To Sum It Up…

I just wrapped up my first ICON conference wasn’t really sure what to expect! I thought the content might be marketing/systems heavy, but what I really left with was 70% inspiration and 30% education.

But across every keynote, breakout session and lunch & learn, there were three themes that everyone seemed to be talking about, and crediting for getting their business to 7-figures and beyond.

Theme #1 – People

The first big theme that I’m taking away from ICON17 is the importance of people – your network, your customers, your family and friends, your team, your mentors, your coaches, etc. They should matter to you and they should be lifting you up and inspiring you to greater heights.

And that if you equally invest back into them, and aren’t afraid to be vulnerable and open, you’ll see a direct correlation in increased profits and fulfillment in your life.

Theme #2 – Implementation

The second big theme that I’m taking away is really dedicating time and effort to implementation in our businesses.

If I’m really honest with myself, I probably know all the shoulds, coulds and woulds that would move my business forward – but I don’t implement them 90% of the time.

Especially when leaving a conference or training, you have a book full of ideas and inspiration but you get home and immediately dive back into business as usual, trying to catch up on the “lost” time.

Each speaker stressed that you need to stop and focus on one thing each day, or week. To complete your next project, build your sales page, write your book or complete any other projects that you’ve been dying to do – and then worry about fixing it later.

Theme #3 – Play and Dream Bigger

As I mentioned above, this conference was way more inspirational and motivational than I had thought it would be. From the keynote speakers was just such a call to follow your passion, live your purpose, all these great motivational things and to play in dream so much bigger to not just be focused on what we need to do now but what’s your five-year goal? What’s your 10-year goal?

Lisa Nichols was one of the keynote speakers on the last day, and she led us in such a powerful guided visualization that it brought me to tears. (Here’s a similar visualization if you want to experience this for yourself!)

As a service-based business owner working 1:1 with clients, sometimes it can be hard for me to see where I’m going to be in 5 years. But being surrounded by other business owners who were doing six, seven, and even eight figures was so inspiring – and to see how truly achievable those numbers are.

And that just because I can’t see it for myself now doesn’t mean I can’t dream about it, that I can’t try new things and put myself out there in a bigger way and be a little bit more visible.

Your Turn

Which of these business themes do you agree with? Or do any of them surprise you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Full Transcript

I just wrapped up three really inspiring days that ICON17 which is Infusionsoft’s small business conference and there were three themes that I really found were carried across every keynote, every breakout session, everyone should learn. These were really something that was kind of just iterated over and over again. I want to share these three kind of themes with you for how to carry your business forward and make it even better than it is today.

I never attended ICON before and I was really interested in coming, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be all Infusionsoft based stuff, if there was going to be some business stuff, if there was going to be self-development, inspirational kind of stuff, and really there was all of that. The way the conference is set up is that there’s keynotes but there’s also breakout. You can go choose to learn things specifically in area of focus. If you wanted to go to Facebook add you could do that. If you wanted to learn Infusionsoft stuff in workshop you could go do that, if you want to do personal development stuff, you could do that as well.

There were three really big themes that everyone seemed to be talking about across every keynote and breakout that I went to whether it was technically focused, business focused, or personal development focused.

Theme #1 – People

The first big theme that I’m taking away from ICON17 is people, your network, your customers, the people you hang out with. Those you surround yourself with, your team, your mentors, your coaches, the people in your life in your business they matter. They should matter to you and they matter if they’re good quality and that they’re lifting you up, and they’re inspiring you to greater heights or if they’re negative clients or negative team members and how you kind of weed through that.

Everyone was talking about how essential teams were to their success like Jillian Michaels as the keynote speaker or Marcus Lemonis was another keynote speaker and he has these three P’s, and one of them is people and he was sharing how much vulnerability is an asset that if we are willing to almost overshare in any type of business it’s really more rewarding that way you’re invested in people and you care about them and us caring about them and asking our team members our mastermind buddies our coaches. “Hey, how are things in your life?”

This is going to impact the bottom line on your business and it’s not something that we always think about, we’re so focused on the numbers and the how to’s and the strategy that we forget that there’s people or if you’re solopreneur like me I’m sitting behind a computer all day by myself, and I forget about the people that when I’m talking on Facebook it’s a person on the other side. To really take care to be vulnerable, to be open, to be caring and to really make sure that the people you are choosing to be in your life in your team, in your business, as a client who is coaching you that they’re aligned with your values and that they are lifting you to greater heights.

