Esteban Baez
Hello everyone and welcome to the Fate Shifter podcast. My name is Esteban Baez and together with Martin Altherr. Today we're going to be discussing the topic of business.
Hi Martin. How's it going?
Martin Altherr
It's going great, thank you. How are you doing?
Esteban Baez
I'm doing terrific and I'm happy to be here.
Martin Altherr
Awesome. So how do we get into it? Business is making money and counting money, right?
Esteban Baez
Is it really that simple? That's my question to you today, I guess. Let's talk about business. What do we consider a business?
I know a lot of people are thinking about transitioning, especially because of all the changes in the world about maybe starting a side hustle or a business.
So maybe you can talk a little bit about what a business is. It seems very simple. It's nothing else than making money and counting it. What do you mean by that?
Martin Altherr
Actually what I say, is that when you look at business, what is the core function of a business that we call business?
The core function is you make money with something and you count the money. And it should at the end be in the black numbers, right? Not in the red ones
So actually, business as such is nothing else than making money, and revenues and counting it so that you know where you stand with your business. ¨
it's not more than this because if you don't have some revenue if you don't make money, and if you cannot count money, it's a hobby, it's not a business.
So many people still believe the most important thing around a business is the name or the purpose. So many things which all are true...
But to call it a business, it's nothing else than making revenues, making money, and counting it to know where you stand.
Esteban Baez
So you really don't have a business when you're not earning consistent revenue, you pretty much have a hobby.
Martin Altherr
Of course. Or tell me, what would you have if you do something and don't get money for it? What do you call that?
Esteban Baez
Charity, for example...
Martin Altherr
Yes, to call it a business, you must make money and you must be able to count it. To see where you stand means constant revenues.
You have revenues on a monthly basis, on a weekly basis, on a daily basis. Otherwise, it will not be a business because then it's in fact either a hobby or a charity, as you said. Right?
Esteban Baez
Okay, so how do we make sure that we transition? Let's say we opened up a business, but we really do it because it's what we love to do. So a lot of people start this way.
They start a business because it was something that they love doing and they would actually do it for free. But they also need to survive. So they also need to earn revenue for the business to survive.
What do you recommend to someone that is in that dilemma where they're doing something they love but they're not earning quite enough money?
Martin Altherr
Before. I answer that question. I like actually to put here something in place so that it doesn't turn off some of those who listen or watch right now.
Because, of course, the most important at the end, for yourself is that it is purpose-driven, that it's something you love to do, that it is something you really say: "That is something I would stand up the rest of my life with a happy yoohoo every morning at 6 AM doing this and earning money with it."
So, of course, it is the purpose and the higher purpose comes in here in an alignment to make your business.
But calling it a business, you must be able to make revenue to count it and to know where you stand with your business.
To your question what is it for those people who transition now for example from a status as unemployed or employee to entrepreneur, having an own business?
Of course, in the beginning, you have a business idea and then there are certainly different ways of marketing until the idea becomes a business.
And there is an in-between stage where you are just actually trying to see... Or you're going to daily active putting it out to see if what you put out is wanted and is something you can make later in fact a business from it.
So there are of course these strategies that you say okay, I offer free coaching. For example, when you start as a coach, you have made some deep experiences in your life that help other people to overcome similar situations because you know exactly how to deal with them.
Then you can help those people to come over that situation because you went through it, right?
So, then you have of course maybe in the beginning to help them first, let's say for free as a tactic in the sense you help them a bit, you get in return their testimonials which is also a kind of salary but not yet money.
But with these testimonials, you can prove to others, which is the social proof, you can prove to others look, it works, these people have gone through my program, it really works.
And so they are then also ready to pay for it and then it becomes a business.
There is the stage you're thinking about an idea then you have an idea, this idea aligns with your purpose and higher purpose and then you put it to the people out there and then while you put it out, it's still an idea of a business.
When the first people start coming in to pay for your business, then it is a business and then it has become a business.
Esteban Baez
So it's a good strategy. Everything starts with an idea, right? So once you have the idea, then you act on the idea and eventually that idea starts to generate revenue as you act on it.
Martin Altherr
Exactly. And then when it generates revenues, then it is a business, especially when it starts to continuously generate revenues.
Esteban Baez
Right.
Martin Altherr
And often I see also when people are doing business, then they start to focus on the first moment on revenues, in fact. And then when the first revenues are coming in, they start to focus on everything else, but not anymore on revenues.
That is why I thought it is good to provoke a bit to say: "Hey listen, keep in mind business blood are revenues. So your business is only a business as long you create revenue."
You should not forget to do daily or on a weekly basis the things you did to generate revenues.
Money-generating activities, MGAs, and these money-generating activities you should constantly apply to your business in order to create new revenues.
So there is a constant exchange of you doing the thing that is needed to generate revenues. So you keep your business running, which is called then at the end a business.
