Top 9 Fatal Mistakes I Made in 2019

Since 2020 is coming up I thought I'd be one of the first to talk about the mistakes I've made in 2019.

I compiled a list of 9 that delivered fatal blows to my life but mistakes that I've learned crucial lessons from. If you get to the end - share with me what your personal favorite is.

1. Thinking that ego was what made me feel alive. I put myself in difficult situations because of it. I tried living up to somebody else's expectations since that's who I thought I was.

I thought bragging, putting a ton of money down on a car, a house, paying rent in 2 places was cool.

I thought going out to eat and spending $5K on food was cool.

But I went from spending $10K a mo in personal to going down to $3K.

What's cool is having your shit together. What's cool is being able to be free. That means being able to do what you want and live it because it's your life.

2. Not prioritizing certain bills and accumulating stupid debt.

Stupid debt is when you don't know what credit cards/bills you have out there and you don't know when you need to pay them so it becomes debt and the interest increases.

I used to say a year or two ago that I didn't need a credit card because I was going to pay everything out of pocket.

I wish I wasn't as naive.

3. Hiring friends without having systems & accountability in place for all of us to thrive.

When you first start out, you don't necessarily have shit figured out. A lot of people I've come to find out don't even have systems in place so when you do make a hire - they can thrive.

There was no "definition" of success within a role. So because of that - it was hard to gauge whether or not if work was getting done, people were getting updated, and if they were succeeding.

I learned that if you're going to hire friends that are entrepreneurial you need to be able to make it a win win for them to make money from different avenues within your business.

Without a proper hiring process and a clear role, no one knows what's going on.

4. Not knowing the numbers.

If you would've asked me in January what my numbers were... I couldn't tell you. I didn't know how many people we were talking too on a weekly/monthly basis.

Without that knowledge there's no way I was going to succeed and pull the lever that I wanted to pull.

Now if you ask me... I know that we have 9 calls today. 6 are from Instagram. 1 from LinkedIn & 2 are Audit Calls.

What this allows me to do is to understand our marketing better. Before we didn't know and couldn't predict how many sales we were going to generate.

Now that process is easier with much more clarity. Same goes with referrals, client fulfillment and any up-sells.

5. Setting goals and deviating away from the plan.

Adapting is good, but there's some things that shouldn't get changed.

We've made some goals a priority for Q4 and then shiny object syndrome came and we shifted our focus.

If we would've stuck to the goals we had planned. We would've been close to the end result that we wanted for 2019.

Shiny things will always be there. A new company to hire will always be there. But if the focus is not that specifically... don't do it.

Doesn't mean it's a bad decision. It's just not the focus.

Stick to the plan and accomplish it and then move on to the next big thing.

6. Staying in an environment that doesn't serve me.

This one is HUGE. If you're constantly in an environment where you feel degraded, lonely, depressed it's NOT that you've lost motivation.

You just can't find any by looking in the wrong direction. They don't have your goals, your aspirations.

However when you're in the right crowd... or by yourself but you talk to yourself you can control what goes in your head.

Which is 70% of the battle I feel. Train your mind to believe what you want to believe.

Sometimes you need to be a different person to achieve a higher level of success. That's why when 2x chats with me they don't call me Ulyses.

They call me U7. Because that requires a different level of me that is a persona we all live by.

7. Thinking not having leads was the problem.

Lead generation is not always the problem. But I can guarantee you a ton of entrepreneurs think it is.

They don't focus on LTV. They think a $3K sale is a one and done. The transaction is when the relationship starts... not ends.

How hard is it to get a new client when you can focus on the ones you have, make them happy and not spend on marketing because you've already acquired a customer for life.

8. Not knowing exactly who we serve and who we don't.

Who experiences the most pain the most frequent. You need to understand this 1 thing.

Are you selling a vitamin to a certain type of client but a pain killer to another?

The vitamins you're selling to a certain type of client is much harder to sell and harder to get amazing results for vs the client that needs what you're selling.

We didn't know exactly who we served so we served anyone. Man was that a mistake.

You need to have a "definition" of qualified so you can predict the growth well ahead of time and know you're going to deliver a world class service to them when to the wrong client it can be mediocre.

9. Not having a sales system.

When you don't know where people are falling off in your process it's tough to "improve" per say. But when you finally have a process down that you use all the time and constantly improve it you can almost predict an outcome or an objection.

A sales process & system allows you to be prepared which is crucial. You can understand their needs, pin point solutions, have an irresistible offer. You can know if they're into the conversation, you can pre-qualify them etc.

You have more control in your business vs just "winging it".

Btw... I haven't posted consistently for months because we've been building the team and creating rock solid systems.

Can't wait to show everyone what's happened in the last 6 months as we put our head down to just perfect the business & culture.