REALIFE Conversations for Christian Coaches | 282 -The REALIFE Process for Business Success: Discover the Seven P’s of Business ( Week 1 of 8)

Show Notes

Hello there, friends! Welcome back to the Doing What Matters podcast. I’m truly excited to introduce you to a new series we’re starting about the "REALIFE Seven P's of Business." Over the next seven episodes, I’m going to guide you through each of these key principles, which are foundational to building and nurturing a thriving business. Today’s episode starts with some background on my journey, how I stumbled upon these insights, and the moment when the need for a structured framework became apparent as my business evolved. We'll also explore how you can assess where your business stands concerning these Sevens P's with a special downloadable resource that I’ve prepared just for you. This hands-on approach isn’t just about theory; it's about actionable, practical steps tailored to help refine and grow your business, regardless of its stage or size. So, if you’re ready to streamline your operations and enhance efficiency, this series will equip you with the necessary tools to do just that. Let’s dive in and start doing what really matters – building a business that not only survives but thrives! Join me on this exciting journey, and let's transform your business together. Don’t forget to download the free resource guide to follow along and rate your business as we progress through each principle.

FREE RESOUCE LINK: https://www.therealifeprocess.com/seven

TIME STAMPS:

00:00 Developing a framework for business growth and structure.

04:02 Learned to disconnect emotions to create a business framework.

07:07 Assess strengths and areas to work on. Principles for everyone, profit or nonprofit.

12:52 How do you rate client, team, and vendor work? Also, how do you handle numbers and processes?

14:09 Processes and problem-solving are super important.

18:05 Look for extraordinary moments through alignment and planning.

FREE RESOURCES:

Take the FREE Intro to Needs & Values Assessment

Ready to discover what uniquely matters to YOU? CLICK HERE to take our FREE Intro to the Needs & Values Assessment.

 

FREE Download: 4 Steps to Simplify Your Calendar

Ready to uncover more time on your calendar? This FREE download will help you remove what doesn’t matter, so you have space for what does. Click here to get this FREE resource!

Get to know the story behind the REALIFE Process® through our film, Rested Success!

CLICK HERE to watch the 15-minute documentary film where you’ll hear Teresa’s story, how the REALIFE Process® began and developed, plus how our Certified Coaches are using the Process in the work that they do.

OTHER RESOURCES:

Check out our YouTube Channel!

Prefer to watch AND listen? Check out our YouTube channel for the podcast episode on video! Make sure to subscribe so you get all the latest updates.

My Book Link

My new book, Do What Matters, is available NOW! Banish busyness and discover a new way of being productive around what truly matters. Learn more at DoWhatMattersBook.com.

 

LifeMapping Tools

Would you like to discover  Life Mapping tools to help you recognize and respond to God in your Story. Check out these tools here https://www.onelifemaps.com/

 

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY & CONNECT WITH ME:

Become part of the FREE REALIFE Process® Community! Connect with Teresa and other podcast listeners, plus find additional content to help you discover your best REALIFE.

 

Connect with your host, Teresa McCloy, on:

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About Teresa McCloy:

Teresa McCloy is the founder and creator of the REALIFE Process®. The REALIFE Process® is dedicated to equipping others and providing community, training, tools and resources, to cultivate both personal and professional development and growth. Teresa’s mission is to see individuals and groups grow in self-awareness, develop sustainable rhythms, and increase their influence and impact at the intersection of faith and work in their everyday life story.

 

 

What is REALIFE Conversations for Christian Coaches ?

Welcome to the podcast hosted by certified coaches Teresa McCloy and Erica Vinson. Join us for authentic conversations around building and sustaining your coaching practice. We'll share tools like our REALIFE Process™ framework as well as business development skills and chat with amazing guests. Together we'll develop ways to stay connected to your realself, engage in your realife, and live out your realwork through the amazing and wonderful world of coaching.