Esteban Baez
That's very clear to me. Martin, thank you for sharing.
So let's talk about other struggles. Our viewers probably have a lot of questions and as you know, I'm also an entrepreneur. So one of the struggles that I find as an entrepreneur is figuring out ways to generate revenue with my own business.
There are times when I don't know where my next client is going to come from or where the next big deal is going to come from. What do you recommend for people that find themselves constantly stuck in a cycle of uncertainty when it comes to revenue?
Martin Altherr
That's a very good question. And actually, the question has two answers.
The first answer is it's very simple to answer and the second answer is it might become very difficult if you go into the second explanation.
So, I go first in the first one. The first one is very simple. What have you done to generate revenues in the very beginning?
Where have you gone to activate people to get interested in your offer?
What have you constantly done until you had your first sale?
And when you observe these actions you did, you can actually filter which action was the real action that brought you to the first sale. And this action, most entrepreneurs, and that's very interesting, most entrepreneurs stop doing that.
They just have now one client. Now they are happy they have one client, they serve this client, but they stop doing the same action again. And after a while of serving this client, they suddenly think oh, where do I get my next client?
And they start actually from scratch inventing the wheel again and trying to find a new customer instead of just doing the same thing again they did to generate that first customer.
And if for example, it was like this that you were in a network of people and in this network of people were, let's say five to ten people interested in your offer. One said yes, but the others didn't say anything yet.
You should go back to this network and you should generate the other eight and target them and figure out if one of these other eights is suddenly interested in your offer because you have not yet targeted them anymore or not yet ever.
Sometimes you just had targeted until you had the first and then the other five you let on the side because you had now one. And you may be said I don't want them all because I don't want to be overwhelmed.
"I want to try first how it works and I will keep them for later."
And then suddenly it gets forgotten in your mind and you serve that person and suddenly you don't have clients anymore because you feel, oh, it's getting to the end now where do I get now the next?
There where you got the first.
So go back there, and do the money-generating activities. So observe very well which activities you do and which activities of your activities have led to a sale.
And then you have constantly to repeat that, actually once a week, once a day, whatever is your need in your business, do it as often as you need it to have the revenues you expect to have, then you always find it.
Now the other thing... some people start a business idea, call it already a business, do some free samples, get their testimonials, but then never have gotten any other clients.
This means they have not yet done the activities that led them to clients, right? So of course they have no clue where to get now a client because they got them for free.
They were actually not targeting them as clients to pay. They target them as
"Hey, I do it for free for you."
But then after that, they have to start to figure out what are the mechanisms and the techniques for their specific niche to get interested clients and where they find them.
And the first thing that comes to my mind, of course, is social media, because there are so many groups. And in these many, many groups you find also groups that are dealing exactly with what you have to offer.
And then you have to socialize. It's called social media. It's not called selling media. So you have to interact with them. You have to create a relationship. And creating a relationship, it's like networking.
By creating this relationship, then you might maybe place what you are doing, they might be interested and then you make a sale.
If that works, then you constantly have to repeat again, do the same thing and convert the next. Convert the next. So these are the two answers to this question.
Esteban Baez
That's powerful. And I know, Martin, you do a lot of work when it comes to imprints and money imprints specifically.
And I would like to bring this up because I understand that a lot of entrepreneurs that have been entrepreneurs for years or people that are starting out, when they face a challenge or a difficulty regarding money, they give up or they quit or they get stuck only earning a certain amount of revenue.
So let's talk about the people that get stuck specifically.
They only make always in their business a certain amount and they can't scale past that. Does that have to do with an imprint or is that just something else?
Martin Altherr
There are again two answers.
Of course, it can be something else. It can be a strategy that is not really properly followed, something that is in business techniques not properly applied, that can be.
But what I mostly see is often people have all that knowledge, they know actually what and how to do, although it doesn't work for them.
There I often say: "Look, there has to be something like either an imprint or a systemic entanglement that is holding them back."
And I have actually exactly such clients again and again. And since I'm working with this Self-Transformation Code, I invented 20 years ago, I work constantly on these imprints and systemic entanglements because these are the two things that are way deeper rooted than any mindset, than anything else you can imagine.
Even behavioral techniques are in a lower rank when it comes to really transforming something. And when you really really want to transform and shift something, then you have to go to the roots which is in the brainstem where the imprints are located, and into your energetical system where the systemic entanglements are located.
And then you really transform these points and I often hear from entrepreneurs, yeah, then when I'm successful, then I'm going to do personal development.
Guess what? It's never going to happen to see you successful without doing personal development.
Why? The simple truth is: The life you experience is nothing else than a mirror of what you truly are.
This means your business is nothing else than a mirror of what you truly are.
So if you want to improve your business, you have to improve yourself. This means you have to get rid of what is holding you back. You have to transform what is holding you back.
