7 Keys to Having a Tech & Growth Mindset -Online Tech Doesn’t Have to be Hard

So today before we can dig into five of the six part series that are really specific on tips and tactics you can take to optimize your website, we have to talk about the first of the six part series, which is having a growth in tech mindset, ah, this is so important. I talk to people weekly, who say things like, Oh, I’m so bad at Tech. I don’t understand tech, this is so hard for me, I get frustrated, I get stuck. I so get it. But it’s something that the world does. It goes round with tech, especially online tools, online processes, websites, all the things. And so what I want to do is help you shift that mindset so that you’re ready to really take on these next other five parts that we’re going to get into in the next six weeks. And I think this is really that cornerstone this is if you can make this shift, I promise the things I teach you, you can figure out. And the great news is, as I go through this series, I’m going to provide a simple cheat sheet of what to do. And of course, I offer also, you know, coaching in this area, and I’m going to be releasing a course later in July, that literally holds people’s hands to help them with all of this. But you can definitely do all of this on your own as well. It really just depends on if you’re someone that this makes a lot of sense to you. Or if you’re somebody that really needs to dig in deeper with very specific steps, and you need someone to hold you accountable. Alright, so let’s jump right into our growth and tech mindset. All right, here we go. Here we go. We’re going to dig into seven different things that I think will help shift your perspective when we think about tech and how we approach tech and how we feel about all things, online tools, online processes, website, social, all that good stuff. Okay, the first is, I want you to know you are capable.

Did you hear that you are capable even of tech things. Okay? No one’s asking you to become a developer or a web designer. We at EY should say I just want you to know that you are able to learn the steps you need to learn to build and grow your business online. And you don’t have to be an expert in there’s always information or people that can help you. You just got to get clear on what it is you really need right now to move forward or to get your business going. So as I said number one is you are capable. Stop telling yourself negative self talk like Oh, I’m so bad at Tech. I don’t understand. In that, you don’t have to understand everything, you only have to understand the parts you need to operate your business. And what I will tell you is, less is more. Let me say that again, less is more recently, I had to have some of my websites, I basically had to have been cleaned the I had some malware that had shown up and I had to try to remove it myself. But mount malware is really tricky in the sense that it’s kind of hidden in little nooks and crannies. It’s kind of like if your kid got lice, it’s not easy to get rid of at least not right away. Well, malware when to get in your site, it’s like an infestation. And the reason I’m bringing this up is I needed to use an expert, I needed to pay somebody. And because I had multiple, multiple websites that cost me $500, which, if you think about it is actually a steal of a deal, because my sights got cleaned. It was a direct one on one, you know, professional that helped me it wasn’t through some big company. But the reason I’m bringing this up is he makes text simple. In other words, he doesn’t even have an online form or way that you pay online, when you first reach out to him via his website. You can email him, but then you he calls you, he calls you on the phone. Yep. So if someone that is a master at you know, basically making your site free and clear of malware or malicious software, he calls you on the phone. Okay, so once again, tech doesn’t have to be hard, you’re capable, in less is more. So he literally then emails back after he cleans the website with exactly what he did it. It’s like a text, you know, text, email, what he did, what he fixed what he found, and then recommendations for you moving forward. Now I’m somebody that was able to maintain my site’s myself, you know, update the theme, the plugins, the version of the content management system. But if someone can’t do that, obviously, then he might have recommended a company you could use to do that. But this example illustrates to you less really is more, you don’t have to do stuff the same way everyone else is, if you only need a link, or you don’t even need a link on your website for people to pay you, you can just email them a link to your pay pal. Guess what that’s perfectly okay, until you get to such a point where you’re so big or making so much money that you can have someone help you with that. So first of all, you are capable of getting done, what has to get done in order for your business to operate online. In Less is more, don’t try to do at all, we only need to do the minimum