49. How to Make the Most of a Business Investment
Have you ever invested in a business tool, course, or coaching program only to realize months later that you barely used it?
I spent thousands on a year-long ClickFunnels subscription after watching Russell Brunson's masterful webinar pitch. Twelve months later, I had nothing to show for it except a few half-built landing pages, some abandoned training videos, and a hefty dose of guilt and shame. At first, I was livid and embarrassed. I felt completely duped. But that experience taught me something invaluable about how we approach business investments.
Join me this week as I share my complete framework for making smart investments that generate real returns. You'll learn practical tools to use before, during, and after any investment to extract maximum value, even from ones that initially feel disappointing. This approach has transformed how I view business spending and has helped me build momentum instead of staying stuck in analysis paralysis or regret.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
4 essential steps to think about before making any investment.
How to define clear, specific outcomes before making any business investment.
Why creating a plan for ROI beyond just revenue changes your investment mindset.
The three ownership mindsets that transform any investment experience.
A simple three-question framework that turns "failed" investments into valuable learning opportunities.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
If you know Russell Brunson, you know he's a master at webinar selling. When I attended his ClickFunnels pitch, I was, well, let's be honest, I was still a bit hesitant because I'm meticulous about investments and spending money, sometimes to a fault, which is why this episode today exists. But my husband, he caught just the last few minutes of it and was instantly sold. He was like, of course, we need this. He was like already envisioning how we'd use it in both our businesses, the ClickFunnels software.
So I invested a couple thousand dollars for a year-long subscription. And you know what I had to show for it? Twelve months later, practically nothing. Okay, a few half-built landing pages, some abandoned training videos, a renewal email, and a ton of guilt and shame, right? At first, I was livid. I felt completely got, right? I was embarrassed, and I bet you can relate, right? Maybe it wasn't ClickFunnels for you, but maybe it was another platform, a coaching program, a marketing guru, or even hiring help at home that left you feeling completely disappointed.
But listen, I got good news. That's never going to happen again because in this episode, I'm equipping you with practical tools that you can use before, during, and after any investment so that you can extract maximum value, even from ones that really underdeliver and initially feel disappointing. And let me be clear, this isn't about criticizing ClickFunnels. I actually respect their product and company, but we all have our ClickFunnels story. The thing that we invested in and got nothing out of. And by the end of this episode, you'll see yours in a whole new light, just like I've learned to do the same for my own investments with these tools.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hello, mom friends. I've been revisiting coursework from a coaching program I invested in back in 2021, and it sparked something powerful. The question, how do we make every business investment worth the money? When talking about making the most of investments, I've learned this lesson the hard way. For years, I approached business investments with skepticism, right? Assuming everything was a potential scam. My thinking was trapped in an all-or-nothing pattern, right? Either this is a complete ripoff, or it's the magical blueprint that will solve all of my problems. And the truth is, there's no right investment that guarantees success, despite what every marketing message tries to tell you, okay?
But here's what I am 100% certain about. You need to be investing in something to move you and your business forward. Okay? Early in my business, I was determined to figure everything out myself. It seemed financially responsible to do that. I spent countless hours wrestling with website design, complicated softwares like ClickFunnels, and projects that never generated revenue. And it wasn't until I started strategically investing in myself and my business that momentum was built. Okay?
It began with a simple directory listing that still brings me clients today, then progressed to coaching programs that transformed how I think about myself and business, to training so I could actually know what the heck was going on with creating Facebook ads.
This is where when we say you've got to spend money to make money becomes real. And yes, you absolutely could figure it all out all on your own. I promise you that. I know that you are a smart, capable human being. But at what cost? Okay? Sometimes our determination to save money actually costs more in wasted time, energy, and trial and error expenses, and often it leads to wanting to shut down the business because we have been wasting time, energy, and expenses in the trial and error process without the support. Trust me, I know from experience.
And am I suggesting you outsource everything in your business? Absolutely not. It's really important that you get into the weeds of your business, especially early on, so that you can understand your business fundamentals. And it's a crucial skill for you to have to learn how to operate different aspects of your business without help, right? But there's a middle ground where strategic investments can actually accelerate your progress without breaking the bank. The investments don't have to be above your means, but you do have to see that investing in yourself and your business is bound to perform better than the market.
And when I say that, I mean as your business grows, there is no ceiling to what you can earn. So, whether you are comfortable investing in the market because you know that that money will increase, I want you to learn how to be just as comfortable investing in your business and yourself, knowing that with more tools and skills, your business revenue will increase as well.
And as a side note, I know the political climate and I know the market right now is not too promising or there's a lot of thoughts around the market right now. So just think about this as like the market not in this very moment, but the 10% growth that we all know and expect in investing our money.
So today I'm going to walk you through a complete framework for making smart investments in your business. What to do before you invest a single dollar, how to maximize value during the investment, and most importantly, how to extract powerful lessons even when things don't go as planned. Okay?
If you're as methodical about business decisions as I am, these tools that I'm about to teach you will transform how you approach investments, giving you more power than you realize. Right? I want you to feel confident when you're investing in your business and yourself that it will not be a bust and you won't regret it because too often I see people, my past self included, making an investment and then worrying so much about whether it was the right decision that it takes away from actually extracting value from the thing.
