Keep Business Sweet, Simple (and Sustainable) for the Holidays
We holistic entrepreneurs and small business owners know that the winter holiday season can be rough. Hectic. Overwhelming and incredibly hard to manage. It’s meant to be a time of celebration and relaxation, but many of us opt for worry and stress instead. We get anxious over year-end numbers, scramble to throw together customer appreciation events, pressure ourselves to add new offerings, and gradually pile more items onto our already-full plates until we’re ready to keel over.
We holistic entrepreneurs and small business owners know that the winter holiday season can be rough. Hectic. Overwhelming and incredibly hard to manage. It’s meant to be a time of celebration and relaxation, but many of us opt for worry and stress instead. We get anxious over year-end numbers, scramble to throw together customer appreciation events, pressure ourselves to add new offerings, and gradually pile more items onto our already-full plates until we’re ready to keel over.
We’ve already chatted about maximizing your time during the holidays to fill offers and secure new clients, and I certainly don’t want you to abandon those tactics! But today, let’s look at the all-important flip-side: Simplification.
If—like many of us—your stress levels creep ever higher the closer we get to singing “Auld Lang Syne,” then clearing the decks, paring down your activities, AND planting seeds of intention for the new year are all beneficial practices. Let’s talk details.
Create a DON’T List
We all have time-sucking tasks that creep in when we’re avoiding harder or more complex work. Plust tasks that we enjoy and justify as important, even when we secretly know they’re non-essential. So if you’re someone who’s subject to Holiday Inundation Syndrome, force yourself to make a DON’T list of projects and activities that can be temporarily abandoned.
MICRO: List out three things you will NOT do today. Either make a new list each day, or enforce a single list throughout the season. (You’ll know what will work best for your specific business model … and bad habits!)
MACRO: Take a hard look at your business now that we’re rounding out the year. What worked? What didn’t? Slash what didn’t work, and you instantly have more bandwidth to build on what did work.
EXAMPLE: Streamline your offers to reduce the amount of confusion (for your clients) and overwhelm (for you). If you have multiple offers, packages, or services but several of them aren’t performing, now is the ideal time to slash the ones that don’t generate income. Train your focus on your top performers, and let the rest go.
Get Back to Basics
After you’ve considered what to put on hold or jettison entirely, ponder your non-negotiables. And I’m not talking about “paying the rent” or “making a profit,” I mean higher-level goals and deep-seated needs. Think back to why you love your work, and which aspects of it feel utterly essential. Then force yourself to simplify.
MICRO: Ask yourself, “Which self-care needs must be met for me to feel the way I most enjoy feeling—in business and in life?” Find ways to meet those needs every single day. Seriously.
MACRO: Ask yourself, “Which basic business practices MUST be in place for me to have a happier holiday season?” If you need help keeping those practices humming along, prioritize finding that help.
EXAMPLE: To give yourself more breathing room for self-care and the energy to focus on essential practices, front-load some of the promotional and back-of-office processes that need to run in the background. Pre-write blog posts, pre-schedule social media, automate your billing and invoicing, hire an assistant, do whatever it takes to ensure you can pare down your activities without missing a beat.
Take Baby Steps Toward World Domination (for the Greater Good)
As the year draws to a close, we all end up doing some goal-setting for the year that approaches. But typical resolutions don’t always work for conscious entrepreneurs. So instead, I’d encourage you to gaze into the (near) future by portioning your big visions and dreams into achievable action steps. And challenging yourself to take action on one thing every day.
MICRO: Define your primary purpose in this world for more inspiration and energy. Take time to journal, self-study, or reflect on what you feel you are truly meant to do. Try boiling it down to a single mission statement or summary. (Mine is “I am here to be the person I needed.”) Stuck? Try this formula: I'm a ___. I help ___ [do]___ so they can _____.
MACRO: Once you define your big dreams for your business (and life), the next step is putting a timeframe around them. What aspects of your Big Vision will fit into the span of a single year? How about 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?
EXAMPLE: If your goal is to help as many people as possible heal their relationships with their bodies, make a list of organizations doing similar work and connect with them via email or social media, one per day. When you run out, research individuals doing similar work, and connect with one per day. Soon you’ll have a robust network of like-minded healers, and the ability to reach and help a much larger pool of people.
It’s so easy for me to command you to simplify your practices, and far more complicated for you to actually DO it. I know, and I want you to know that I know. But here’s the thing: If you want to make it through this holiday season with less stress, more focus, and a mindset that will prime you for a truly amazing year to come, simplification is the only way to fly. And I hope these suggestions will help you do just that.
