159. A Cure For Your Business Doldrums with Mia Moran
Register for the “Back to Business” virtual summit
Looking to boost momentum in your business as we head into the final quarter of the year?
Whether you got off track, or you purposely downshifted during the summer, now’s a good time to get refocused and reenergized in your business.
Which is why this week’s guest, Mia Moran, put together her upcoming “Back to Business” Summit which is designed to help you get back to business after the summer and finish 2024 on a high note!
But, the last thing you need right now is another long boring virtual summit
(you know the kind that that lasts for several days of long, boring presentations that turn into a pitch fest)
So, in this case, each of the Summit presentations is limited to just 5 minutes & packed with simple, daily steps that can be accomplished in just 5 minutes.
Join us as we talk about Mia’s innovative summit design and how to put the wind back in your business:
✅ Shifting from hour-long interviews to self-made 5-minute video presentations
✅ The challenges of organizing 55 individuals to create content
✅ Essential tips on creating successful, short videos & the necessity of a supportive team
Resources
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Learn how to share everything you know in 5 minutes or less.
In just three 5-minute videos you’ll learn:
How to set yourself up on camera to look and sound as professional as you can
What to say & how to structure your video so people will not only watch but be inspired to take action
The #1 thing to say in your video that will ensure people remember what you said
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Transcript
Mia Moran:
My goal is really that everyone enters Q4 with a lot more clarity and, you know, with your doldrums analogy like the wind back in their sail, because I think a lot of us it can be overwhelming. There’s so many different things we could do and we tend to just like keep going and not pause and be like well, what do I actually want to do and what’s actually going to make a difference? And so I’m hoping that this is both like the pause to make the plan and then the inspiration to like try some new things. So I really hope everyone really gets the wind back in their sail and like has the direction and knows where they’re going.
Brad Powell:
Welcome to the Standout Business Show, where it’s all about making a bigger difference by doing business differently. I’m Brad Powell and today we’re talking about finding a cure for your business doldrums and you know I’ve really always liked the term doldrum and, in case you didn’t know, doldrums isn’t necessarily a state of mind, it’s actually a place on the planet. If you go back to the age of sail, what would happen is that these sailing ships who were sailing across the world, they’re doing a circumnavigation of the globe, and when they left the northern hemisphere and they wanted to go to the southern hemisphere, they would hit this stretch around the equator where the wind just died, like they’d been sailing along in the trade winds. And then somehow, you know, the trade winds in the northern hemisphere are the opposite direction of the trade winds of the southern hemisphere, and when you go between the two there’s no wind at all. So then you’d have these like days would go by, weeks would go by, months might even go by where there’s no wind, and the ship is basically just drifting aimlessly and relatively helplessly in the doldrums.
Brad Powell:
Aimlessly and relatively helplessly in the doldrums and, of course, using this as a metaphor for your business. Often or maybe hopefully not so often. You can find yourself drifting somewhat aimlessly around like what do I do next? And the summer was cool, but the fall looks daunting, and this kind of thing. And if this is the kind of transition that you’re going through right in this moment, then I want you to listen up, because today’s guest, mia Moran, is here to help fix all that. Mia is the founder of Plan Simple and she’s the creator of the upcoming Back to Business Virtual Summit, and I’m really keen to have this conversation because she’s taken a super innovative approach to hosting a summit. Her event is not only going to help you cure your business doldrums, but it’s also the perfect remedy for those long, boring virtual summits that you may be accustomed to, and we’re going to talk about that. So with that as a teaser, let’s start the show. All right, mia, welcome to the show.
Mia Moran:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here.
Brad Powell:
Yeah, well, I’m loving this conversation because you’ve been doing this summit preparation for some time now. And just full transparency Mia is a neighbor. She’s a friend from the last 10 years. We worked together. She was a client.
Brad Powell:
I helped her make videos quite a few years ago and then I’m not sure exactly when it was, but starting before the pandemic you got on this idea of, well, let’s make a summit and let’s do it in a way that’s pretty different than all.
Brad Powell:
Instead of the long, drawn out, hour-long presentations that we all have come kind of accustomed to in the way that summits are done, all of the presenters for this event are just submitting on their own a five-minute video. So instead of having to listen through this really long thing and a bunch of stuff that you probably don’t care about, you can actually pick and choose and go oh, this looks good and this looks good and somebody is going to come in and, in just five minutes, give you the answer to your question or give you something that you can literally take and run with, put into practice right away, and I just think this is brilliant. And also, what I’m cool to talk about is, in the process of creating this, mia enlisted me in actually helping all of the presenters in making their five-minute videos, so I did a little training for the whole group of them.