So, let's talk about before the investment. The moment before you click buy now on that course or sign a coaching contract, it's actually the most critical moment in your investment journey because what you do before investing will determine your results. And there are four essential steps to think about before any investment.
The first is understand your true desired outcomes. Second, create a specific plan for ROI beyond just revenue, which I will talk about how to do that. Three is examine your thoughts and motivations honestly. That one is really tough to be honest with ourselves. I'm going to give you some tools to do that. And fourth, I want you to invest as your future self, not your current self. And I'm going to give some examples of that as well. Okay?
So the first thing is to really understand the outcomes that you are hoping to achieve with the investment. But here's the thing. We think that there's a magic pill or system, and I talked about this earlier. And we have to weed out the scams in order to find the one thing that really will work and make everything easier. We're all looking for that, and trust me, it doesn't exist. I wanted ClickFunnels to solve all of my problems. I was mesmerized by the possibility during that webinar. But here's what I wish I'd asked myself.
Do I need new software? Or was I attracted to the energy and possibility in that room? The truth was, my current website was working fine. It's still the website I have up today. The migration would have required significant upfront work that wasn't necessary at that stage of my business. And had I been honest with myself about this simple reality, I could have attended the webinar and appreciated the excellent marketing while keeping my credit card safely in my pocket.
The next thing that I can't stress enough, and this is something I never really thought about before until most recently when I was trying to solve this problem for myself of how do I make the most of every investment? But create a plan to make a return on the investment. The return on investment, the ROI, doesn't always have to be in revenue. Okay? I want you to decide for yourself what the return will be for you and create a plan around that return, right? So this could be measured in health, mental clarity, focus, or even how present you can be with your kids. The return on investment of you being able to be present.
My husband and I recently had to cancel a trip to Portugal, and instead, we went to a local beach town. We called it a life visioning week where we created a plan to talk about big life topics each night after the kids' bedtime. The return on that simple retreat has improved our marriage and both of our businesses in countless ways. It wasn't necessarily that we were making any revenue back by going on that trip. But making back your investment, I want you to see doesn't have to be just revenue. It can be a return on time, energy, emotional well-being, all the things, just like my husband and I experienced.
I invested in a company to help me with this podcast. And if I really did the math on how much time and energy it has saved me, it would likely be in the tens of thousands of dollars. If I had to figure out the editing and sound quality myself, I don't think I'd have time to actually work with clients. So, when we create a plan for what we will get in return out of the investment and think in advance about the value of the return, we are doing the initial mindset work to go into it feeling energized, which will absolutely help us to maximize what it has to offer.
If you go into that investment in a head space that's doubting the investment or stressed about the decision, wondering whether it was the right decision, you will not be able to focus on the work. You won't be open-minded to trusting the process and extracting value. Your brain will be looking for all the ways that the product or service is failing instead of all the ways that it's creating new opportunities and a return for you.
The other thing I want to say, if it is an investment that is promising you will make more money in your business, I want you to not trust necessarily that going into it, it will guide you 100% to make the money back. I want you to go into it and really understand, okay, what am I going to do to make this investment back? Am I going to show up to all of the offerings? Am I going to do the workbook that comes along with it? Am I going to create accountability for myself? Am I going to dedicate one hour each week really thinking about the material and reflecting on it? Right?
Am I going to do every single thing that this program or service has to offer and really make my money back within the first month, even though it's a six-month program? I want you to think about creating that plan and thinking about how you are going to get whatever you invested back in return.
So, back to, let's talk about going into it and the thoughts. I want you to ask yourself some questions going into the investment. What thoughts are driving this investment choice? I want you to ask yourself, am I looking for an easy way out? Do I want someone else to solve my problems for me? Right? That was me with ClickFunnels. Am I hoping I won't have to do all the work? Am I pushing off responsibility? These are super common thoughts.
Like I said, I have them all the time. And we need to get to a place where we are taking ownership over the results and not assuming that this investment that we might make will solve all of our problems. No matter what you're investing in, you will always have to do the work. My husband and I have learned that the hard way. We're always wanting to skirt around the work and hire people and contract things to help us. But at the end of the day, we are still the people, the business owners who are doing the work. And we get to do the work, right? We don't have to.
Going into every investment with a belief in yourself will change everything, right? A belief in you doing the work and being capable of doing the work to get the results. If you decide that you are capable of great things and getting the results and the return on investment that you want, it will change how you approach investments in your business and your life, honestly.
If you go into an investment and you don't believe in your ability to get a return, you won't do the work and be open enough to see how to make the most of it. On the flip side, like I said, if you decide that this investment will absolutely work for you, you approach the training or tools in a way that gets you the results you're looking for.
The last thing is I want you to invest, well, the last thing in what to do before the investment, right? Because we still have what to do during and after, which I will change everything and is a little bit more tangible than this piece, I think. But I want you to invest as the person you want to become, not as the person you currently are. This creates aspirational growth. So I want you to take a moment and ask yourself, what would the version of me I want to become invest in right now to get me there? Not the cautious, resource constrained you of today, but the successful, confident you of tomorrow or next month or a year from now, okay? This single question has transformed my approach to every investment decision.
If I'm a mom, still working a corporate role, I might be hesitant to hire a coach or to do a training program or to invest in a website or go through the documents to make an LLC. But if I think about the version of me who has a successful business, that entrepreneur probably has a business coach. They probably invested in multiple training programs. They probably have invested many times over in a URL for their website. And they definitely invested time and energy and money in setting up the LLC.
