Bad Business Advice. 5 ‘Expert’ Tips That You Should Run From

Hey Friend!

We are talking about bad business advice. This is advice I’ve received in my 11.5 years of being an entrepreneur:

• By people I bought into or followed online
• From courses I invested in
• By people I’ve listened to on podcasts or read their books.

I concluded that this advice was just bad. Maybe it was okay for them and their lifestyle. Maybe it was okay at that point in time when they said it. But for me, it was just bad business advice for who I am, for who you are, and the way we are being called to grow a God-centered, God-honoring business.

Here are five ‘expert’ tips that you should run from….

Run Away When You Hear These 5 Pieces of Business Advice From the ‘Experts’

I have a live Workshop for you if you have been considering podcasting. Come and watch this free training. It’s at podcastforgrowth.com and get started with podcasting. It is the most incredible way to grow an online audience and start to make money doing something you love in so much less time than what you are spending now.

That is just one piece of what I hope to be a long line of amazing God-centered business advice that you can know and trust will come from me. I’m going to be sharing with you and spilling the tea on five ‘expert’ tips that I’ve received that I now run from. These might be tips you have been told or maybe tips you believe. I want to help you know and discern the truth from worldly deception when it comes to building a business centered on Christ that is aligned with His will for you.

Bad Business Advice #1: You Just Need to Hustle Harder

Have you ever believed that if you just worked harder – give the last remaining seconds of every waking moment to your business – that you would have more success? 

What does hustling harder even mean? Does God call us to sacrifice our health, our marriages, our relationships, or our values for the sake of growing a business? Absolutely not!

Does call us to work 24/7 so we can neglect our spiritual life, physical health, or mental health? No! God calls us to put Him first in everything we do. That includes our business.

Hustling harder may lead to a short, temporary burst in your success. I built my very first business based on hustle, but it led me to burnout, stress, and neglecting my relationship with Christ. It eventually imploded because I didn’t build it foundationally and I didn’t build it in a way that would withstand the test of time. 

Hustling harder is poop and we’re throwing it out.

Bad Business Advice #2: Repurpose Everywhere

Repurpose everywhere: blogging, YouTube videos, go live, do Instagram stories. How about TikTok and remember Club House? This is so popular in today’s culture!

It means taking one piece of content and using it in multiple ways; such as taking a blog post and turning it into a podcast episode, social media posts, emails, webinars, and courses. It’s too much.

If you repurpose strategically with a few choice platforms (I teach you which are worth your time in Podcast to Profit), we need to be mindful of quality over quantity. You also need to track metrics to see what’s actually worth it.

Why would you spend your time doing something that isn’t returning leads or profit to your company? I have tested things and made hard decisions around places we were repurposing that didn’t end up returning. 

Instead of willy-nilly repurposing, I recommend focusing on one long-form – I promote podcasting – then test one platform at a time for 3-6 months to see if it’s working in your business. What I’ve found is online platforms are fickle when they’re not long-form. Pinterest used to blow it up for us; it doesn’t anymore. We used to gain some traction with blogging repurposing. Honestly, it’s the slowest growth in a ten-year-long strategy. If you don’t have enough help, is it really worth it?

Some may find that Pinterest really blows it up for your business, and others may not see any return. Everyone’s market is different. Instead of repurposing everywhere and getting burnt out, doing it because someone told you to, take one at a time. Be willing to grow slow so you can grow correctly. Test the platforms that are sustainable and have a long shelf-life. Throw out the stuff that isn’t working. Stop repurposing everywhere and focus on repurposing intentionally.

Bad Business Advice #3: Focus on Social Media

I honestly believe that social media is completely dead when it comes to growing a business. You are spending hours and hours on this platform that, at this point, is just pay-to-play. There’s nothing wrong with that. We have Facebook Ads going, but we didn’t have Facebook Ads running until we passed $400k in revenue. It takes a lot of money to pay to play; you need to have the team, finances, and bandwidth to do that.

When you’re trying to grow organically with social media, it’s not going to work because from what I’ve seen through thousands of people who I’m helping grow a business, it takes hours and hours to get impressions or even get seen. There’s no conversion because there’s no trust. Your buyer is not of a buying mindset when they’re on social media. And it’s a time suck. I truly believe that the enemy is using it as a deception for 99% of people. It leads to mental health problems. It leads to addiction in your life. You know how you feel when you’re using it, so that should be a huge discernment alarm.

Tell me if the last ten reels you made have led to sales from people who don’t already listen to your show or don’t have conversations with you in the DMs. They just don’t convert. If you want it, great. But focusing on social media for your business is bad business advice.

Bad Business Advice #4: Have More Offers

Create a tiny offer. Create a membership community and 37 courses. Start speaking, have a book, and have a journal or planner. Oh, Mylanta! 

Having multiple products, services, programs, and offers is so distracting to your audience and they have literally no idea what to do. So you’ve created analysis paralysis and they don’t buy anything. Or, worse, they buy the tiniest offer you have and don’t get a result because what itty-bitty-tiny thing is going to get them to change their lives? Then they never move forward with you into the customer pipeline. 

Having more offers is bad business advice in my opinion. I believe we need to focus on the power of one – one platform we love on with all our energy, heart, and soul, one person we are speaking to, and one core offer. 

Yes, I have three offers. But I did not have a second one until we were well past $200K in revenue as a company. I want you to ride the power of one until you are past $100K in revenue as a company. Then you can look up and say, “What is next?”

This allows you to learn how to grow the backend of your business because every offer comes with a ton of work: email sequences and sales pages. You need help. You need to start growing a team and designing different checkout pages. It’s difficult. Ask me how I know.

Having one core offer allows you to grow and scale so much more quickly than if you have multiple offers.

Bad Business Advice #5: Go for No

This was awful advice, which basically meant being super pushy. Push and push until someone says no to you and then you can leave them alone.

What I learned after being the CEO of Growth in my company and being able to scale to these absolutely amazing numbers that were never on a vision or goal board for me – but God! – sales is anything but pushy.

It is not about going for no. It’s not about making a list of every single person you know, being pushy, weird, and awkward. Sales is such a beautiful invitation to have people come and take a look at working with you. We should have realistic expectations based on our numbers based on our SuperFan numbers.

We need to understand why someone would buy and why they wouldn’t. I have a simple sales model that you go through in Podcast to Profit that teaches you all the different reasons and ways someone would buy and why we have to utilize all those different beautiful invitations to get people to say yes to our offers. 

My Business Advice

That’s it! Those are the five pieces of ‘expert’ bad business advice I’ve received in the last 11.5 years that I am throwing out and I hope you find the courage to throw them out too.

The business advice I have for you is to: Stay Basic! I want you to focus on growing slow, being discerning over what you say ‘yes’ to. Doing less better, focus on podcasting to grow your audience, and utilize the power of one to go so much deeper with people.

I promise you, true profit is found in deep, authentic connection. You don’t need a ton of people to make really amazing income from your podcast. You just need to be focused. 

• You’ve got to let go of the distraction, lean in, and trust the process enough to give it time to flourish and grow.
• Stop leaping from thing to thing to thing. Stick with something long enough for it to bloom and blossom.
• Allow God to be working through you, beside you, and with you in your business, in all that you do, in every conversation you have, and in every podcast episode you publish. He is at the forefront of it all.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

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