Mia Moran:
An integral in the whole thing of getting everyone to make good five-minute videos.
Brad Powell:
Well, what I’d like you to do is talk a little bit about the evolution and some of your thinking behind. You’re like where did this all come from and why exactly are you choosing to host your event in this way?
Mia Moran:
So I think I’ll go back to the whole like summit analogy, even though all I’m wanting to do is stick to the doldrum word but we’ll get back to that in a minute. I love that word. But it is true that I have been leading summits for a while. I had a really amazing business friend years ago who was always like you should really lead summits, it’s the way to go, you should really lead summits. And there was always something about them that was like really intriguing to me and I have always been asked to be on summits and there was also something kind of like just heart dropping about being in them. And so I started to unpack what summits and there was also something kind of like just heart dropping about being in them, and so I started to unpack what that was, and one of the big pieces of it was that I’m a designer by trade and I would get these graphics that I would have to put on my social media and in my emails and I just couldn’t imagine doing this. I would always redo them, but I was just like why does it look like this? So that was one thing. Another thing was is I just felt really overwhelmed whenever I actually attended one, because the traditional summit it’s multi-days, 12 talks a day, which we have to, but we’ll get to that in a minute, but just so much time. I was like, who has time to watch all these things? And of course the reason that it’s done that way is because then you will buy the upsell and have it. But there was just there was like always these like little glitches that just I don’t know, they just didn’t sit right in me and then I would go to share them and I would be like, wait, what am I sharing? What if there’s somebody on this summit who just is so different than me and I’m sharing them with my people and it would, you know, this person might not be for them and that might be offensive to somebody. And I just started thinking, like of all these problems that would come up if I was sharing the summit in this way. And so over time I really just started to innovate.
Mia Moran:
So I started off with the time thing. So I definitely didn’t like the idea of like a full week, full days. So I started off by just being like well, what would happen if I did something for a day? And so that’s how I started. I was like somebody could listen to seven talks in a day. So we’re just going to have like a mini thing. It’s going to be one day, it’s going to solve one problem, and that’s how I started. And then the next year I was like all right, I want like a little bit more like things in it. So I was like what if I do one day, but just like once a week, so it goes out over time? That was I’m going to not lie. The one day part wasn’t bad, but in the midst of it it was like right, as the pandemic was starting, george Floyd happened on one of the days that it was going live. Like it was just the timing of it was awful. So that was a really hard one and I could see how spreading it out wasn’t the best choice for my nervous system or for my audience. And then I went back to the day and but I decided to do it live. So I’ve done that as well. And so it’s just like every time I’m like what would make this the best experience for people? Now, like I love the quality of speakers coming together.
Mia Moran:
The other thing I think I always took a stand on which I’m not sure if other people do this as well, but it was really it hadn’t been part of the experiences I had been part of was that I really wanted it to be like curated. So I was sure always about what exactly I wanted to teach. And then I went out to go find those people rather than, who wants to do this thing, just come share your nugget, like, it was always very curated. I always had an idea of what I wanted to say. That’s been true through all of them. And so during the pandemic I think I ran maybe three of them live and it was great. It was a lot of fun. Everybody was home, everybody like, wanted to connect, everybody was on zoom. And then the third one I ran was sort of on the other side of the pandemic and, as you can imagine, nobody wanted to be on Zoom. It was the wrong format.
Mia Moran:
And so last year I started thinking, okay, how can we do this different? Like, what else can we do? And that’s where the five-minute video piece came in. I think Brad mentioned that we’re neighbors so we also sometimes mastermind over coffee on Friday mornings and I was like, just talking about like, like, there’s got to be a better way. And somehow in this conversation, I was like, oh my gosh, they could just, you know, share like with nothing, no fluff around it, just a five minute strategy. Like, do you think that would be enough? I think we’re talking about exactly how much time one needed, and you said five minutes, and then I asked you to teach it.