32% of startup entrepreneurs utilize business coaches and 60% of growth state entrepreneurs use them. That means that if we are just looking at the future you who has the successful business, who has probably invested in some sort of coaching or training around business, then we are able to see that that future you sees investing in yourself as not a sign of weakness, but instead as a sign of good business strategy. If 60% of growth stage entrepreneurs use them and you want to be that one day, then you have to be thinking like a growth stage business entrepreneur. And 60% of them have support.
If I see my future self as someone who has a, let's say six-figure business, what investments would that person make now to get her there? We need to be thinking about that because if we constantly make decisions about support and investments as our current self, we will not grow. We will not evolve. Before committing to any investment, I want you to run yourself through this checklist.
Number one, I've clearly defined what success looks like for this investment. Number two, I have a specific plan to generate the return on investment, whatever that is, financial or otherwise. Number three, I've examined my motivations and am not seeking a magic pill because that magic pill doesn't exist. We have to do the work, and that's a good thing because that's the only way that we will learn and evolve.
Number four, I'm investing as my future self, not my current self. And number five, I believe I'm capable of doing the work and making this successful, no matter what. Okay? With this preparation, you're already miles ahead of most people who invest impulsively or most people who don't invest because they talk themselves out of it.
So now I want to talk about how to maximize the value during the investment. I want to talk about mindset, of course, because I always do. But the mindset that makes or breaks your results during the investment period. Okay? This is where most people sabotage themselves without even realizing it. And by people, I mean me too. So here's the golden rule of any investment. I need you to take 100% ownership of making it work. Not 99%, not mostly. I want you to take complete ownership. The moment, and I mean the exact moment that you start blaming external factors is the exact moment your investment begins losing all its value. You are responsible for getting the results, not the investment itself.
When we pay for something, we sometimes fall into laziness or almost like entitlement, that since we paid, we are owed results. And that's the quickest way to wasted money. You are paying for expert advice, accountability, tips, tricks, experiences, whatever it is. Even if it's not tools for business, maybe it's tools for weight loss, maybe it's tools to help your child sleep through the night, right? But that's what you are paying for, the tools and the expertise. You are not paying for the automatic results.
You still have to take ownership over the work to get there. A sleep consultant might tell you that you have to wait five minutes when your baby is crying to go into the room. It's up to you to do the work, the hard work of listening to your what seems like your distressed baby crying, and to set your timer before going in there, right? And you have to be diligent and you have to repeat the process and actually take the expert advice and put it into practice. You are doing the work.
So let's imagine you join a program. We'll just say a coaching program because I'm super familiar with joining lots of them. Let's imagine you join a program and after two weeks you think, these modules aren't organized how I want them to be. It's confusing. The coach doesn't respond as quickly as I'd like. Maybe you even think like I'm not getting anything out of this, right?
That thought pattern is the subtle beginning of shifting responsibility onto the external source and removing your own ownership. Instead, I want you to think about asking, how can I extract value despite the challenges that I'm seeing? Or despite this not being exactly what I expected? That mental pivot will change everything about the trajectory of the program.
This can be a really empowering shift because that means that no matter what, you will get results. As long as you believe in yourself going into it and you take ownership in the thick of it, there's no way that you won't grow as a human while engaged in the investment. I promise. If things aren't going well, ask yourself, what can I do differently to get more out of this investment now instead of waiting till the end?
There are three ownership mindsets that transform any investment, okay? Results ownership. You, not the investment, are responsible for your outcome. Two, process ownership. Consistent engagement with the material is your responsibility, even when it feels challenging, right? Even when the live call is in the middle of the week, or even when the retreat option is a weekend that isn't ideal for you. The third is adaptation ownership. If something isn't working, it's up to you to pivot, to ask questions, or to approach it differently. Okay?
When you pay for something, there are two mindsets. The entitlement mindset that is I paid, so I deserve results regardless of my effort. And then the ownership mindset. I paid for access to expertise and tools that I will leverage fully. Only one of these mindsets consistently produces transformation. Okay?
So, again, I want you to remember you're not paying for results when you are in the midst of an investment. You are paying for the opportunity to create results. You are paying for the knowledge and the tools that will make it more realistic to maybe create results faster or create the results with less stress or with less time wasted. And that distinction, the I'm paying for the opportunity to create results versus I am automatically paying for results, changes everything about how you show up with the material in the midst of the investment.
So we've talked about what to do before and during an investment. Now, I want to talk about what might be the most powerful part of the entire process, okay? What you do after the investment is done and completed. This is where real growth happens, where your wisdom is crystallized and where you transform every dollar spent into lasting value regardless of the initial outcome. At the end of any investment, I want you to evaluate how it went by asking what went well, what didn't go well, and what will I do differently next time? I talked about this just briefly in episode 46 about asking better questions, but I want to really dive into it here and make sure that you see it as the absolute most beneficial thing you can do at the end of any investment to learn from it. It's so simple but so impactful.
I challenge you to find at least a handful of things that went well because even in the worst situations, we can find some things to highlight. This will allow your brain to get out of victim mode and focusing only on what ways that the program or the investment disappointed you and into sort of the space of feeling a little bit like there are actually things that I took from it and there are things that went well. If you're doing your mind management work before and during the investment, I guarantee you'll get to this evaluation and be in a much better head space to find the things that went well.