Teresa mcCloy: 00:00

Hello there, friend. Welcome to the doing what matters podcast. I'm your host, Theresa McCloy, and I am glad you are here. You know, know, it just thrills my heart when you listen in and do life with me around the things that matter, both in life and in work. Speaking of work, for the next several weeks, I really want to dive in to an exciting new series that I want to do around what I call the real life seven p's of business.

Teresa mcCloy: 00:33

So for the next 7 weeks after this, we're going to be doing this entire series around each one of these p's. But I want to back up just a bit in the story and tell you why this matters to me and why I wanna share this information with you. When I started my business as a coach back in the fall of 2016, I knew that I had business experience because I had owned my own businesses in both my home when my kids were little and then also brick and mortar storefronts. So I had owned businesses, but I truly did not have a framework to work from. And you all know how much I like a framework.

Teresa mcCloy: 01:21

In fact, in 2,000 17, my business really started to grow when I created the unique kind of modern day rule of life framework that we call the real life process. That happened in 2017 when I formed that framework, and it got me started in looking at the intersection of how I do life and how I do the work that I feel that God has called me to do. And that real life process framework still serves me so well today. I've talked about that on many other episodes and how that all works, and it really served me well as a solo preneur business owner. So for several years, I could just use that rule of life process framework knowing that work was one of my areas of focus, and I could get by with just that.

Teresa mcCloy: 02:19

But as my business grew, and especially as I started to add team members in 2018 or so, I was starting to see that I, once again, was going to need a little bit more structure to the business side of what I was growing. Then in 2020, doing the backstory here, in 2020, when my business took a big jump and I started to certify other coaches and other people to use our modern day rule of life framework, the real life process, our team started to grow again. And I knew that I needed a framework and some language to share with my team. And I was beginning to see how when I was coaching others and growing their business, that they also needed a framework for their businesses as as well. Different from their life framework, yes, that was a part of it, but I needed to put some stuff together that really was more around the business side.

Teresa mcCloy: 03:26

So backing up in the story of this journey, along the way, I had to hire a coach to help me figure out my business. Not necessarily the why behind what I was doing, what had god had called me to. That I had really figured out through my process, but I had to address other things, like how to track my numbers, my money mindset, how I structured and managed my team, and how I would write out repeatable processes for them to use. I had to really learn too how to disconnect my emotions from my business framework, especially my numbers and that ability to lead others. And after working with a coach for a couple of years years on my own framework, it started to develop and take shape.

Teresa mcCloy: 04:20

And as I often do, and one of my sweet spots that I work in, I develop something that I call the 7 p's of business. That's how it got created. And I originally created it and the framework to be able to share with my team as I was giving them the reason why and what we did and how we were gonna run our business, and then I started sharing it out with my coaches, those that were getting certified in our real life process. And I could see that helping them have language around their business was important. So that gives you a little bit of the backstory about where did we get this 7 piece of business.

Teresa mcCloy: 05:01

And what it is, it's a framework. I love to give frameworks for you to use in your life and in your business, and will help guide you as an entrepreneur and as a business leader through these essential aspects of running a successful business. This isn't just theory. I don't like to just have theory. I like to have things that are practical and actionable and really can be tailored to any business.

Teresa mcCloy: 05:31

So over the course of this series, over the next seven weeks, I'm gonna dedicate an episode to each of the 7 p's and dive into it in a more detailed discussion and give you some real world application to the principles and how they are done. But before we go there, I want to encourage you to go download the free download that I have for this series. I'll talk about it on each of the episodes, but I have a free download that you can find in the show notes. You just go to the real life process dot com forward slash 7. So the real life process dot com forward slash 7, and you can download download this free resource.

Teresa mcCloy: 06:18

And you'll want to have it or at least wanna have a piece of paper handy because I'm gonna actually have you rate yourself in this episode on every one of these p's. So download that. It's gonna give you all the details of these 7 p's. We'll use it for the next 7 weeks, so keep it handy. But today, I just wanna set the stage and unpack these 7 p's, what they stand for, and how they are crucial in setting up your business.