Need help finding more concrete examples of how to pare down your practices? Come on over to the Conscious Kula and hit us up for ideas!
Want more clients as a Coach Healer or Helper? Solve problems
We’re officially in the home stretch of 2016. (Can you believe it? Where did the year go?!?) Before we know it, the supremely-exciting-but-somewhat-draining holiday mayhem will be upon us. And if selling services is your primary revenue stream, you probably know what that means: fewer new clients signing up, and current offers remaining unfilled as customer attention shifts to gift-shopping excursions and family gatherings.
Business is about solving problems.
The more clear you become on the specific problems you solve for particular clients, the more success you’ll have in your business and marketing efforts.
As a coach, your focus is to help your clients achieve their goals. To connect with potential clients, it's essential to identify the specific problems they want to solve. Good businesses solve problems, but not just any problem – a specific, urgent problem that the potential client is actively looking to solve.
By conceptualizing your business's products and services as solutions to specific, urgent problems that your perfect-fit clients want to solve, you've already done half the work of selling your products and services. Besides, when you are able to reframe your marketing efforts from “all about you” to “all about the problems you’ll solve for your clients” it becomes much easier to show up consistently and share your message.
To attract your perfect-fit clients, you need to identify the problem you solve as —and for whom. The specific problem your business services solve might not be the problem other coaches, healers, or holistic practitioners solve: or you might solve the same problem but for different perfect-fit clients.
Before you go any further in planning your programs, services, or packages ensure you are addressing problems worth solving:
Problems your perfect-fit clients know they have
Your potential clients have hidden problems that they may not know how to fix. Or that they don’t even know are the cause of the surface problems they KNOW they have.
Attempting to solve these “unknown” problems will backfire if your potential clients aren't motivated to find and fix the underlying problem.
For example, if you are a Life Coach who helps clients transition to a healthier mindset, you need to target clients who are motivated to improve their outlook on life. The chronic complainers need your services but they don’t know they have a problem (yet).
Problems your customer cares about addressing
Your potential clients must be aware of the problem that needs solving and care about solving the problem.
In fact, these are the most valuable types of problems for you as a coach to solve because your client is motivated to solve them.
For example, if you are a coach who specializes in career transitions, you need to target clients who are motivated to find a new career path, who are on every job search platform, and who are actively seeking support in their career transition.
What problem(s) do you solve?
Identify the higher-order problems your business solves for a particular client.
Once you clarify these problems, you can develop your unique solution (which is the fun part!).
Solving a valuable problem that your perfect-fit client is aware of, in a unique way, while providing excellent service, is a recipe for success.
By identifying and solving specific, urgent problems that your perfect-fit clients want to solve, you can attract more clients to your healing, helping or coaching business.
How to Stay Proactive When Life Gets in the Way
“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” - John Lennon
Eloquent words from a modern poet-prophet, to be sure. But sometimes, life isn’t limited to the swirl of activities on the sidelines of your work and ambitions. Sometimes life actually monkeys with the plans you’ve made. Life can be hurricanes and broken legs, busted carburetors and cancelled flights, sick kids and lost dogs. Sometimes life is an unexpected mini-disaster that brings everything to a grinding halt. Sometimes life is the hulking bully who runs down the beach to stomp all over the exquisite sandcastle you’ve been building all day long.
You can be meticulous and careful, have capable staff on-call to help in emergencies and a half-dozen backup plans … and still get screwed by natural disasters, germs, or planned obsolescence. No matter how diligent you are in your business plans and entrepreneurial actions, sometimes life steps in and derails you.
I watched this happen to a dear friend of mine just last week, so it’s top-of-mind for me now. And I realized that many of you lovely readers could likely benefit from the advice I gave to reassure her that all was not lost. (And to prevent her from constantly hyperventilating.)
Here are some simple, smart actions you can take when life throws roadblocks onto your path to success:
Simplify your business plan
Remember: 80% of your income is the result of 20% of your efforts. Your top-performing classes or offerings are always exponentially more profitable than less popular ones, so when life gets hairy, cut the dead weight. Identify that uber-profitable 20%, and simplify your business to that / those offers. Even if this is just a temporary switch, it can make life in emergency mode SO much more manageable. Need support identifying that 20%?
Choose one point of focus per week / month / quarter
Conscious entrepreneurs are chronic multi-taskers., and we tend to try to do everything ourselves. It’s a risky way to operate, but many of us make it work right up until the studio floods or the server crashes. When that finally happens, we are forced to focus. Focus is practical magic and the more you can laser in on the things that need to happen to move your business forward, the easier juggling everything else will become. Separate the day-to-day operations tasks from the growth tasks, and assign out the former to trusted employees. Pick a single item from the latter group to tackle each week, month, or quarter. Just one. That’s plenty. And focusing on it will help you feel productive and forward-looking even when you’re functioning in the wake of catastrophe.
