Episode 100: Behind the Mic: 100 Episodes of Growth, Mistakes, and Wins
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I'm your host, Sara Murray. And today we are celebrating a major milestone. This is the 100th episode of Prospecting on Purpose. It is a little surreal that this day is here, but for this particular episode, we're going to be continuing our four-part mini-series. This episode is part three of four.
I am covering the eight biggest lessons that I've learned in two years of self-employment and producing 100 podcast episodes.
You’re listening to Prospecting on Purpose, where we discuss all things prospecting, sales, business, and mindset.
I'm your host, Sara Murray, a sales champion who's here to show you that you can be a shark in business and still lead with intentionality and authenticity. Tune in each week as we dive into methods to connect with clients, communicate with confidence, and close the deal.
Hello and welcome back to Prospecting on Purpose. I'm your host, Sara Murray, and today we are celebrating a major, major milestone. This is the 100th episode of Prospecting on Purpose. It is a little surreal that this day is here, but for this particular episode, we're going to be continuing our four part mini-series.
This episode is part three of four. I am covering the eight biggest lessons that I've learned in two years of self-employment and producing 100 podcast episodes. In episode 98, we covered how to respect the season you're in and embrace the unknown, and really just go with the flow and be comfortable with that. In last week's episode, episode 99, we discussed the power of networking and how to ask for and receive help.
And today's episode I saved for my two favorites. This is why we're debuting them on episode 100, but before we get into it, I thought it'd be fun to share some very quick podcast trivia. So this particular show Prospecting on Purpose has been on the air for 97 weeks straight in a row and the reason why it's not 100 weeks is because when we launch the podcast, it launches with three episodes.
So it's very common podcast practice to release the show with a few episodes in the shoot. So people can, you know, listen to more than one, especially the intro episode is kind of a throwaway.
Behind-the-scenes trivia. It took me like seven hours to record that first episode. I boiled it down to 20 minutes and then I think I later cut it down to 12. So, took a really long time to get that first one off the ground. So it's funny to look back and there were definitely tears. I had to like Lift my desk so I could stand up and talk into the microphone because it was, it's just a different, is a different skill set that I had to build. And so I appreciate you being along for the ride.
At the time of this recording, the runtime of all 99 episodes leading up to today clocks in at 2, 513 minutes.
Which is 41 hours and 88 minutes of listening time. The show is listened to in 48 countries and it has hit the top charts in 23 of them, including a number one ranking in the country of Macau. So thank you to the folks in Macau who listened to the show, and to listeners all over the world. I just want to thank you very much for your time and contribution.
It really helps keep the momentum going and the feedback and the ratings reviews. Subscriptions, the kind notes, the comments, sharing the show. It's a really different level of fulfillment and so I just want to thank you again for your support of Prospecting on Purpose.
I've recently been putting more effort and expenses into producing a YouTube version of this show. So feel free to subscribe to my channel at Saramurraysales. It's linked in every episode's show notes. We've been hitting some milestone views on YouTube and that's been happening in a somewhat short amount of time. So it'll be fun to see how that evolves over time. If you happen to watch this on YouTube, you will see that I have balloons behind me that I bought for myself that spell out the number 100.
I also realized that I pretty much only wear black clothes. So if you watch the show on YouTube, pretty much every clip I'm wearing a black top. I promise they are different clothes. They're different tops. I just apparently like to wear black. So, wearing a black top today, let's dive into two more lessons as part of our mini-series.
The first thing I want to cover, and this is someone I've learned pretty recently, is that the seeds you plant almost always come back to harvest in one way or another. So every action you take, no matter how small it is, has the potential to yield results and it's really easy to get discouraged when you put time and money and effort and risk into something and you don't see the results or they don't turn out as expected.
But What's been interesting because, you know, now I'm at the two-year mark, I'm starting to see seeds that I planted 18 months ago, start to bloom now in ways I would have never expected. And so it's kind of cool to look back and trace the different actions and the steps that I took that led to that opportunity or that conversation or that feedback. And success is really often built on countless small actions that compound over time. And the challenging thing about this is you never know which seeds will sprout and it can be really hard to stay resilient when you're not seeing results.
So that's really why I wanted to share this lesson is because nothing you do is in vain if you keep Doing the right things, the results will follow. The prospects that you took out for lunch and you never heard from again, they might call you with a project tomorrow.
The blog post you wrote might attract your ideal client a year from now. The person you met at a networking event might become an unexpected mentor, or they might change jobs and have an opportunity for you.
