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Episode 129 - Online Business Growth: The 10 Months Nobody Sees · Business & Marketing Strategies for Online Entrepreneurs | Email List & Leads Growth | Organic Strategies | Create Online Business Success!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: In October of 2025, I hosted a networking session.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it was one of those wild ideas that I had no idea how it would go.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: 17 people showed up.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: 10 months later, in July 2026, 41 people showed up.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the summer, you know, that magical time of year when apparently nobody is working and we're all supposed to just shut down our businesses until September.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd only seen that July session, you might have thought, wow, Tracy's really got it going on.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's really built something here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: For 10 months.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm an overnight success.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It only took me 10 months.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to talk to you about today because this really isn't a story about networking.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the part of business growth that nobody sees.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: The part between something started to work and finally looking like it's working.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because those are two very different moments.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know how to recognize what's happening in between them, you might quit something that's actually going to gain some traction.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about it.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ready to grow your online business without losing your mind?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're in the right spot, my friend.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Create Your Online Business Success.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Tracy Beavers.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this show is all about practical strategies, creative ideas, and sanity saving solutions that you can use right now.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's crank up the dial on your business growth and make it fun.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's create your online business success.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dial it back to October 2025.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I had a wild idea.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as I tend to do, you know this about me, I run with things flying by the seat of my pants, and I figure it out as I go.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I decided I decided to start hosting a monthly free networking session exclusively for the members of my free Facebook group.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And 17 people showed up to the first one.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not bad for a first try, but not exactly a headline making moment either.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Especially considering, okay, especially considering, I have about 4,500 members in my free Facebook group.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I really wasn't sure how to feel about this.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I kept building it, you know, blindly forging ahead, thinking, let's just see what happens.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So month after month, I hosted it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I promoted it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I invited people.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I paid attention to what made the experience better.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked people what would make the experience better.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: People started coming back.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: They started telling other people.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: They started inviting other people.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the room started growing.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't one month where I suddenly cracked some secret networking code.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me, I wish that I were.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I had done that because I would have bottled it up and sold it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It grew because I kept building it and I kept talking about it and marketing it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then when we get to July 2026, 10 months later, 10 months.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Think about how many months that is and how much time that is, day in, day out.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Same networking set, same networking session.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all, 41 people showed up.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: 41.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd only seen that July session, you might have thought, ooh, everything Tracy touches turns to gold.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or wow, she's figured out the secret.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all, there is no secret.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's 10 months you didn't see.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what makes entrepreneurship so freaking weird.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We see somebody else's 41 and we compare it to our 17, but we have no idea how long they've been building their 41.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see the months when their numbers weren't impressive.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think we get ourselves into trouble because 17 wasn't nothing.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: That was 17 beating hearts, 17 human beings that came to be with me in a room for an hour.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't take that lightly.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: 17 was evidence.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't evidence that had compounded onto something impressive yet.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: There are two very different situations that can look almost identical when you're in the middle of them.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I could have gone either way with this.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Something isn't working, I could have said that.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or something is working, hmm, it just hasn't compounded yet.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I could have gone either way.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And those require completely different decisions.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: If something truly isn't working, change it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if something is gaining traction and you change strategies because the result you're getting isn't big enough yet, you may interrupt something that's actually working.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I see entrepreneurs do this all the time.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't working.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I need a new platform.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tracy, this isn't working.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I need a new lead magnet.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nobody wants my offer.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I need a new offer.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I need another marketing strategy.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes you do need to do something different, but sometimes you're changing things because you're uncomfortable with how slow they're growing.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And those two things are not the same thing.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened between 17 and 41?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I hosted this session consistently and I was patient.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, neither of those are sexy or fun, and they're super frustrating, both of them.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I was patient and I was consistent.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I promoted it every time and everywhere I could.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: I personally invited people every time and everywhere I could.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I improved the experience by asking attendees, what'd you like about it?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And visiting other networking sessions and noting what I liked about those.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I built relationships with the people who came, which was the most fun part for me and the whole part of it, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I created a room people wanted to return to and eventually a room they wanted to tell other people about.