Stay narrow and strong
Which of your regular responsibilities, roles, or offers are causing your now-limited energy to dissipate? The more you stay in your strength zone—your zone of genius where your unique magic lies—the less of a drain your business will be. And it’s essential that you conserve and manage your energy in times of crisis. Not sure what your zone of genius is or how to identify your unique magic? I’ve got you covered right here!
Let it go
Let’s be real: Sometimes life happens and you absolutely have to breathe into the holes that it creates in your business. Let it go and ride the wave: this too shall pass. (Even if it feels like it never will.) Remember to be gentle with yourself as you put the pieces back together. Ease yourself back into the swing of things when you can, but don’t apply any undue pressure.
Self-care is a business strategy
Speaking of which, never forget to listen to your needs and ask for help when catastrophe comes a’callin’. You are the beating-heart center of your business, so self-care is absolutely a business strategy! Identify three or four self-care practices that encourage you to feel vibrant, healthy, capable, and strong. Then stick to those come heck or high water. Promise me!
Find a community
If you’re in the throes of a business-derailing disaster right now, I sincerely hope some of these tips feel do-able to you. But if not—or if you could use an extra shot of support and empathy—come join us at the Conscious Entrepreneur’s Kula. Don’t go thinking this is “just an online community.” This amazing group knows how to help, heal, and nourish its members, and we’ve always got room for one more.
Crises can teach us essential lessons and illuminate what’s most important in our lives. But that doesn’t make them any more fun to live through. The next time life gets in the way of your plans, use these strategies to keep yourself moving forward.
Breaking the Cycle: Push Beyond Strategy Into Action
Have you started changing your “what ifs” to “what thens” yet? I know it might sound like a laughably miniscule shift, but take it from me: changing your internal monologue can totally transform your mindset. Even though we take them for granted almost every day, words are powerful. Language is life-changing. Just ask Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King, Brene Brown or Malala Yousafzai. The right words can change the world for the better. And that includes the inner world of your personal aspirations and ambitions.
Have you started changing your “what ifs” to “what thens” yet? I know it might sound like a laughably miniscule shift, but take it from me: changing your internal monologue can totally transform your mindset. Even though we take them for granted almost every day, words are powerful. Language is life-changing. Just ask Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King, Brene Brown or Malala Yousafzai. The right words can change the world for the better. And that includes the inner world of your personal aspirations and ambitions.
Answers aren’t actions
If you’ve already committed to the forward-thinking, preparedness-minded language of “what then,” kudos to you! Right now, you may be digging into the work of releasing your fears and building out contingency plans ... OR you may be spinning your wheels. You have some rough ideas of how to answer those daunting questions:
If I can’t pay my bills this month, what then?
If I launch a program and no-one enrolls, what then?
If I raise my rates and no-one buys from me, what then?
But even with answers in-hand, you may still fear moving forward. If you can’t pay your bills and decide that your Plan B is to borrow from your retirement fund, you may dread how your partner or family may react. If you lose customers after raising your rates and choose more aggressive marketing as your solution, you may cringe at the thought of kicking self-promotion into high-gear. You’ve got answers now, and you’ve got backups. But you may still be frozen in place.
Strategy and beyond
Action that moves us closer to our goals requires strategy. You can’t just fling yourself at a goal and hope you’ll land on the bull’s eye, you’ve gotta have a plan. A plan with a series of logical steps, built-in community support, and research on expected outcomes. Not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants plan, a thought-out, coach-or-colleague vetted, planful plan. (Need help with this step? I’m here for ya!)
And, of course, crafting a fully fledged long-term strategy is a huge first step, but it’s not enough. Implementing this strategy requires intentional action. And I mean showing up every day and chipping away at the activities and changes you’ve identified as essential.
But that can be scary. It pushes you to your growth edge - that uncomfortable place where you have to choose between the familiar and the future - and forces you to think about your business in different, challenging ways.
Fear can lead to avoidance.
Avoidance makes you to downshift into easy, brainless, maintenance tasks.
Piling on the little, ineffective actions drains your energy.
And then you’ve landed back to square one where you’re filling your days with busywork and studiously ignoring the big picture. Your goals sit in a corner, neglected and forlorn. And maybe crying just a little bit.