If we're looking at my ClickFunnels investment, where I spent thousands, but didn't even have one functional landing page by the end of the year, my evaluation might sound something like this. What went well? So I learned specific questions to ask about platforms to make sure they fit my needs. I also learned this process, you know, that investment, what felt like an investment failure is what really energized me to be a little bit more diligent about seeking benefit and extracting value in every investment. So this topic in general and this process for myself came out of that.
I grew my knowledge of backend processes and of funnels. You know, prior to even attending the webinar, I had no idea what ClickFunnels did. I had very little idea what funnels were and how they functioned. And now I know so much more about everything that has to do with funnels. I learned that my learning style is hands-on. So that was something that went well too, right? Now when I'm investing, I know that I need platforms with robust support and I know that I need accountability when I'm investing in something platform wise, right?
Shortly after the ClickFunnels investment, I actually ended up investing in Ontraport for my CRM, which is a tool. They have amazing support. And I hired somebody to help me with the transferring my materials from my what I had was like an Excel CRM to the platform, right? So I knew that I needed accountability and support in so many ways, and the only way I would have learned that was investing in ClickFunnels and having it be what I thought of as a failure that I needed to learn from, right?
Okay. So that might be the what went well. The next question is what didn't go well. Our brain has plenty of things to give us here, right? So what didn't go well for the ClickFunnels, I didn't create a plan to implement the software. I didn't test the system to see if it made sense for my business. They even have a 30-day money back guarantee. And in the first 30 days, I did not go into it and I did not set aside time to really test it out and see and be able to answer for myself, is this something that makes my business better? Is this something that I need in my business or not?
I didn't take advantage of the 30-day money back guarantee. I also wasn't clear on what I wanted to accomplish, and I didn't create a return on investment plan. So I was so excited about all the energy in the webinar, and I made the investment, but I wasn't clear on what I needed to or wanted to accomplish. And that's part of the reason why it just sat there for an entire year, me getting very little out of it.
I hope that you notice some of the themes though in this what didn't go well. All of these things are within my control. The lack of results are not because of the software, it's because I didn't invest time or energy in learning it, testing it out, and being a student of it, right? Those are all things that I can control so that next investment, I can do them differently.
Just like I mentioned with the Ontraport investment, I went into that very differently. Which leads me to the third question, what will I do differently? So when I'm thinking about ClickFunnels and that investment, what will I do differently? I would utilize the 30-day money back guarantee as a way to trial the software and invest time figuring it out if it solves my specific problem.
I would create a plan to make my investment back in the first 30 days, a very specific plan. So much was talked about in the webinar about how so many people have made so much money in this software using it as a tool. And so when I invested in it, I was like, this is almost automatic, right? Like these results, but I did not create a plan to make that investment back. And so I didn't do anything with it or anything meaningful with it. I didn't figure it out and put it to good use.
The third might be next time I will block off ample time to go through training materials and transition assets, right? So if I'm transitioning softwares, I will know to block off way more time than I think. And like I mentioned before, I would even probably hire somebody who specializes in that software and get coaching on it and get support on it from somebody who's able to not only teach me one-on-one since that's how I learn best, but also somebody to actually, you know, help me do the work of transitioning all my assets.
Even an investment that feels like it was a failure provides valuable learning. Failures from investments can be data acquisition costs, right? Not losses. So every failed investment provides invaluable information for future success. And that's something that we can always find, no matter how the investment goes. No matter the results that we get, we can create our own results of learnings and lessons. And that is how we get better and better at investments, better and better at business, better and better as humans.
So when we commit to this framework, something remarkable happens. I promise, there are no more failed investments, only investments with different forms of return. Some return money directly, others return wisdom, clarity, insights that prevent far costlier mistakes down the road. And again, it's not about saying yes to every opportunity, it's about getting better at saying yes because you have this protocol.
So what I want you to do is think about your most recent investment that didn't meet your expectations, and I want you to take time right now and identify just one thing that went well that you might have overlooked. And I want you to think about what you would do differently next time in that investment. Even this tiny shift begins rewiring your brain from disappointment to learning.
And for all my A students, I would love for you to go back and really dive deep into that investment and really understand what value you got out of it, even though up until this moment right now, you've probably been thinking that it was a failed investment and you're probably still mad at the person who sold it to you. I've shared my complete framework for making smart investments in your business that will generate real returns, right? Whether financial, emotional, educational, all the things.
So before you invest, get very clear on specific outcomes, create a plan for how you will make your money back, whether in revenue or in other ways. Examine your motivations and remember there is no magic pill, and that's okay. And invest in the person you want to become, not who you currently are. During the investment, I want you to take 100% ownership of making the investment work. I want you to understand you're paying for access to expertise, not guaranteed results. I want you to approach every investment with the belief that if someone else got results, you can too. And during it, I want you to think about and question what can I do instead of why isn't this working? Right? Take ownership of those process adjustments if you need them.
And then after the investment, I want you to ask yourself what went well, what didn't go well? What will I do differently next time? Okay? Challenge yourself to find positive outcomes even in disappointing experiences. Okay? Recognize patterns in what didn't work and take ownership without self-judgment.