the things that will actually impact our business operating. Alright, number two is and I just mentioned this one, but tech doesn’t have to be hard. Truly, we think it’s hard because there’s always new things. There’s always new tools. There’s always new processes, there’s new social media, there’s new algorithms. But guess what, I’ve said this probably for 20 years, you don’t have to be everywhere, and you don’t have to master everything. You just pick the one place maybe the two places that match best for what kind of content you have, and who your customer is, and that you have time or bandwidth for and be there. For instance. Of course in the past, because I’ve worked in this industry for a very long time. I’ve been on pretty much most social media platforms like I’ve at least been on them even if I don’t continue to do them. Years and years ago, I was on Twitter. I didn’t like Twitter, it was not this is before Twitter even had photos and videos, it was when it was just 140 characters. I hated it. I loved being on Pinterest. And then when Instagram came on, I loved Instagram because to me it’s visual and I’m I’m drawn to that. The beauty I’m drawn to the images. But my point is, you don’t have to be all the places and so tech doesn’t have to be hard, because you don’t have to do all of it. Actually, I would challenge anyone to say if you actually would just specialize in one or two things you’re going to have such a bigger impact and more momentum in those places. Instead of trying to do be everywhere and try to master all the you know different little tweaks that you have to do for the different platforms, getting frustrated and wanting to pull your hair out and actually not getting real impact. For instance, let’s go back let’s go out of the tech world for a minute and talk about a company that’s mastered this Chick fil A regardless of how you feel about them. I love Chick fil A I love their food. But they years and years ago they didn’t have the budgets to be on TV and radio billboards newspaper they didn’t have a budgets to be everywhere and actually make a big impact. So years ago, they decided we’re going to literally buy the heck out of billboards, like you would drive down the street, you know, at least in a lot of areas I’ve been in, you would see Chick fil A plastered on the billboards, they knew they could, basically, you know, they had enough of a budget marketing budget to buy out billboards, but they didn’t have a marketing budget, that would have a big impact on TV. And when they happen on TV, it’s for something very specific, like they were, they were a football suit a bowl sponsor, so it was very specific, okay, it’s the same with you, you don’t have to be able to places, tech doesn’t have to be hard, because I’m only asking you only master or learn how to do a little bit of it, the ones that fit best for you, who your person is, and what kind of content you provide. And I’m happy to talk about this in further episodes, because it’s really important. Number three,

just like I said, you don’t have to do at all, you can pause or put aside the things that aren’t urgent, or aren’t needed right now for you to figure out. Okay, so what I like to do is I tell people, do a brain dump, or make a list of all the things you think you have to do related to your online business, to tech things to tools, to, you know, things, I think you need all the bells and whistles, write them all down. It can be everything from like, I need to update my website, I need to get an online payment program, I need to understand how to do Instagram reels, whatever it is you think you need to do or figure out write it all down, put it on one side of your paper, draw a line. And the other side, what truly is the most important one or two things you actually, if you actually did now could impact your business or making income. If it’s not broken, if it’s not something that’s urgent, or you can’t do it a simpler way, then it can probably stay paused or be put aside for now. And if we capture the list, it won’t be stuck spinning around in our head, trying to figure out which of these things do I work on, and oh my gosh. So pause it and put it aside. But you’ll still have a captured list. So you can always reference back to it. Okay. The next is start building or finding your tech Dream Team. And this does not have to be people that are you don’t have to have necessarily like a web developer or a software developer. But start finding either freelancers, or people that create templates for you know, understand how to Canva or maybe they know how to do you know, Squarespace or whatever it might be, start finding those people ask other people or groups or in for recommendations. And as you find someone good, you know, have that person, you know, available and work with them, you know, on a project basis or on a one time you know, gig and maybe you need help with a certain thing. But have those you know, start building that team of people that can help you with your tech needs as they come