Accountability is the antidote
Nobody wants forlorn goals, am I right? We want our goals lively and vibrant and cheering us on at every turn. We want goals that excite and motivate us
And, as it turns out, a community of lively, vibrant people who cheer you on at every turn can help make just about any goal feel more achievable. Going it alone allows you to fall down endless rabbit holes of worry and fear, ending up in a state of analysis paralysis. Connecting with others can help you talk through your fears, break through to action, and make real progress.
@@ A community of lively, vibrant people who cheer you on can make just about any goal feel achievable. @@
Struggling to find a community in your own neck of the woods? The Kula is always open to new members, and a phenomenal place to practice accountability among open-minded, supportive e-friends. Won’t you join us?
Two words that can make or break your business.
So, we've talked about how "doing it all" is overrated. And it absolutely is! Focusing your efforts on strategic, key tasks is the only way to fly.
Buuuuuut ... let's take a moment to acknowledge that honing in on those key tasks and letting go of schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities can be daunting. After all, some of those schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities are the ones you could do in your sleep, and others yield instant positive feedback. Work like this sometimes FEELS more productive than big-picture work because it's done in the moment and we see results in the moment.
Doing it all is overrated.
Focusing your efforts on strategic, key tasks is the only way to fly.
Buuuuuut ... let's take a moment to acknowledge that honing in on those key tasks and letting go of schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities is daunting. After all, some of those schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities are the ones you could do in your sleep, and others yield instant positive feedback. Work like this sometimes FEELS more productive than big-picture work because it's done in the moment and we see results in the moment.
The risk of keeping ourselves busy with these non-strategic tasks is that we get stuck. We end up treading water - sometimes very much on purpose - to avoid tackling bigger, scarier decisions and getting serious about growing our businesses. And when we finally start to dial in those strategic tasks? Fear shows up. Fear of risk and failure, waste and embarrassment, trashing all progress and having to start over from scratch. When fear climbs into the driver's seat, wrenching back control of the wheel can feel impossible.
I believe thoughts compel behavior.
I believe we can change our thoughts.
In changing our thoughts, we can change our behavior.
Really, I believe in the power of language.
There are two words that can make or break your business.
What if.
What if I don’t make it?
What if I can’t pay my bills this month?
What if my website gets hacked?
What if I launch a program and no-one enrolls?
What if I raise my rates and no-one buys from me?
What if I spend 3 months writing a book and no-one wants to publish/buy/read it?
Instead of what if-fing yourself to death, hit the pause on this disturbing thought train and choose a more productive line of inquiry.
What then?
If I don’t make it [this time], what then?
If I can’t pay my bills this month, what then?
If my website gets hacked, what then?
If I launch a program and no-one enrolls, what then?
If I raise my rates and no-one buys from me, what then?
If I spend 3 months writing a book and no-one wants to publish/buy/read it, what then?
What then may have a similar end clause to what if. The difference is in the result.
What if leaves you grasping for straws, what then leaves you prepared to take your next steps. Building a thriving business is not the path of least resistance. In order to thrive, there are so many lessons that we need to learn.
And in changing your thought process from what if to what then, there are two very important lessons.
@@What if leaves you grasping for straws, what then leaves you prepared to take your next steps @@
(1) Let Go of Fear
The unknown is innately terrifying. And what if, takes us deep into the terror—creating worst-case scenarios and forcing us to stew in that fear. But we all know that fear doesn’t serve us.
Fear holds us back from success by preventing us from even trying. Fear causes us to guard our hearts—keeping us from showing the very vulnerability that makes us human (and in turn develops trust!). Fear keeps us from making investments in our businesses and in our education—what if I don’t make my money back on this investment?
Guess what? The fear never goes away. We just get better at letting go of it and acting anyway.
(2) Always have a plan B (and maybe a C & D)
Let’s get very clear on something—letting go of fear does not mean being reckless. It does mean letting go of the negative thought patterns, beliefs and behaviors that are keeping you from deeply trusting yourself – and your mission in the world.
Stop playing the what if game with yourself, because you’re only feeding a fear-monster that doesn’t serve you. BUT don’t ignore the fact that things do not always work out as we would like.
The possibility of failure is huge—especially for new entrepreneurs who are just starting to build a following.
Prepare for any outcome by changing your language from what if, to what then.
Knowing how you are going to pick up the pieces and move forward is invaluable. It has the power to reduce anxiety and reduced anxiety will increase confidence and, in turn, increase your potential for success.
@@Prepare for any outcome by changing your language from what if, to what then.@@
Your Dream Clients can sense your confidence or lack thereof—even if they can’t quite put their fingers on it. Amazingly enough, boosting your confidence is as simple as changing just two words. Those two words are the difference between being scared and being strategic.
To more sacred strategy,
Feeling Burned-out? Here’s the Antidote to Overwhelm.