Theme #2 – Implementation

The second big theme that I’m taking away is the idea of implementation and this is something that is stressed at conferences a lot because you’re doing all this intense learning, you’re hearing about this and this from all the people and you go, you’re so inspired and you’ve taken all these books of notes and you go home and you have 100 e-mails to answer. You have a family too, now, you know interact with and catch up with and you have clients that have projects too. You don’t implement, you left so inspire with all these ideas and plans and you never got to the implementation piece. One entrepreneur shared that he actually schedules a week after conferences where he still pretends he’s off and implements all these great ideas and I thought that was really smart.

Not from a conference perspective if you’re just sitting at home. One thing I love about being an entrepreneur is like I love reading books, I’m a lifelong learner, and I think that makes a great entrepreneur but if I take stock and I’m honest with myself I’ve invested in courses that I’ve never followed through with. I’ve bought books that I actually may have read or didn’t read and didn’t implement.

I probably know all the shoulds, woulds, and coulds of what would move my business forward but if I take a minute and I’m honest with myself I don’t implement 90% of it.

Implementation is something I’m really taking away especially as it relates to implementation and Infusionsoft, I was in a session with hosted by James Ashford and he was saying, “You build the pipeline and then you seal the cracks, so you can’t wait to AB test everything and come up with the perfect e-mails, you just build it.” Then one step at a time tweak things make them better but you won’t ever know if you don’t just start somewhere.

Do your next project, build your sales page, put a price on there, do your book, write your book whatever that would be like do the projects that you’ve been dying to do and then fix it later.

I feel like another place people get stuck with implementation it’s like, “Oh, I want to do this when I have the time.” As they say, “Keep the most important thing the most important thing,” and I know we all kind of struggle with that but if you could just get one thing done a day or maybe you’re too busy get one thing done a week that’s going to move you forward.

Then another piece that that was shared was to have a thinking day to once a month, once a week as often as you can, block out a day on your calendar, get out of the house, write an agenda for yourself have a meeting with yourself, and really be focused on strategic thinking for your business.

Implementation was probably an every breakout session they were stressing, make sure that you go home and do this if you spent the time to learn it, and so I just wanted to pass that along to you to make sure that you are learning and implementing and not just learning all the time.

Theme #3 – Play and Dream Bigger

Then finally, for me another thing that I’m taking away is to just play bigger and to dream bigger. This conference was way more inspirational and motivational than I had thought, I thought it was going to be pretty on the technical side given that a lot of Infusionsoft nerds and marketing nerds are here and I really thought it was going to be super technical. I thought it was going to be like here’s the formulas you do for perfect Facebook ads, perfect campaigns and there definitely was that.

From the keynote speakers was just such a call to follow your passion, live your purpose, all these great motivational things and to play in dream so much bigger to not just be focused on what we need to do now but what’s your five-year goal? What’s your 10-year goal? Lisa Nichols was the keynote speaker to close it out today and she was sharing this amazingly powerful thank you visualization that brought me to tears. If you know something about me I’m not really too overly emotional but it was so powerful, and if I can find it I will definitely share link.

And just being surrounded by real business owners who were doing six, seven, eight figures to know that that’s super doable. These were just normal people who had been at it five to seven years who are growing these bigger empires as someone who’s focused on one to one services right now, sometimes it’s a little bit hard for me to see where I’m going in five years but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream about it, it doesn’t mean I can’t try new things, it doesn’t mean I can’t put myself out there in a bigger way and be a little bit more visible and also just to let fear be a motivator not a paralysis.

That was something Jillian Michaels was sharing just like, whatever your fear is we ruminate on it and if you’ve ever had that experience your greatest fear and all the things you’re trying to do to avoid it is what ends up happening. Rather than trying to avoid the fear just like don’t let the fear be, let it be your motivator and not your paralysis. Let it be something that motivates you to overcome it to show that it’s not going to happen, to fight for whatever it is that you want.

I hope by sharing these takeaways you will stop and take stock of the people in your life and in your business, that you will focus on implementing more in your daily and weekly schedule and that you will play and dream bigger with me. I would love to support you in that.