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: A room they felt safe in if they'd never attended a networking event and never said their elevator pitch out loud to another human soul.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: A room where they knew there was no telling what was going to come out of my mouth or what tech debacle I might get us into.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: They knew they would leave happier than when they entered it.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the compounding started.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I want you to remember this.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Consistency wasn't the strategy.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Consistency gave the strategy time to work.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let me repeat that.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Consistency was not the strategy.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Consistency gave the strategy time to work.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now I want you to go write that on a sticky note.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because consistency by itself isn't magic.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me, I wish it were, because I would bottle that up and sell it too.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: If something isn't is completely wrong for your business, doing it consistently doesn't make it right.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when something is showing signs of traction, consistency gives it time.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Time for people to notice you, time for conversations to happen, time for relationships to develop, for people to come back, time for people to tell somebody else about it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually everybody sees the 41.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't see everything that created it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you know whether something is truly not working or whether it just hasn't finished growing yet?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'd ask yourself a couple of questions.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, is anything moving?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not just the big result you're ultimately after.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not talking about, you know, oh, I want a hundred people in this room and not the big result, right?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is anything moving meaning?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Are people replying?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Are they engaging?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are they coming back?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Are they asking questions?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Are they asking, are they telling their friends about it and telling people they need to join?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are more conversations and opportunities happening because of what you're doing?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because small movement is evidence.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to take note of it.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Second, are people coming back?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Repeat attendance, repeat engagement, repeat conversations.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: That tells you something is connecting, even if the numbers aren't big yet.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Third, has it actually had enough time?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I am guilty of this too.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to think, I've been doing this for two weeks and I'm tired of it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: We all feel that way.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm talking about is actually enough time.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And in the online space, the unfun truth is that enough time can mean weeks or more often than that, months.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Way more than we think or we want.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, this might be the biggest one.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Am I changing this because I have evidence it isn't working or because I'm uncomfortable with how slowly it's working?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two very different reasons to make a business decision.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to hear this episode as just keep doing everything forever because consistency wins.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Some things aren't working and should change.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: What I want you to get better at recognizing early is the unglamorous signs that something is gaining traction before the big result shows up.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because your 17 might not be failure.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your 17 might be evidence, and it might be the beginning of your 41.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody sees the 41.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Almost nobody sees the 10 months that created it.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't talked about it until now.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: The 10 months I spent talking about it ad nauseum until I was sick to hearing from myself about it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my question for you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are you calling not working right now that might actually just be not finished growing yet?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to sit with that one this week and then reach out and tell me.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, just because you're you're at 17 doesn't mean 41 isn't coming.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: My friend, if you're not on my email list, I want you to come join the fun.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Every week I send you something useful about growing your business, your visibility, your clients, your marketing.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's whatever else is happening in my life that week and might come out of my mouth on the page.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have discussed my dog Patton's cone prison, my new grandpuppy Marvin Lou, being the size of a small baked potato, the time I got saved by my 84-year-old mom, and somehow I even turned returning a pair of Lululemon leggings into a business lesson.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to tell you.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's lovingly curated chaos that I enjoy writing and I would love for you to enjoy reading.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like a little business strategy and whatever other nonsense I have gotten myself into that week, delivered into your inbox, you'll find the link to join us in the show notes.
• 10:22
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• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm gonna keep saying it.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Being an entrepreneur is freaking hard.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some days business feels electric.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's clicking, the ideas are flowing, and you think, oh yeah, I am so good at this.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then other days you're doing all the things and you're wondering if anybody even knows you're here.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the only one who feels that way, my friend.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're not.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to keep showing up.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to keep building.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Please find people to do this business thing alongside you.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, I want you to have a great balance of the week and weekend.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when one of us rises, we all rise.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that is why we have got to keep cheering each other on.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for tuning in to create your online business success.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you found today's episode packed with actionable tips and inspiration.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, if you want to dive even deeper with me and connect with a community of like-minded entrepreneurs that totally get you and understand what you're building, then join us in my free Facebook group.
• 11:21
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• 11:29
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• 11:36
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• 11:39
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• 11:41
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