Mia Moran:
And then we did it and the most amazing thing happened this was back in December on sort of a different topic, but first of all, it was really. It was a really impactful practice for the speakers because they were growing a skill to really be able to communicate their most valuable things in five minutes. It was really hard for everybody. We got lots of emails like, really, five minutes, could it be 10? Could it be 12? Like, are you sure it needs to be five? But everybody actually made it happen in five, and every time I watched one I was like almost like in tears. Like some of them I was crying, like I was just overcome with emotion with really how time bendy it was when somebody really figures out how to teach their best stuff in five minutes, because it does not seem like five minutes when you’re watching, but if you’re timing it on your clock, it literally is only five minutes, and so I was just struck by how much could be covered in five minutes.
Mia Moran:
And so this year, when I was thinking of what we’re doing you know what we’re offering right now I decided to shift the topic a little and got really excited about this concept of back to business. I got really excited to bring in the five minutes and the like piece. Like the next piece that I wanted in that got me really excited about this is I was like the thing that I haven’t really solved yet is that piece that in the summit model, everybody’s sort of sharing that they’re going to be part of this event. That’s a piece of the strategy. And I still always personally felt like even though I trusted the person hosting the event because I over time realized I could say no to some, but even though I trusted the host, I still didn’t know like the people.
Mia Moran:
And so I was really careful to say yes to hosts who I really trusted that they would curate the people. But there was like this missing quality of like a rising tide lifts all boats that I couldn’t put my finger on and I was like, well, what if everybody met each other? Like how fun would that be? And so that’s been the addition to this. One is everyone’s making five minute videos and all the speakers have spent the summer coming like meeting each other and networking with each other and I’ve watched these like cool partnerships happening, you know, before we even get to the event, and that’s been really fun because it feels like, no matter what happens, everybody’s winning.
Brad Powell:
Yeah, that’s been a really great part of the process. I mean, just people who are listening to this can look forward to several of the presenters who will be upcoming guests. They’re already scheduled to come on and it’s been really cool to get to know and meet a lot of these folks who I didn’t know at all prior. And now you know, who knows what will happen in the future, and it’s created a very different feeling for just our willingness and feeling about getting behind this particular event. Feeling about getting behind this particular event. So I don’t want to jump too much beyond, just simply talking about who the event is for and what is it. What are you actually trying to accomplish with this summit?
Mia Moran:
So the event is so you know, up until now, who I really serve is women, but I definitely invite in a few good men, and we definitely have a few good men speakers this time, which is new. Often we’re a platform for women, but that’s been super fun. But the idea behind it was we’re in this, you know, back to school time. So, whether you have kids going back to school or not, it seems to be like the flavor of what’s happening when you open your phone or, you know, go out into the world. And I was thinking back on both my experience as a mother releasing kids to school and also my experience when I was a child of going to school and I was realizing, this summer I have, I have three older kids, so two of them are off at college and one is in high school, and they all sort of started their things at different times and I so there was multiple moments where I was like helping people clean out their room and figuring out what they needed and, you know, teaching them skills. It was the first time my son was living on his own is right now, and so it’s like. This is like. This is. This is our few good dinners you could cook for yourself, like. So we were doing all these things. And then there was a moment when we had this like celebratory dinner and we like sent them off to the next place.
Mia Moran:
So, like everybody was entering the next grade or the next year, everybody was starting the next experience, and there was just this.
Mia Moran:
It was very marked and I remember I, by the way, hated school, but I did love back to school because it was like the end of the summer and I liked a lot of the like more probably materialistic pieces of it, like I could get a new outfit and the notebooks and all the things.
Mia Moran:
But it was a very but I just remember this memory of being young, like, and specifically I remember fourth grade for some reason, and I remember like that summer you know, it’s like the whole summer you’re in third grade and then at some point you start saying you’re in fourth grade and in my case, fourth grade. On that first day my one of my three brothers and one of them was born. So I woke up ready to go to school and, like nobody was home except the babysitter, and so I just remember it being a really like discombobulated day, but I got on a school bus and the school bus driver had donuts. And then I got to school and there was show and tell and I got to be proud that my mom was off having my baby brother.