And since you can shift your fate, since we know that if you get to the roots you can shift your fate, then you know exactly...
If things are not budging, if I'm constantly stuck, if I have a barrier at that typical glass ceiling I cannot break through, then I am in this specific situation where I have to transform something within in order to have then the reflection on the outside.
It's not happening outside to you, it's happening within you, through you.
Esteban Baez
And that is what you experience on the outside and that is why you have transformed it.
I like that the thing is not happening to me. It's happening through me. It puts the responsibility back on me.
And it means that I can shift it, I can shift my fate. I can create a new future for myself if I act on it properly. So, yeah. Thank you, Martin. That's powerful.
Martin Altherr
I think the challenge which comes in here is now...
How do I access these imprints? How do I access these systemic entanglements? Because specifically, systemic entanglements are something you might not even know that they exist because you don't feel them, you don't see them.
They are not practically in front of you. They're just within your life since you are. So it's something like you are used to having it without seeing it. And so you believe it is like that's something like your destiny.
And to get out of this, you need a method that helps you to identify if there is a systemic entanglement. To identify if there is an imprint and which imprint is there. Of course, to see if there must be something like a systemic entanglement or an imprint, you just have to look at your environment and how life reflects on you.
And when you see there are things you try to change already so long, and nothing happens whatever you do... You've tried almost everything... then you know, there is for sure either an imprint or a systemic entanglement or even epigenetics.
But that would go now way too far to discuss that. But just to understand, then you need somebody helping you to shift your fate by accessing the imprints and the systemic entanglements and transforming them.
And then the shift happens.
Esteban Baez
Okay, so if you own a business, or if you're thinking about owning a business, or if you started operating a business, or an idea with the intention of generating revenue, it's important to keep all these factors in mind that there are strategies and techniques that you have to constantly apply.
And I really like what you said today, Martin. You said that you always got to do what works. It seems like a lot of entrepreneurs stop doing what worked for them in the beginning.
And I know I'm guilty of that. I get my first two, or three clients and then I'm like, well, I'm going to stop instead of doing the money-generating activities as a daily practice.
Martin Altherr
Absolutely. And it's so powerful. I mean, also for me, it was like, I would say now 15 years ago, I started to apply that. I met that through a mentor of mine, Bodo Schäfer.
He's a German guy, and he was also very long in the US. And he was teaching me that concept of, hey, focus on what worked and then continue repeating that.
Because when it worked, why do you have to invent a new wheel? Do it, just continue doing it, and you will have revenues... It immediately tripled my income within a few weeks and that was so amazing and powerful that I didn't stop anymore doing that. Because that's the foundation of your business, right?
Esteban Baez
Yeah. And as you said, I like defining business. As you said, business is nothing more than making money and counting it. If you're not making any money then you don't have a business, you have a hobby or a charity.
Martin Altherr
That's very true. And it's also very sad because many people who have the dream of having a business, who are having the dream of being an entrepreneur actually stop doing what they could do, stop shining where they could shine because they don't know what they actually systemically have to do in the sense of technically.
And they don't know what they have to do for their personal improvement. Because actually creating a business and growing a business is creating techniques and creating on the same side also yourself.
And if you do both, your business can be only a success because then you grow into it, and by growing into it the business grows, and by growing the business and so on it's like feedback... immediately we have there another loop that is just going on.
You grow, the business grows, you grow, the business grows, you grow, and so on and so on and so on...
And you can really thrive in what you believe is the right thing for you. Then when you have reached there you just have to put things in place that are holding and repeating for you the same thing.
So you can go and do what is then the next step more important for you. So that is what I can recommend also to somebody who just starts now.
I say start to begin immediately improving yourself while also improving your business or your business idea and then bring it to the table, then grow it and then keep unrolling what works and do not leave that line as long it works.
Of course, find something which is aligned with your purpose and higher purpose and there is also a huge difference between purpose and higher purpose. These are completely two different things and if you can align that then you are very powerful and then the success is yours. Hundred percent sure.
Esteban Baez
Thank you so much Martin and thank you our audience for watching. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please remember to subscribe and like it or share it depending on the platform that you're in.
We truly appreciate you watching or listening to this podcast.
If you want to learn more about Martin and the great work he does with all the topics, simply visit martinaltherr.com or our link.tree.
If you want to learn more from the podcast, just go back and listen to all of the episodes, the previous episodes that we have on all different topics relating to love and relationships, business, and personal development.
Martin, thank you so much for this podcast today.
Martin Altherr
It's a pleasure. And of course, every time, again and again, I love to have these conversations and share with the people out there in order that they can thrive, can have the abundant and desired life they really expect actually to have.
And getting the techniques to get there, because that's the most important thing, getting the techniques to get there.
Esteban Baez
Awesome. So remember everybody, you can definitely shift your fate and we'll catch you on the next episode.