Transform insights into specific strategies for your next investment because there will be another one. There should be another one. Remember, the most successful entrepreneurs aren't those who make perfect investment decisions every time. They're the ones who extract maximum value from every investment, whether it delivers the expected results or unexpected wisdom.
I would love for you to send me a quick email and let me know your thoughts. My email is Jenna@jenna.coach. I'd love to hear what you're investing in for your business. Or if you can't decide what to invest in, let me know. Email me. And let's start building momentum towards a decision instead of staying stuck.
I'm in the middle of deciding on my next coach, and I'm investing in my business in multiple ways. I'm happy to share those more. Email me, let me know. Let's start a conversation. I want you to enjoy your week, and I will talk to you soon. Next week is episode 50. It's amazing. I have a very special episode coming for you, so stay tuned.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
So I invested a couple thousand dollars for a year-long subscription. And you know what I had to show for it? Twelve months later, practically nothing. Okay, a few half-built landing pages, some abandoned training videos, a renewal email, and a ton of guilt and shame, right? At first, I was livid. I felt completely got, right? I was embarrassed, and I bet you can relate, right? Maybe it wasn't ClickFunnels for you, but maybe it was another platform, a coaching program, a marketing guru, or even hiring help at home that left you feeling completely disappointed.
But listen, I got good news. That's never going to happen again because in this episode, I'm equipping you with practical tools that you can use before, during, and after any investment so that you can extract maximum value, even from ones that really underdeliver and initially feel disappointing. And let me be clear, this isn't about criticizing ClickFunnels. I actually respect their product and company, but we all have our ClickFunnels story. The thing that we invested in and got nothing out of. And by the end of this episode, you'll see yours in a whole new light, just like I've learned to do the same for my own investments with these tools.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hello, mom friends. I've been revisiting coursework from a coaching program I invested in back in 2021, and it sparked something powerful. The question, how do we make every business investment worth the money? When talking about making the most of investments, I've learned this lesson the hard way. For years, I approached business investments with skepticism, right? Assuming everything was a potential scam. My thinking was trapped in an all-or-nothing pattern, right? Either this is a complete ripoff, or it's the magical blueprint that will solve all of my problems. And the truth is, there's no right investment that guarantees success, despite what every marketing message tries to tell you, okay?
But here's what I am 100% certain about. You need to be investing in something to move you and your business forward. Okay? Early in my business, I was determined to figure everything out myself. It seemed financially responsible to do that. I spent countless hours wrestling with website design, complicated softwares like ClickFunnels, and projects that never generated revenue. And it wasn't until I started strategically investing in myself and my business that momentum was built. Okay?
It began with a simple directory listing that still brings me clients today, then progressed to coaching programs that transformed how I think about myself and business, to training so I could actually know what the heck was going on with creating Facebook ads.
This is where when we say you've got to spend money to make money becomes real. And yes, you absolutely could figure it all out all on your own. I promise you that. I know that you are a smart, capable human being. But at what cost? Okay? Sometimes our determination to save money actually costs more in wasted time, energy, and trial and error expenses, and often it leads to wanting to shut down the business because we have been wasting time, energy, and expenses in the trial and error process without the support. Trust me, I know from experience.
And am I suggesting you outsource everything in your business? Absolutely not. It's really important that you get into the weeds of your business, especially early on, so that you can understand your business fundamentals. And it's a crucial skill for you to have to learn how to operate different aspects of your business without help, right? But there's a middle ground where strategic investments can actually accelerate your progress without breaking the bank. The investments don't have to be above your means, but you do have to see that investing in yourself and your business is bound to perform better than the market.
And when I say that, I mean as your business grows, there is no ceiling to what you can earn. So, whether you are comfortable investing in the market because you know that that money will increase, I want you to learn how to be just as comfortable investing in your business and yourself, knowing that with more tools and skills, your business revenue will increase as well.
And as a side note, I know the political climate and I know the market right now is not too promising or there's a lot of thoughts around the market right now. So just think about this as like the market not in this very moment, but the 10% growth that we all know and expect in investing our money.
So today I'm going to walk you through a complete framework for making smart investments in your business. What to do before you invest a single dollar, how to maximize value during the investment, and most importantly, how to extract powerful lessons even when things don't go as planned. Okay?
If you're as methodical about business decisions as I am, these tools that I'm about to teach you will transform how you approach investments, giving you more power than you realize. Right? I want you to feel confident when you're investing in your business and yourself that it will not be a bust and you won't regret it because too often I see people, my past self included, making an investment and then worrying so much about whether it was the right decision that it takes away from actually extracting value from the thing.
So, let's talk about before the investment. The moment before you click buy now on that course or sign a coaching contract, it's actually the most critical moment in your investment journey because what you do before investing will determine your results. And there are four essential steps to think about before any investment.
The first is understand your true desired outcomes. Second, create a specific plan for ROI beyond just revenue, which I will talk about how to do that. Three is examine your thoughts and motivations honestly. That one is really tough to be honest with ourselves. I'm going to give you some tools to do that. And fourth, I want you to invest as your future self, not your current self. And I'm going to give some examples of that as well. Okay?
So the first thing is to really understand the outcomes that you are hoping to achieve with the investment. But here's the thing. We think that there's a magic pill or system, and I talked about this earlier. And we have to weed out the scams in order to find the one thing that really will work and make everything easier. We're all looking for that, and trust me, it doesn't exist. I wanted ClickFunnels to solve all of my problems. I was mesmerized by the possibility during that webinar. But here's what I wish I'd asked myself.