Teresa mcCloy: 06:47

And we're gonna rate each of these on a scale of 1 to 5. So as we talk about each one, you can rate yourself. How far along are you in this particular p? Have you started on it at all? Are you just getting started?

Teresa mcCloy: 07:03

And it's gonna make a difference, right, where you're at in your business. If you're brand new, less than a year old, you may rate yourself closer to a 1 or a 2 or a 3 on all of these. That's absolutely okay. If you're like most business owners that have been in business for 2, 3, 4, maybe even 5 years or more, you're gonna find that you're really strong in 1 or 2 of these areas and you're weaker in others. So just rate yourself because that'll help where you need to shore up a little bit in your business.

Teresa mcCloy: 07:38

The other thing about this is it does not matter if you're brand new in business or if you're 5 years and above. You're always coming back to these foundational words, these foundational seven principles for your business. So this is gonna apply to you no matter how long. Also, it doesn't matter if you're a for profit or nonprofit. These same seven principles, these same seven p's are going to apply.

Teresa mcCloy: 08:10

This is just good strategy. Either way, it works no matter where you're at. So hold on. Let's dive in to the 7 p's. So I'm gonna name the 7 p's for you.

Teresa mcCloy: 08:27

The 7 p's are purpose, plan, product, people, processes, particulars, and problems. Each of these represent a vital area of focus in our business. So let me break them down just a little bit in this episode, and then starting next week, we'll dive back in and tear apart each and every one of these, give a little bit more detail as we go through this series. So the first p is purpose. Purpose goes beyond what you do and really gets in into why you do it.

Teresa mcCloy: 09:04

So we will talk about that heartbeat of your business, its reasons for existence. What sets it apart from business blueprint where we business blueprint where we're documenting some of these things and we're visualizing it. Some people would call it a pro form a for your business. It's that guiding star. So we're gonna talk about that in the next episode, and that is that purpose piece.

Teresa mcCloy: 09:38

Then we have the second one, which is the plan. This is where we take that purpose and we break it down a little bit, and we really pull from the concepts and the framework of the real life process, the life management process that I have, we start to break it down into projects, what we're gonna do in the next 90 days. We talk in the plan about how often we have vision meetings, how often we have team meetings, if we have team, what those projects are, and a regular time to get up on the balcony and do visioning and planning, but also then get down into the day to day. So those are the first two is purpose and plan. So I want you to go back, and I want you to think on a scale of 1 to 5 about purpose.

Teresa mcCloy: 10:26

How much of that do you already have done? One being, I haven't really started yet, to 5 being, yes. I have it all written down, and it's documented, and I have it somewhere. And the same thing with plan. If you had to rate your business right now on a scale of 1 to 5, one being, we really don't have a plan, we're shooting from the hip most of the time, or if you're a solopreneur, you're shooting from the hip or your whole team is, whatever it might be, or, yes, we have meetings on a regular basis, we know what projects we're working on, so rate those first two p's.

Teresa mcCloy: 11:04

And then let's get into the third one. The third one is your product. So doesn't do much good to have a business if we don't have a product or service, and we understand how to get that product and service out into the world. So in this p, I really dive deep into what are you offering, how are you marketing it, how are you selling it, how are you improving it and getting customer feedback, and do you have the whole process of getting your products and services out into the world. So that's the third one.

Teresa mcCloy: 11:39

So, again, rate yourself scale of 1 to 5 on that third p of your product or service. The 4th one is people. As we go through these 7 p's, you'll see on the handout that I have that some of them are highlighted in red, and the reason that they are is because if you're a solopreneur, you're not going to need the things in red. And as your business grows and you start to hire people, your revenue increases, you're gonna need some more of the things that I have marked in red. And so under the people category, I'll talk about this, that until you have a team, you don't have to worry about the people on your team.

