At the beginning of my journey as an entrepreneur, I would never have predicted that narrowing down my list of clients and saying the word “no” more often would actually make me better at my job… but it did. When I can fully connect with my clients and fully appreciate the value of their work, I have the ability to change lives outside of my movement.

Let me give you a little back story. My friend and client, Cristy Code Red, recently hit 10,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel. That’s 10,000 people committed to losing weight, keeping it off, and taking their lives back!

Seeing Cristy hit that milestone made me so proud, not only of the amazing work Cristy does for her audience and clients on a daily basis, but for the work that my team has put in to elevate her channel over the past year. And now we’re in our third season of videos with Cristy and I love seeing her audiences reaction to the videos every week.

It’s funny – as a video marketing agency, you get to spend a lot of time empowering other people’s movements. You’re behind the scenes, and in some cases, you can be your client’s best kept secret.

Our work will more than likely go unnoticed by the audience no matter how amazing your skills are, because well they’re busy paying attention to the person on-screen.

You could think about this two ways. One, “Wow, I spent HOURS working on this video and it’s such a bummer to not get any of the glory. While the face of the brand responds to comments and rakes in the praise… it’s back to the drawing board for me.”

But when I see my client doing well – maybe they earned more subscribers this week than any other week previous, or maybe they had really high engagement on their latest video – I can’t help but beam with pride.

I don’t need that external glory; I get all the glory I need from seeing my client lead their movement and make a massive impact, knowing that I helped them along the way.

As an entrepreneur in general, it’s easy to feel like you’re grinding it out with little reward. Especially when you’re first starting your business and maybe you don’t have a lot of money coming in, it feels like you have to hustle 24/7 at a thankless job just to make ends meet.

But it can be so inspiring to work with visionary leaders and watch them grow in their zone of genius. Seeing clients in action and making an impact is the greatest possible reward for any team’s hard work.

I think one of the keys to this is being pretty choosy about your clients. When I first started my business, I wanted to succeed and make as much of a profit as possible to keep it going, so I thought I had to say yes to everybody. Whether or not their business aligned with my values or seemed like a good fit didn’t matter as much – a new client was a new client.

you’re probably nodding your head right now because I’m pretty sure we’ve all been here, right? In the beginning, you’re just thinking about how you’re going to get by or how you’re going to pay your team. Everything is results-driven, and you don’t stop to consider whether the client is a good match.

But I never could’ve predicted at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey that narrowing down my clients and saying “no” more often would actually make me better at my job. 

When I’m really passionate about what my client is doing, I give them my fullest attention. I’m driven to help them amplify their movement to the greatest extent possible. 

I realized one day that my movement is helping other people build their movements, and keeping that in mind as a bit of a mantra has really helped me to stay the course and remember my “why” over the years.

Along the way, you may experience those moments when you’re in your ego and you think “jeez, I really wish I was the one getting all that attention”, especially when you’re working so hard to contribute to someone else’s movement. But when you recognize that thought as part of your ego, and ultimately focus on the lives that this movement is bound to change, you remember that this whole movement isn’t about you at all. It’s not your job to be the face of it; it’s your job to put the megaphone to it and be that connector between your client and their audience. 

And maybe, just maybe, when you’re not paying attention… you’ll suddenly wake up to realize you’ve built your own movement as a result of helping other people build theirs.