Do I need new software? Or was I attracted to the energy and possibility in that room? The truth was, my current website was working fine. It's still the website I have up today. The migration would have required significant upfront work that wasn't necessary at that stage of my business. And had I been honest with myself about this simple reality, I could have attended the webinar and appreciated the excellent marketing while keeping my credit card safely in my pocket.
The next thing that I can't stress enough, and this is something I never really thought about before until most recently when I was trying to solve this problem for myself of how do I make the most of every investment? But create a plan to make a return on the investment. The return on investment, the ROI, doesn't always have to be in revenue. Okay? I want you to decide for yourself what the return will be for you and create a plan around that return, right? So this could be measured in health, mental clarity, focus, or even how present you can be with your kids. The return on investment of you being able to be present.
My husband and I recently had to cancel a trip to Portugal, and instead, we went to a local beach town. We called it a life visioning week where we created a plan to talk about big life topics each night after the kids' bedtime. The return on that simple retreat has improved our marriage and both of our businesses in countless ways. It wasn't necessarily that we were making any revenue back by going on that trip. But making back your investment, I want you to see doesn't have to be just revenue. It can be a return on time, energy, emotional well-being, all the things, just like my husband and I experienced.
I invested in a company to help me with this podcast. And if I really did the math on how much time and energy it has saved me, it would likely be in the tens of thousands of dollars. If I had to figure out the editing and sound quality myself, I don't think I'd have time to actually work with clients. So, when we create a plan for what we will get in return out of the investment and think in advance about the value of the return, we are doing the initial mindset work to go into it feeling energized, which will absolutely help us to maximize what it has to offer.
If you go into that investment in a head space that's doubting the investment or stressed about the decision, wondering whether it was the right decision, you will not be able to focus on the work. You won't be open-minded to trusting the process and extracting value. Your brain will be looking for all the ways that the product or service is failing instead of all the ways that it's creating new opportunities and a return for you.
The other thing I want to say, if it is an investment that is promising you will make more money in your business, I want you to not trust necessarily that going into it, it will guide you 100% to make the money back. I want you to go into it and really understand, okay, what am I going to do to make this investment back? Am I going to show up to all of the offerings? Am I going to do the workbook that comes along with it? Am I going to create accountability for myself? Am I going to dedicate one hour each week really thinking about the material and reflecting on it? Right?
Am I going to do every single thing that this program or service has to offer and really make my money back within the first month, even though it's a six-month program? I want you to think about creating that plan and thinking about how you are going to get whatever you invested back in return.
So, back to, let's talk about going into it and the thoughts. I want you to ask yourself some questions going into the investment. What thoughts are driving this investment choice? I want you to ask yourself, am I looking for an easy way out? Do I want someone else to solve my problems for me? Right? That was me with ClickFunnels. Am I hoping I won't have to do all the work? Am I pushing off responsibility? These are super common thoughts.
Like I said, I have them all the time. And we need to get to a place where we are taking ownership over the results and not assuming that this investment that we might make will solve all of our problems. No matter what you're investing in, you will always have to do the work. My husband and I have learned that the hard way. We're always wanting to skirt around the work and hire people and contract things to help us. But at the end of the day, we are still the people, the business owners who are doing the work. And we get to do the work, right? We don't have to.
Going into every investment with a belief in yourself will change everything, right? A belief in you doing the work and being capable of doing the work to get the results. If you decide that you are capable of great things and getting the results and the return on investment that you want, it will change how you approach investments in your business and your life, honestly.
If you go into an investment and you don't believe in your ability to get a return, you won't do the work and be open enough to see how to make the most of it. On the flip side, like I said, if you decide that this investment will absolutely work for you, you approach the training or tools in a way that gets you the results you're looking for.
The last thing is I want you to invest, well, the last thing in what to do before the investment, right? Because we still have what to do during and after, which I will change everything and is a little bit more tangible than this piece, I think. But I want you to invest as the person you want to become, not as the person you currently are. This creates aspirational growth. So I want you to take a moment and ask yourself, what would the version of me I want to become invest in right now to get me there? Not the cautious, resource constrained you of today, but the successful, confident you of tomorrow or next month or a year from now, okay? This single question has transformed my approach to every investment decision.
If I'm a mom, still working a corporate role, I might be hesitant to hire a coach or to do a training program or to invest in a website or go through the documents to make an LLC. But if I think about the version of me who has a successful business, that entrepreneur probably has a business coach. They probably invested in multiple training programs. They probably have invested many times over in a URL for their website. And they definitely invested time and energy and money in setting up the LLC.
32% of startup entrepreneurs utilize business coaches and 60% of growth state entrepreneurs use them. That means that if we are just looking at the future you who has the successful business, who has probably invested in some sort of coaching or training around business, then we are able to see that that future you sees investing in yourself as not a sign of weakness, but instead as a sign of good business strategy. If 60% of growth stage entrepreneurs use them and you want to be that one day, then you have to be thinking like a growth stage business entrepreneur. And 60% of them have support.
If I see my future self as someone who has a, let's say six-figure business, what investments would that person make now to get her there? We need to be thinking about that because if we constantly make decisions about support and investments as our current self, we will not grow. We will not evolve. Before committing to any investment, I want you to run yourself through this checklist.