Teresa mcCloy: 12:24

But you still have customers or clients that you're working with, and you still have vendors, people that you're working with that you might be getting software from or that might be serving you in other ways. Those are relationships, and relationships with people can make or break your business. So we're gonna dive into that one. So on a scale of 1 to 5, where do you feel like you're at as far as how you work with your clients, how you work with your team, and how you work with other vendors? The next one, our 5th one, is particulars.

Teresa mcCloy: 13:04

Now this is the one that I had the emotional connection to or disconnection from, depending on how you look at it, is I didn't like to look at the numbers because the numbers felt emotional to me, and I had to do some work around that. So we'll talk about that when we talk about particulars. These are the numbers and the process that you have for tracking those numbers because these numbers tell us a story. These are the 8 to 10 key metrics that tell us a story about our business, and the whole story isn't just revenue and expenses. So on a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel that you do about tracking the particulars in your business?

Teresa mcCloy: 13:48

Then we come to processes. When we talk about processes, that it's efficient, that it's consistent for yourself if you're a solopreneur, but also for your team. How do you onboard customers or clients? How do you offboard them? What are the day to day operations?

Teresa mcCloy: 14:15

Do you have those written down in what we call 3 step processes so that someone else could step in and do those either for you if something were to happen to you or for others on your team. So processes really matter. They help us streamline things and be more efficient. So we'll dive into more details of that. But right now, on a scale of 1 to 5, what would you say about processes in your business?

Teresa mcCloy: 14:42

And then the last one is problems. Now every business has problems. We're never going to stop having problems, but we do have ways of handling those problems and those challenges. So in this component, we're gonna talk about ways to identify and understand how we solve issues and problems around people problems, project problems, planning problems, product problems, all these other ones that we've talked about can have problems. And how do we look at these and evaluate them, and who do we need to help us and and some of those types of things when we talk about problems.

Teresa mcCloy: 15:27

So on a scale of 1 to 5, just rate yourself of how well do you handle problems. Do they get you stuck and all of a sudden you stop and kind of everything shuts down because you can't process them? 1 being, don't process so well. 5 being, no. We have ways that we deal with problems in our business.

Teresa mcCloy: 15:49

If you have a team or if you're a solopreneur, nope. I know how I handle a problem and how I face it. So how'd you rate yourself? Just go back through and think through as you look at these 7 p's, as I name them again, and you rate yourself in these areas of purpose, plan, products, people, processes, particulars, and problems. 1 to 5, how are you feeling?

Teresa mcCloy: 16:22

When you think about your business overall, how would you rate it? So over the next 7 episodes, as I said, I want to explore each of these piece in-depth, and I want to help you learn from my experience and gain insight in how you can apply these principles into your own business. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a great little series. It's gonna be one that you can go back to and listen to again when you get stumped in any one of these areas, so I'm really excited about this particular series over the next 7 weeks.

Teresa mcCloy: 17:02

And I hope that you will take time to go download that free resource. Remember, you go to the real life process.comforward/7, and you can download this resource so you can see it all in front of you as we talk about them, and you can do your rating right there if you would like to. So speaking of ratings, I would be so grateful if you're excited about this series, if you know that you're gonna lean in and learn from it. I would be grateful if you could go give this podcast a shout out and a review on your favorite podcast app. It would be so helpful for the podcast to get out into the world and for us to receive some new ratings.

Teresa mcCloy: 17:46

So if you can do that, I would be forever grateful. As you're growing your business and doing the work that you feel God has called you to do, don't forget that every ordinary day has an extraordinary moment. You just have to look for them. Don't get caught up so much in the work that God has you to do that you miss the moments. That is why this framework matters to me that I'm gonna share with you is because it will help you to align and lean into the work that you're doing and doing it well and doing it with confidence so that you can experience those extraordinary moments in your everyday life.

Teresa mcCloy: 18:29

So I'll be back next week as we dive into the first p in more depth, and that one is plan, and we're gonna discuss how to build a strong foundation for your business strategy. But thanks for joining me today on the doing what matters podcast. I look forward to being back with you next week. Go have an amazing day.