Mia Moran:
Like you know, I didn’t understand any of the things that were going on, but I just remember feeling like grounded and held. And so when I was thinking of all these experiences that we have built in and thinking to the entrepreneurial journey, especially people who’ve like facilitated this for others, and it’s like all of a sudden it’s fall and we’re in this rush and some of us are in the doldrums like literally the you know, the wind has been swept from our sails and we’re not sure what’s next. Others, it’s like maybe we took some time off and we’re all of a sudden like rushing, like the energy of fall is busy but we don’t have to rush and I just don’t think we’re necessarily marking our next season. And so part of the idea behind this was really like how do we all land in our next version and really figure out what’s working best in our businesses right now? And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs wind down a bit in the summer and want to wind up a bit to end the year.
Mia Moran:
And I just have heard over and over as a productivity coach that the In December I hear from a lot of people like gosh, the fall just really like it went by so fast. I like I don’t even know what happened to it. And so I was thinking that if we created this, that wouldn’t happen Not to mention the fact that if you’re in the US, it’s a bit crazy right now and I was just like, if we just gathered, you know, maybe we could all collectively put our energy into building these amazing businesses that we have and learn some new strategies along the way.
Brad Powell:
Yeah, and you’ve put together 55 different presenters. Yeah, they’re all doing a five minute video. Yep, they’ve all made their own and I know that you’ve just watched all of them.
Mia Moran:
Yeah, I have to make a really cool workbook.
Brad Powell:
But, more importantly, you handpicked all of them according to the kinds of things that you’re talking about. So talk a little bit about the structure. Like you know, basically there’s five days, 12 people, there’s an hour’s worth of video presentation each day, but it’s it’s 12 five minute videos each day, yeah, and it’s organized.
Mia Moran:
It’s it’s 12, five minute videos each day, yeah, and it’s organized. Again, it’s like that’s always been a piece of what I wanted to do was the curation. So I was thinking about, like, okay, it’s like time to get back to business, like what do I need to be thinking about? Part of it was, you know, one of the things that can happen in the busyness is we just get back to the busyness, like of being in the weeds of our business instead of really thinking strategically about our business. It’s very easy to do that, especially when everything around us is moving very quickly. And so I was like, well, what if, before Q4 even starts right, because it doesn’t start until October and we’re technically, not officially even to the fall you know the equinox. So it’s like not even fall, but it is fall. And so it’s like what if we actually like landed and got grounded and went into cube for just with a plan that really supported what we need right now, not what we needed back in June, before we took time off or not what we thought we needed for the year, but we like really reset, and so in that I just, you know, pulled out the things that have been most important to me. So it’s like we all need to have a marketing plan.
Mia Moran:
So that’s day one, is some new marketing strategies and some space to implement and really decide what you want to do for marketing. Finding customers, slash sales is day two. Day three is about more infrastructure stuff. So you know, like what does it look like to grow a balanced business? What are the things that one might think about? What are some of the five minute strategies that could help Money expansion, all those kinds of things. Thursday is mindset and Friday is about how our lives and bodies can really support us in growing our business. So I just I wanted it to sort of hit all the different things that I have personally found are really important to think about as I grow my business, and then I asked speakers to pitch me on what where they would fit, and so we had a pretty. Actually, we had an application process, so what came in has been exactly what we wanted, which is great yeah, and a lot of this.
Brad Powell:
I mean putting a summit together is can be a really gigantic project and yet I think part of the given that the contributions from the presenters have been genuine contributions, I mean this is different than when you’re doing a live event.
Brad Powell:
you have to be there for every single thing that happens, and this is a pretty different thing. So, like, given that you’ve done all these different styles, how does this compare and do you feel like you’re making an actual improvement on your own time commitment and well, yeah, for sure, because I feel like I’m stepping into what’s actually my superpowers, you know, which was not, like you know, reigning everybody in and doing everything.
Mia Moran:
So so my, you know, what I love doing is I love helping people make a plan. So, before we even start this week, um, on Thursday we’re having a workshop about creating your fall workflow and really looking at how some of these pieces can play out in a week for the whole, you know, till the end of the year or beyond or whatever, but really getting clear about what this season is for you. And then also, every day, I get to do a session in the afternoon so everybody gets the videos, you know, upon waking in the morning, they get the hour they can watch them whenever they want in the day. But every afternoon we’re going to have what we call a get it done session, which is 90 minutes, and I will be pulling up some of the videos live and we’ll really be working through the content together. So I know that people will get it done and that is what I do for clients.