Number one, I've clearly defined what success looks like for this investment. Number two, I have a specific plan to generate the return on investment, whatever that is, financial or otherwise. Number three, I've examined my motivations and am not seeking a magic pill because that magic pill doesn't exist. We have to do the work, and that's a good thing because that's the only way that we will learn and evolve.
Number four, I'm investing as my future self, not my current self. And number five, I believe I'm capable of doing the work and making this successful, no matter what. Okay? With this preparation, you're already miles ahead of most people who invest impulsively or most people who don't invest because they talk themselves out of it.
So now I want to talk about how to maximize the value during the investment. I want to talk about mindset, of course, because I always do. But the mindset that makes or breaks your results during the investment period. Okay? This is where most people sabotage themselves without even realizing it. And by people, I mean me too. So here's the golden rule of any investment. I need you to take 100% ownership of making it work. Not 99%, not mostly. I want you to take complete ownership. The moment, and I mean the exact moment that you start blaming external factors is the exact moment your investment begins losing all its value. You are responsible for getting the results, not the investment itself.
When we pay for something, we sometimes fall into laziness or almost like entitlement, that since we paid, we are owed results. And that's the quickest way to wasted money. You are paying for expert advice, accountability, tips, tricks, experiences, whatever it is. Even if it's not tools for business, maybe it's tools for weight loss, maybe it's tools to help your child sleep through the night, right? But that's what you are paying for, the tools and the expertise. You are not paying for the automatic results.
You still have to take ownership over the work to get there. A sleep consultant might tell you that you have to wait five minutes when your baby is crying to go into the room. It's up to you to do the work, the hard work of listening to your what seems like your distressed baby crying, and to set your timer before going in there, right? And you have to be diligent and you have to repeat the process and actually take the expert advice and put it into practice. You are doing the work.
So let's imagine you join a program. We'll just say a coaching program because I'm super familiar with joining lots of them. Let's imagine you join a program and after two weeks you think, these modules aren't organized how I want them to be. It's confusing. The coach doesn't respond as quickly as I'd like. Maybe you even think like I'm not getting anything out of this, right?
That thought pattern is the subtle beginning of shifting responsibility onto the external source and removing your own ownership. Instead, I want you to think about asking, how can I extract value despite the challenges that I'm seeing? Or despite this not being exactly what I expected? That mental pivot will change everything about the trajectory of the program.
This can be a really empowering shift because that means that no matter what, you will get results. As long as you believe in yourself going into it and you take ownership in the thick of it, there's no way that you won't grow as a human while engaged in the investment. I promise. If things aren't going well, ask yourself, what can I do differently to get more out of this investment now instead of waiting till the end?
There are three ownership mindsets that transform any investment, okay? Results ownership. You, not the investment, are responsible for your outcome. Two, process ownership. Consistent engagement with the material is your responsibility, even when it feels challenging, right? Even when the live call is in the middle of the week, or even when the retreat option is a weekend that isn't ideal for you. The third is adaptation ownership. If something isn't working, it's up to you to pivot, to ask questions, or to approach it differently. Okay?
When you pay for something, there are two mindsets. The entitlement mindset that is I paid, so I deserve results regardless of my effort. And then the ownership mindset. I paid for access to expertise and tools that I will leverage fully. Only one of these mindsets consistently produces transformation. Okay?
So, again, I want you to remember you're not paying for results when you are in the midst of an investment. You are paying for the opportunity to create results. You are paying for the knowledge and the tools that will make it more realistic to maybe create results faster or create the results with less stress or with less time wasted. And that distinction, the I'm paying for the opportunity to create results versus I am automatically paying for results, changes everything about how you show up with the material in the midst of the investment.
So we've talked about what to do before and during an investment. Now, I want to talk about what might be the most powerful part of the entire process, okay? What you do after the investment is done and completed. This is where real growth happens, where your wisdom is crystallized and where you transform every dollar spent into lasting value regardless of the initial outcome. At the end of any investment, I want you to evaluate how it went by asking what went well, what didn't go well, and what will I do differently next time? I talked about this just briefly in episode 46 about asking better questions, but I want to really dive into it here and make sure that you see it as the absolute most beneficial thing you can do at the end of any investment to learn from it. It's so simple but so impactful.
I challenge you to find at least a handful of things that went well because even in the worst situations, we can find some things to highlight. This will allow your brain to get out of victim mode and focusing only on what ways that the program or the investment disappointed you and into sort of the space of feeling a little bit like there are actually things that I took from it and there are things that went well. If you're doing your mind management work before and during the investment, I guarantee you'll get to this evaluation and be in a much better head space to find the things that went well.
If we're looking at my ClickFunnels investment, where I spent thousands, but didn't even have one functional landing page by the end of the year, my evaluation might sound something like this. What went well? So I learned specific questions to ask about platforms to make sure they fit my needs. I also learned this process, you know, that investment, what felt like an investment failure is what really energized me to be a little bit more diligent about seeking benefit and extracting value in every investment. So this topic in general and this process for myself came out of that.
I grew my knowledge of backend processes and of funnels. You know, prior to even attending the webinar, I had no idea what ClickFunnels did. I had very little idea what funnels were and how they functioned. And now I know so much more about everything that has to do with funnels. I learned that my learning style is hands-on. So that was something that went well too, right? Now when I'm investing, I know that I need platforms with robust support and I know that I need accountability when I'm investing in something platform wise, right?
