Mindset shifts and inspirational moments from ATOMICON 2024
I’m a big believer that taking time out of our businesses helps us see things from a different perspective. It’s an essential part of driving success, yet attending conferences and events can sometimes feel like something else we need to squeeze into our schedule.
I love hearing when other people have found an event valuable, as it encourages me to take that much-needed time. That’s why I wanted to share my key takeaways from a recent event in Newcastle, ATOMICON.
Not only was it a huge amount of fun with themed party nights and multiple networking opportunities, but there were some fantastic speakers. I came away feeling inspired and clear on the actions to take in my own business.
Why it’s great to leave your office to attend events…
There are so many benefits to stepping out of the everyday grind. I love getting out of the office and spending time with other business owners, learning from experts, and getting quality time with members of my team.
From the minute I board the train or start the drive, it’s a great opportunity to do some planning, listen to a podcast or just have some clear thinking time without the usual distractions.
With Newcastle being almost 5 hours away, I had plenty of time for those things in both directions. Plus, I met one of my team on route so we travelled together and had some dedicated time to focus on business planning.
What is ATOMICON?
ATOMICON is a sales and marketing conference like no other. It’s hosted by the dynamic duo Andrew and Pete, who are always highly entertaining and extremely likeable. Alongside the ATOMICON conference, Andrew and Pete help small business owners scale their businesses, boost sales, and become more profitable through their 121 support and group programmes.
The community that attends the event is filled with inspiring entrepreneurs – from six-figure overseas agency owners to local creative freelancers. Not only is everyone friendly and supportive, but they’re also ambitious and hungry for success – whatever that means to them.
On the day of the conference, the talks range from practical ‘How-to’ marketing lessons to more abstract talks that challenge your mindset. If you’re clued up about the sales and marketing industry, you will recognise many of the speakers, and there are usually some big names in the room such as Deborah Meaden and Joe Wicks who headlined previous years.
There were many great speakers but these were the 4 sessions that I personally found most inspirational and useful…
1. Find your ‘Big Domino’ – Andrew and Pete
The opening session with Andrew and Pete, the conference hosts, asked us to think bigger and consider which action, or ‘Big Domino’, would dramatically increase our visibility or credibility.
Andrew and Pete shared a personal story about how their determination to focus on speaking gigs as total beginners led to huge success on the international stage and sky-rocketed their business.
They suggested that “By focusing your efforts on achieving a significant, high-impact goal first you can create a cascade of successes, leapfrogging all the time-consuming years of smaller steps, and accelerating your growth”.
Once you figure out what your ‘Big Domino’ is, you can reverse engineer it and look for ways of achieving it. Even if you don’t reach your juicy goal right away, there’s no doubting the positive impact this will have. This talk was all about taking braver steps, pushing your business to new heights. So, what’s your ‘Big Domino’?
2. Persistence pays off – Davina McCall
Next up was Davina McCall who shared several stories from throughout her career where persistence, determination, and true grit paid off time and time again.
She recalled how she wanted a job at MTV so badly that she recorded and sent a video to the executives there every single week for 3 years. Although she got countless rejections, she never gave up and finally landed her first audition. Her attitude is that “No is a yes that hasn’t happened yet” – which I absolutely love.
Davina also shared how many of her most successful ventures – such as her campaign to raise awareness for menopause and her fitness business Own Your Goals – were not supported by others at the beginning. Yet these have been some of the most successful things she’s ever done.
Davina’s story serves as a great reminder that whatever rejections come our way, we have to keep pushing forward and refusing to give up until we achieve our goals. Davina is an inspirational story for following your gut and doing what you believe in. Is there something you were told ‘No’ and then gave up? Can you revisit this dream with Davina’s determination?
3. When shit happens, the shift happens – Jen Gottlieb
One of the slides from Jen Gottlieb’s session that really struck a chord was “When shit happens, the shift happens”. This is a great way of re-framing the challenges you’re experiencing and looking at them as learning opportunities with a chance to change your approach to resolving a problem.
When you’re in the thick of dealing with an issue it can be hard to view it through a positive lens… but a setback can often highlight something that needs to be done differently. When you let a ball drop, you can shift your focus back to that area to fix or improve things, which ultimately leaves it in far better shape.
It doesn’t have to be perfect
Jen also talked about the value of allowing yourself to be a beginner. After sharing a personal story about not getting an acting gig she wanted, she also told us how she saw Jerry Seinfeld perform at a tiny, intimate secret gig. During his performance, she realised he was reading off cue cards and practising new material for his shows.
If someone who’s as an accomplished performer and successful as Jerry Seinfeld thinks it’s ok to be a beginner then it should be ok for us, too.
Another example Jen shared was one of her first, slightly cringy attempts at Facebook Live videos. She kept recording and got much more confident – now her Instagram account has 541K followers. If she hadn’t let herself be a beginner and let her fear get in her way, she wouldn’t have built an engaged online audience and grown her business.
Jen’s talk was a brilliant reminder that things don’t always have to be perfect and polished. You need to test, improve, and try again and use the feedback to enhance whatever you’re creating. When was the last time you allowed yourself to be a beginner without fear of judgement?
4. The importance of lead gen systems – Chris James
Chris James led a fantastic session on lead generation and one of the questions he posed was “Could your business handle 1,000 enquiries, 1,000 leads, and 500 new clients?”
This really struck a chord because I absolutely know my business couldn’t. Even reducing those numbers down to 100 or 50 would be a real struggle right now. It was a great way of highlighting the importance of effective systems to handle leads.
How about your business – how easily could you handle that many leads or onboard that number of new clients? If you’re looking to scale effectively, think about these numbers (or more relevant ones) when you’re creating your own processes.
Make time daily for business growth
Chris also called out where we spend our time. He highlighted how often we busy ourselves with tasks that take our attention away from THE single most important thing – driving business growth.
Chris advised that if you’ve just started your business and don’t yet have clients, you should spend 100% of your time generating and converting new leads. And if you already have clients, you should spend no more than 50% of your time in client delivery mode.
He shared clear, actionable steps to generate more business, including:
- Putting lead generation time into your calendar
- Choosing a singular focus and sticking to it for at least 90 days
- Committing to starting several new conversations every day
- Testing, seeing what works, then tweaking and trying again
When you’ve created a method that works, you’ll know how many leads you need to convert to onboard new clients… Only once you’ve nailed this can you consider outsourcing any part of your sales process.
Spend time to consider your key business growth tasks
Ultimately, we usually know what we need to do to drive business growth and achieve our stretch goals. But it’s easy to stop focusing on the right things and get distracted by less important tasks – meaning not doing enough to drive leads and growth. So this event was a great reminder that blocking focused business development time every single day is critical.
Throughout the event, I was also reminded that mindset is the key to success. Continuously working on improving our mindset is vital to continue growing, both personally and professionally. The tough times help us focus on what really matters. By embracing and learning from any challenges that come our way, we can make incredible leaps forward.
Does ATOMICON sound like it could be useful for you to attend? It’s on again next year on the 10th of June, 2025. Find out more about ATOMICON and get your tickets here. I’d love to see you there!
If you’ve realised that you need more time to knock over your ‘Big Domino’ and see the amazing positive effects, my team of brilliant VAs can help. We can take admin tasks off your plate so you get more focused business development time. Get in touch to arrange a free, no-obligation chat about our VA services.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.