up. Once again, this doesn’t mean most of us don’t need a full time person in these areas. unless we’ve really grown our business to scale, you know, much bigger in the millions. And even then sometimes people don’t have full time people, they just use freelancers or contractors. But start building those people up, start asking people, even before you need some of those things, start thinking about them, you know, and if you find someone’s good at one thing, like maybe with your design, find out what else they do well, they could help you with down the road or who else they recommend. Alright, so once again, you’re you’re capable, and tech doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t have to do all the things and you don’t have to be in all the places and you need to start building out a team of kick butt tech people and when I say Tech, I mean just savvy people, right? So to be online marketing, it can be people that are really good at automations processes, or they can be really good at code or design. But just start making a list of people that are just amazing at what they do. It could be copywriters, it could be email marketers. Just I like to have a spreadsheet or it might be in like my I use monday.com for capturing a lot of those things in doing automations keep it there but just have it somewhere where you start collecting this person is amazing for this thing and then how do you reach them? Number five, I love this one. So I don’t know if you know her but Ali Worthington is a Christian, inspirational writer and speaker. She’s also a coach and has all sorts of other things she’s doing. But she has the saying and she says with God and Google we can do anything. And many, many years ago she had yeah thinks she has four sons. Four or five, she has several sons. And she, her kids were young and her husband lost his job. And at the time she was staying at home. And she knew his prospects were not looking good. This was many years ago now. Anyways, she started Googling, like, well, could I make money doing X, you know, and she started searching things. In through using Google and prayer and guidance from God, she literally started building a business. And fast forward many, many years. She’s run conferences and wrote several books, has accessed successful speaking career membership programs, so many things. Oh, podcasts, she has it all. So I love that thing. But it’s true. With God and Google, we can do anything. And what what is she getting out here? One, you know, where is our North Star? What’s our compass, you know, in for many of us, and many of my listeners,

it’s God, like, are we being guided towards the work we’re doing? are we stepping into our calling that he’s called us into. But then even if we are and there’s things we don’t understand, which is going to happen, we’re all going to be pushed out of our comfort zone to learn new things. And I might challenge you to say, I wouldn’t want to live in a way where I wasn’t learning new things, whether that’s in my personal life, my business, doing new things like hay gardening, or I mean, I’ve garden for, maybe it’s canning something new or learning something that I like to learn new things. And I hope you do, because that’s also part of that growth mindset. We always want to be the student, we always want to be the learner. But her point is Google, we can literally search anything at our fingertips, and we can get an online tutorial, we can get a someone that specializes in that we can, you know, read the step by step directions on a website. So we really can find out anything if we’re willing to put in the time, do the research, and then sit down, get comfy and get moving. And if we don’t want to spend the time because you know we’re in it’s a barrier to entry. That’s when we hire professionals, a freelancer or a coach or a stress strategist, something. But I love that. So just remember, with God and Google, you can do anything. And I think that’s so important to remember. It’s basically everything’s at our fingertips, whether that’s, you know, guidance from prayer and scripture, or whether it’s searching Google for how to do something. Number six, we need to automate our businesses. And no, you don’t need to automate everything all at once. That’s overwhelming. Of course, it is. Often, we only need to automate something when it becomes too much to handle the one z two z’s, right. So in other words, if you’re getting a lot of email submissions, or you’re getting, let’s say you have a podcast or something like that, and you have guests, you’re getting a lot of guest submissions. And it’s disorganized. In your email, you can’t keep track of something, that’s a good time to automate that your form goes into, you know, a spreadsheet type program in order to track it, you know, so for instance, in the program, I use Monday, but there’s lots there’s asana and you know, many other ones, the form is filled out, it goes into my, you know, my podcast, guest tracker. And then from there, I get an automated message