Shortly after the ClickFunnels investment, I actually ended up investing in Ontraport for my CRM, which is a tool. They have amazing support. And I hired somebody to help me with the transferring my materials from my what I had was like an Excel CRM to the platform, right? So I knew that I needed accountability and support in so many ways, and the only way I would have learned that was investing in ClickFunnels and having it be what I thought of as a failure that I needed to learn from, right?
Okay. So that might be the what went well. The next question is what didn't go well. Our brain has plenty of things to give us here, right? So what didn't go well for the ClickFunnels, I didn't create a plan to implement the software. I didn't test the system to see if it made sense for my business. They even have a 30-day money back guarantee. And in the first 30 days, I did not go into it and I did not set aside time to really test it out and see and be able to answer for myself, is this something that makes my business better? Is this something that I need in my business or not?
I didn't take advantage of the 30-day money back guarantee. I also wasn't clear on what I wanted to accomplish, and I didn't create a return on investment plan. So I was so excited about all the energy in the webinar, and I made the investment, but I wasn't clear on what I needed to or wanted to accomplish. And that's part of the reason why it just sat there for an entire year, me getting very little out of it.
I hope that you notice some of the themes though in this what didn't go well. All of these things are within my control. The lack of results are not because of the software, it's because I didn't invest time or energy in learning it, testing it out, and being a student of it, right? Those are all things that I can control so that next investment, I can do them differently.
Just like I mentioned with the Ontraport investment, I went into that very differently. Which leads me to the third question, what will I do differently? So when I'm thinking about ClickFunnels and that investment, what will I do differently? I would utilize the 30-day money back guarantee as a way to trial the software and invest time figuring it out if it solves my specific problem.
I would create a plan to make my investment back in the first 30 days, a very specific plan. So much was talked about in the webinar about how so many people have made so much money in this software using it as a tool. And so when I invested in it, I was like, this is almost automatic, right? Like these results, but I did not create a plan to make that investment back. And so I didn't do anything with it or anything meaningful with it. I didn't figure it out and put it to good use.
The third might be next time I will block off ample time to go through training materials and transition assets, right? So if I'm transitioning softwares, I will know to block off way more time than I think. And like I mentioned before, I would even probably hire somebody who specializes in that software and get coaching on it and get support on it from somebody who's able to not only teach me one-on-one since that's how I learn best, but also somebody to actually, you know, help me do the work of transitioning all my assets.
Even an investment that feels like it was a failure provides valuable learning. Failures from investments can be data acquisition costs, right? Not losses. So every failed investment provides invaluable information for future success. And that's something that we can always find, no matter how the investment goes. No matter the results that we get, we can create our own results of learnings and lessons. And that is how we get better and better at investments, better and better at business, better and better as humans.
So when we commit to this framework, something remarkable happens. I promise, there are no more failed investments, only investments with different forms of return. Some return money directly, others return wisdom, clarity, insights that prevent far costlier mistakes down the road. And again, it's not about saying yes to every opportunity, it's about getting better at saying yes because you have this protocol.
So what I want you to do is think about your most recent investment that didn't meet your expectations, and I want you to take time right now and identify just one thing that went well that you might have overlooked. And I want you to think about what you would do differently next time in that investment. Even this tiny shift begins rewiring your brain from disappointment to learning.
And for all my A students, I would love for you to go back and really dive deep into that investment and really understand what value you got out of it, even though up until this moment right now, you've probably been thinking that it was a failed investment and you're probably still mad at the person who sold it to you. I've shared my complete framework for making smart investments in your business that will generate real returns, right? Whether financial, emotional, educational, all the things.
So before you invest, get very clear on specific outcomes, create a plan for how you will make your money back, whether in revenue or in other ways. Examine your motivations and remember there is no magic pill, and that's okay. And invest in the person you want to become, not who you currently are. During the investment, I want you to take 100% ownership of making the investment work. I want you to understand you're paying for access to expertise, not guaranteed results. I want you to approach every investment with the belief that if someone else got results, you can too. And during it, I want you to think about and question what can I do instead of why isn't this working? Right? Take ownership of those process adjustments if you need them.
And then after the investment, I want you to ask yourself what went well, what didn't go well? What will I do differently next time? Okay? Challenge yourself to find positive outcomes even in disappointing experiences. Okay? Recognize patterns in what didn't work and take ownership without self-judgment.
Transform insights into specific strategies for your next investment because there will be another one. There should be another one. Remember, the most successful entrepreneurs aren't those who make perfect investment decisions every time. They're the ones who extract maximum value from every investment, whether it delivers the expected results or unexpected wisdom.
I would love for you to send me a quick email and let me know your thoughts. My email is Jenna@jenna.coach. I'd love to hear what you're investing in for your business. Or if you can't decide what to invest in, let me know. Email me. And let's start building momentum towards a decision instead of staying stuck.
I'm in the middle of deciding on my next coach, and I'm investing in my business in multiple ways. I'm happy to share those more. Email me, let me know. Let's start a conversation. I want you to enjoy your week, and I will talk to you soon. Next week is episode 50. It's amazing. I have a very special episode coming for you, so stay tuned.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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