playing outside your safe zone is how you will play the biggest game.
All right, I'll see you next time.
If you're currently pursuing a big, bold idea and would love some support, let's talk. In my coaching program, I'll teach you how to manage yourself, your own thoughts and emotions. as well as your team and your money so you can turn your beautiful idea into a reality. Go now to carozuleta.com slash consult that is c a r o z u l e t a dot com slash consult and complete the form to book a complimentary call with me.
See you there!