saying that someone submitted it, or I can just check it every you know, every couple days, I can set it up either way. So that’s a sort of thing. I’m talking about, automate, when it’s necessary to either keep you organized, or when it’s getting too cumbersome, that it’s not working for you. Now, some people love automation. They love process automation. And so they might set it up at the beginning. But if that’s hard for you just do it when it’s needed. Okay. Number seven is simplify. Yes, we need to simplify what we’re doing in our business. And we need to stop feeling all the overwhelm. For us hearing everybody talking about all the tech, the tech tools, the social media platforms, all the changes, because we don’t need it all. As I mentioned it, you know, with less is more or pausing and putting it aside, simplify, truly What’s your top goal, you know, this week or goal or to this, this month, this quarter? Which things are really going to move your business, you know, which ones are your income generating,

you know, activities. And so, let’s look at those. And once again, if you can not do the tech thing right now, if you can not set up the tool, or it’s one that makes a lot of sense to you. Use that. Don’t use a tool because someone else recommends it. If it’s hard for you and it’s confusing. Don’t use it, ask for more recommend patients. For instance, when I start using a new online tool, because I need a new feature, or I am looking for something, I don’t just pick the first one I’ve heard about, I will review it, I will look at their feature list pricing, pros cons. I will then though go and look at the competitors in that space, similar products. So I might look at two to four, I might even look at five. If I see two or three that I really like, I will spend the time to set up a really quick already called it you know, a test a test account or do a couple day little demo, you know, when they let you set up like a demo or trial, I will do it. And I’m not saying you have to do that, right. I like this kind of work it for me it comes easy. I’m really quick to decide what the features are. And if it makes sense. But I can tell you, I’ve reviewed so many tools over the last 20 years I’ve looked at so many different programs. I’ve years ago, you know, my company built kids in word game apps for iPhone, and we’ve done all different things. So I’ve been in, you know, I’ve been looking at websites or building my own companies, websites, I mean, with with a group for, you know, off and on for 20 years. So this comes easy to me now. So ask people like me, which ones do we recommend? Why? What would I like about it? Because I’m still just like you probably looking for two tools that are intuitive. They’re easy to use without me having to jump through hoops or look, watch 10 tutorials for the basic setup. Sometimes we’re all going to have to watch a tutorial to learn something super specific we want to know. But often I’m looking for tools that from day one, the first 10 minutes I’m using it, I can figure it out at least some parts of it. And I’m sure that’s what you want to. So keep it simple. Only use the tools or setups that you need. Even with your website, you don’t have to start with all the bells and whistles or in all the things and actually you can start your business without a website. Although I would recommend you quickly get it up. For those of us with websites. Yes, you want the core pages to look good. You want it to look professional, you want people to be able to reach out to you to know what to do, which we’ll dig into all this later on other episodes. But you always can build upon what you start, right. And so even when I launched my podcast, and now I’ve rebranded it and launched it, I keep iterating, right. I keep tweaking, I keep changing. But when I first launched my website, I didn’t have a lot of time, that was last year. And it was a different podcast a different focus at the time as I kept niching down to what I’m doing now, which was what I was doing, actually 15 years ago. But my point is, keep it simple. Keep a list and then you can always come back and do it and get recommendations from from other people. And check out like a demo or their walkthrough. It’s hard for you and it doesn’t make sense, there might be another tool that’s easier. So don’t just go with the default or the one that everybody tells you, it might not be a fit for you. Right, we all see things differently. Some of us are more visual, some of us are more, you no need to read things or some need to see like videos of things. So once again, keep it simple. And there’s always more than one solution. Or as basic as say like more than one way to skin a cat which sounds kind of terrible, but I think you get the point. So that’s it for today. But let me go through the seven things again, it’s you are capable, you are capable of all the tech stuff as you need it doesn’t have to be hard is number two. Number three, pause or put aside the things that aren’t urgent for you to do right now.