Are you the bottleneck in your business?
Think about it. Are you:
Working with current clients?
Hustling for new clients?
Posting to your social media channels?
Running a clinic / practice / studio?
Studying to bring your expertise to the next level?
Growing your business to the next level?
Teaching classes or courses?
Livestreaming or hosting in-person events?
Doing your own accounting?
Attempting to have a social or family life outside your all-consuming work?
Grow your business with a business coach
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that many of you are doing all these things AND MORE. If you’re drowning in work, scrambling to do it all, and losing traction with every passing day—you’re not alone.
But you’re also not in a good spot, especially if you want to drive business growth forward. (And I know you do.) In order to prime your enterprise for real, ongoing, profit-generating growth, you’ve got to identify your key tasks, and yoke your focus + energy to get those tasks done.
Your time is limited and precious. Burning through your valuable time and energy with tasks that someone else could do isn’t a sustainable strategy. Understandably, you may need to wear all the hats right now….even if that is the case, track your time and you’ll begin to see where you are able to “retrieve” a few hours by pivoting your focus.
So just how do you figure out what to keep and what to ditch?
Here’s how I decide:
Divide and conquer
Make a list of every ball you’ve got in the air right now. Every task you do from creating long-term marketing strategies to sweeping the studio floor. Then divide them into two groups:
Those that help maintain the business: The must-do daily or weekly tasks that help keep the business running. Think teaching classes and working with clients, but also paying the bills and replying to emails.
Those that help drive business forward: Growth-promoting, catalyzing, and profit-enhancing tasks. Think developing new products or programs, launching higher-value offers or group programs, learning valuable skills, and working with business coaches.
Some of these tasks need you. There’s no trusted advisor or second-in-command who can step in and teach your classes, courses or coaching sessions, so you must be prepared to give them your attention. But there are other tasks that you may currently handle yourself to “save money,” or haven’t considered delegating.
When it comes to that second group, I want you to ...
Hire smart people
No one likes to hear that you’ve got to “spend money to make money,” myself included. (Seriously, who enjoys cliches?) But if you drown yourself in tasks that competent paid staff members could handle, you are quite literally keeping yourself from dreaming up and rolling out new, better, higher earning-potential offerings. Investing in trustworthy, creative full-time, part-time, or freelance staff frees you up to focus on business-building.
If you’re not in a position to hunt down and take on traditional employees, consider digital solutions like:
Virtual assistants (VAs), who can schedule your social posts, edit your content, or do grahic design work remotely and affordably.
Provider marketplaces like Upwork or Fiverr, which connect you with designers, programmers, and content marketers through bidding systems.
Design aids like 99 Designs, where you find and work with freelance designers on logos, packaging, websites, and more.
Once you have the tasks you keep all to yourself and the ones you selectively delegate there will be a few stragglers which don’t serve you or your business.
Eliminate underperformers
Sometimes we outgrow aspects of our business or find that certain responsibilities no longer serve their purpose.
// If you never get more than two students in your Thursday night cooking class, why are you still offering it?
// If you’re spending time populating gorgeous Pinterest boards but they don’t drive sales or generate new customer leads, quit it.
// If you dread the thought of teaching that weekly webinar, axe it.
// If you have an offer, program, workshop or course you’ve outgrown, retire the offer.
You do NOT have to keep doing things just because you’ve done them in the past. And you do NOT have to do things just because your peers are doing them. Keep your top-performing offerings and cut the dead weight. Focus on social media outlets that you enjoy and that bring you new business, and ditch the rest. You’re the boss. Make some tough calls and reduce your workload by letting go of underperformers.
Dial up the discipline
We’ve gone from easy to tough, I know! Making a list of your work tasks is a cakewalk. Increasing self-mastery? Not so easy.
Start with tiny steps like disabling social media notifications and practicing mono-tasking. (Multi-tasking is a total myth, believe me.)
Be honest with yourself about your most productive hours, and schedule your hardest tasks at those times of day. (More productivity tips here!)
Pick up an important, business-focused task to complete each day at the start of your workday. You’ll get an instant boost of motivation knowing you completed an important task for your business growth and that will help keep you motivated whe
As time goes on, you’ll learn the valuable lesson every successful entrepreneur has learned: you can’t do it all. Embrace this lesson with big, open arms. Doing it all is overrated. Focusing your efforts on strategic, key tasks is the only way to fly.
Wanna connect with a supportive group as you manage your task lists?
Join the Kula, a Free Coaching Community for female founders and integrative practitioners. We go Live every Tuesday at 1 pm EST / 10 am PST for mindful business tips and weekly action plans.