Mia Moran:
So I really get to be stepping into what I do and let everybody else really do what they do, and also on the front end of it, like as most entrepreneurs probably are. Everyone listening probably is. I’m a very high idea generator, so I really got to be in the idea generation piece and I have amazing team members who’ve really helped to facilitate, like you know, reaching out to everybody, making sure all the videos are in, putting them in the right folders. You know, doing all the things that are not my superpower at all, so from that standpoint, I feel like I have genuinely I’m only doing what I would do any day, you know, like without being paid for it, like I’m having so much fun being paid for it, Like I’m having so much fun.
Brad Powell:
That sounds good. So in terms of takeaways, I mean, first of all, I think this idea of having to get it done like an actual actionable period of time each day is really cool, because we’ve all done multiple things, whether it’s a course or a program of workshop any kind, and you’re all like, oh, this is cool. I got a ton multiple things, whether it’s a course or a program of workshop any kind, and you’re all like, oh, this is cool. I got a ton of things you know that I could do, and then none of it ever gets done.
Mia Moran:
That is my big pet peeve of every summit and also live event ever. So that is not what we’re going to do around here.
Brad Powell:
That’s so great, all right. Well, in terms of the event coming, I mean, we’re talking next week, yes, and just for people in the future, this is the week of the 16th of September 2024. And if you could have like your dream come true, around folks who come to this event and then walk away into the future in a better place, what does that look like?
Mia Moran:
Yeah, so it looks like that and everyone’s really gotten you know how, like when you were. I’m going to go back to fourth grade. I’m loving the fourth grade analogies today. But like, remember in fourth grade when you got that piece of paper maybe you experienced this with a kid that was like your block schedule for the fall, you know, and you and you got to like color with markers and see that you had math at these times and whatever. So we’re going to create that. That’s part of my contribution to this. So we’re going to create that. That’s part of my contribution to this. And then we’re going to like work it. Then we’re going to be in next week and we’re going to, you know, show up in that way to your week and practice it together.
Mia Moran:
And so my goal is really that everyone enters Q4 with a lot more clarity and, you know, with your doldrums analogy, like the wind back in their sail, because I think a lot of us it’s just, you know it’s it’s it can be overwhelming.
Mia Moran:
There’s so many different things we could do and we tend to just like keep going and not pause and be like, well, what do I actually want to do and what’s actually going to make a difference, and so I’m hoping that this is both like the pause to make the plan and then the inspiration to like try some new things, hear some new voices. And it’s only five minutes, so if it’s not your jam, then you just move on to the next one. But I’ve already gotten so excited by some of the strategies. It’s funny and it’s not always the ones I expected. Like I went in and I’m like Okay, I just like want to know Instagram. And then the LinkedIn. There was a LinkedIn training that it’s like my favorite thing I learned and I was like, oh my gosh, that totally is going to help me. So so I really hope everyone really gets the wind back in their sail and like has the direction and knows where they’re going.
Mia Moran:
The wind back in their sail and like, has the direction and knows where they’re going. That’s my wish for everyone and feels part of something. So Brad mentioned, you know, meeting all the speakers and I’m hoping that that gesture of everybody meeting just keeps expanding as we all come together next week, you know, as a bigger, bigger community, because I think that that’s really important right now is that we’re not sort of alone. I think that’s that’s a big piece of this, you know. Back to business, back to school. Analogy is that you don’t have to just be alone at your desk.
Brad Powell:
I feel like that was one of the benefits of starting school yeah, well, just to continue with the sailing analogy, there’s really nothing better when you’ve been becalmed in your sailboat and you’ve been sitting out there going, man, this isn’t working. Then when all of a sudden, the wind picks up and starts carrying you along and it’s just like it’s thrilling. It’s thrilling.
Mia Moran:
So, yeah, that’s what I wish, or another boat shows up.
Brad Powell:
Right, right, exactly, all right. Well, this is cool. I will make sure that the links to for people to register will be in all the show notes so that people can easily find it and register and join us all next week. And if people want to just reach out to you directly, mia, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Mia Moran:
I think the best way is our website, which is plansimplecom, and we have a free course there. That’s all about designing your days. So this event is going to be particularly focused on designing your weeks as an entrepreneur, but I’m always thinking about designing time, so you can go grab that too.
Brad Powell:
Well, Mia, thank you so much for coming on today and I look forward to all the fun that’s happening next week.
Mia Moran:
Thank you. Thank you so much for your piece of it.