For start building your tech Dream Team Five with God and Google we can do anything as Ali Worthington says, Six automate in your business when you need more organization or it’s getting beyond your capability to keep up with seven. Keep it simple, right and actually, that’s where the idea of kiss like even websites like wiziwig, which meant What You See Is What You Get tools like the website builder tools, it used to be like a kiss it keep it simple, stupid it like in other words, it was big, easy for anyone to understand. Okay, so keep your business. Keep your tools, your processes in what you’re working on right now simple. You can always add more, you can always improve. You can always get help on a certain thing. But let’s focus on the here and now and what you actually need. When we’re talking about tech, our website, our email lists all of it start slow start simple. You can always manually add an email if you’re only You know, collecting one or two or a couple a day or a week. As that gets bigger, you know, and you have more momentum, then you’re going to need a system or a process. But start out easy start with what works for you. And you can grasp okay. And I just want to leave you with one last thing. I’m going to share an excerpt from Mary Moran’s his book, slow growth equals strong roots, she has a prayer near the end of the book, I’m just going to share a portion of it. It’s called slow growth prayer, because I think so many of us, especially those of us that are feeling on Cape the incapable of doing the tech of, you know, being capable of so many things that were pushed to learn in our business might be feeling, she says, There’s nothing left for us in our before. Only striving and spinning and achieving. We’re not going back. As we stand before you at last exhausted from all this running from our own stories. We hand it all over to you, God, every good gift turned around and given right back to you. The use of my gifts in service to others for the rest of my life, for your ultimate glory. That’s it. I have my mission. Now, I know my assignment, there are no more tightropes for me to walk, no more mass performances, no more splitting, the differences of being tethered to you and tethered to life lived only for myself, I’m calling God. Finally I can see all the places where the light gets in. And in this moment, I decide this is a story I’ll tell you, you know, and basically she’s talking about, you know, where she’s been our life, the businesses she’s created in the past, she has written other, you know, at least one other book I know of, and just trying to always, you know, be more to always perform to always be a perfectionist. And during a slow season, when she finally kind of came to this realization and acceptance that she didn’t have to try, right that we already all are everything that you know, we’re meant to be. And so her books about finding grace and freedom and purpose and an overachieving world, it’s actually a lovely book. And I highly recommend it. But I thought that’s so true for today. If we can just show up and share our story, show our you know, abilities, help others and service and just keep you know, asking for that direction from God. All the other things will work out who should help us the tech? Which things do we really need to work that feel most aligned with our business, with our customers, and with the life we’re trying to build? So just stay steady? Slow down a little bit. And don’t worry so much about the tech and all the little details? Because they will get worked out for you, I promise. And there’s always someone to help you totally. And so many of us are here, ready to answer your question. And if you need more help, there’s plenty of mentors and strategists to help you in a more in depth way. Coming up next week, we will jump into part two of the six part series. And we’re going to dig into how do you set up your website for you know, SEO basics and your meta and your images and your titles to really supercharge your website to get it ready. You know, it’s kind of like if you were redoing your lawn, it’s like we’re going to get the roots ready, we’re

going to get the soil conditioned. And then we’re going to kind of, you know, graded out that is what we’re going to dig into next week. It’s like, what are the roots, we need to fix those and a lot of it has to do with the words we use how where we put them how we put them. And these are steps that you can use. From now on in any website you have for your businesses, which is amazing, literally the principles I’m going to teach you each week. There’s so evergreen, that all of these things I was teaching businesses 15 plus years ago, I used in my own business, a family fun website called ziggity zoom, to build our audience over time cumulatively to over 10 million users. And to over 40,000 page, I’m sorry, 40 million page views. And it was all organic tactics that we did ourselves on our own. And while most of our sites aren’t going to be a content site, so we’re not expecting those kind of numbers, you will see growth by the tips I’m going to tell you and all of these are things you can apply yourself where you can get someone to help you if it’s not something you’re comfortable with. But next week is going to be the roots. How do we get the roots of your website the you know, the framework set up properly. And then over time as you add new pages or more content, you’ll keep applying these same things. Okay. So the amazing thing is, and yes, do certain things change where these things get tweaked because of algorithms or changes to different sites, of course, but the the framework, the core guts of all this is the same, you know, so yeah, I’ll update this right each time A year or two years with some of the new info. But overall, it’s still very similar to even 15 years ago, which is amazing to me because most things change so much, especially online. But in this case, so many things are actually the same. So until next time, I can’t wait to see you have a beautiful weekend.