So the key is to just keep planting those seeds constantly. And I learned this somewhat recently. I did an event this summer. And it went okay. I learned a lot from it. It cost me a lot of money to produce this particular event, and it was very lackluster. The registrations I got were not nearly what I was hoping for. It definitely didn't offset, the time and effort that I put into it. So, you know, it's hard to not get discouraged when things like that happen, but about 4 months later, I got a call from someone on the other side of the country saying, hey, you're never going to guess this conversation I just had and they ended up telling me that the event that I did that summer stemmed to 3 other things that circled back to me and now it's a pretty big opportunity for the new year.
So, you know, the things that we're building and the road to success really isn't a straight line. It's an amalgamation of the many different actions that we take. We just need to keep taking the steps forward and that path appears. But also you start to see the things that you did manifest into your reality and so that's something that's been really helpful for me to just be at peace with, you know if I approach every activity I do as I'm planting a seed, whether it's networking or learning a new skill or creating content or trying something, even if it's a failure at the time, you know, quote-unquote failure, these are all seeds that grow into opportunities and so you're always going to have something to harvest if you've been diligently planting seeds and it may not be what you expect and it may not come when you expect it, but the growth is happening beneath the surface. So keep showing up, keep creating, keep connecting, keep taking shots, keep trying new things.
Your future self is going to thank you for those seeds that you're planting today and then the second thing we're going to cover for this episode goes hand in hand with planting seeds, and it's really looking at every mistake as an opportunity to learn, and if you're not making mistakes, you're probably not stretching yourself hard enough, and this is really where true growth happens is in this time of discomfort.
I make mistakes all the time, literally at least once a day. Some are big, some are small, but the ability to reframe a mistake as an opportunity to grow and almost sometimes have like a sense of humor about it, this is where real resilience is built. And I will tell you, it's a much more peaceful way to live and operate both in life and business.
Things don't rattle you the same way when you're able to really reframe this and look at it as a learning opportunity and this, for me, particularly has been an area where I can see my own personal growth, you know, some of the mistakes I'm making now would have sent Sara from two years ago into a panic spiral and I would have been calling people and freaking out and, you know, being upset that this state government's telling me I owe them $8, 000 because I forgot to file a form, you know, those types of things.
But once you start making mistakes and you realize that you can really work through anything and figure things out because you've done it before, maybe not that particular situation, but you've done problem-solving. You've gotten through things. It becomes really easy to embrace the unknown because you have enough data points to know that you were able to use your resources to work through it and learn from every mistake.
And then they're not really mistakes. I call them teachable moments and it just gives you an opportunity to learn and grow and that is what life is really all about. So my advice to you is to. to take a nugget of wisdom from every interaction, every project, every setback, and sometimes certain events or things or activities require reflection.
So if you're reflecting on things, you could say, what went well, what could be improved? What did you learn? I had a meeting the other day with someone and I didn't, you know, looking back, I don't think I presented my pricing in the most strategic way to close that deal and I learned a lot from it. I learned a different way would communicate those numbers. I do this pretty frequently and it's been helpful to just, you know, learn a little do a little. So I had a meeting the other day at the prospect and I had sandwiched him in between a really busy day and if I could do things differently, I would have buffered the time before and after the meeting.
I would have asked a couple more questions about his expectations and pricing because I was in such a rush. I don't think I did the most eloquent job of presenting my pricing to him and I think I blew the opportunity and a lot of it, I can look at the different areas where, okay, that didn't work. Don't do that again. Okay. This is a different way. You could have asked that question.
So it just, I'm not kicking myself for losing the opportunity because I'm learning from it, but if you can reframe it, this simple practice is pretty transformative. It's never losing if you're learning, and then every failure in quotes is just feedback, and it's guiding you towards better decisions and better strategies in the future.
So to wrap up this 100th episode, I want to thank each of you for being part of this journey. Your support and engagement have been really, some nice oil where seeds of learning have been grown. I've also, of course, attracted clients from the podcast. So you just never know who's listening. You never know who's engaging.
So I just encourage you to keep planting those seeds, embrace the learning process, and remember that your biggest mistakes might actually lead you to your greatest breakthroughs. So that wraps up our episode 100. Thank you so much for being part of this journey. If you have not yet left a review or rated the show, I would really appreciate it. We've got some good things coming up for season three in 2025 that I'll debut in a couple of weeks. Your continued support means so much to me.
See you next time for the final part of our mini-series. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much for listening to the Prospecting on Purpose podcast.
If you loved what you heard today, subscribe to the podcast and please rate and leave a review. For more info on me, or if you'd like to work together, feel free to go to my website, Saramurray.com. On social media, I'm usually hanging out @Saramurraysales. Thanks again for joining me and I'll see you next time.
Connect with Sara
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saramurraysales
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramurraysales/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saramurraysales/
