When you love your business you make a bigger impact, you make more money and it will support the priorities in your life too.
You are going to see some changes from me over the next several weeks. I’ll be rebranding and narrowing in on my focus to the businesses I really love to serve.
My business model is changing. I’m very clear that I’m not one of these coaches who is solely focused on getting as many people as possible into a group program to merely “leverage my time” and make as much money as possible.
What really makes my heart sing is transformation. And to do that I’m committed to work with fewer people and going deeper with them so they really make progress in their business. And in doing so I still leverage my time AND theirs and I make money with doing something I truly love.
You’ll also see a shift with my annual event THRIVE. When I launched that brand over two years ago there weren’t many people using “Thrive” and now it’s in several places and I’ve outgrown it. So my event will be called something new also.
Stay tuned for new announcements about it all. 🙂
Feature Article: How I Fell in Love With My Business Again
It was early in 2012 and I woke up with a sinking feeling.
What I thought I wanted changed.
I had evolved and my master “plan” for my life was different.
I didn’t love the business I was building. In fact, I hated parts of it.
Some parts of it were fantastic.
The parts that weren’t fantastic were suffocating me.
The support team I had attracted and created for myself was a perfect match for the “old” business plan.
So I had to let go.
I let go of everything that no longer served.
Ideas. Mentors. Friends. Clients. Marketing plans. Events. Products. Programs.
In order to build a business I LOVE again I had to do the unthinkable. I had to stop listening to everyone around me, including some mentors, and get really quiet. So quiet that it was brutally uncomfortable.
I had to listen to one person and only one person.
Me.
And I had to listen while still being coachable and open.
What did I really want?
What business model feels truly authentic and not like I’m falling into the standard business mold that is oh so dominant in the industry?
The question that wouldn’t die down was “At what point do I follow the model because it’s working and don’t fix what’s not broken? Or how do I determine that the model is there because everyone is just following something that someone said was a good idea and we all jumped on the bandwagon without really thinking it through?”
Times were changing. People were getting burned out. Where was the place I could offer true value and really help people?
I chose to slow down. And for those of you who know me, slowing down is not my natural pace. Once I make a decision then VROOM, I’m makin’ things happen quickly.
I realized my motivation for continuing on with what I thought was the right business model for me was to not let people down. And it was to keep up the perception of “success.”
Here is what happened when I slowed down and stopped doing things because I was “supposed” to:
1. I now work with the clients I absolutely adore and love. And I’m not concerned about being liked by them. My core focus is to serve them and that often includes butt-kicking conversations with them. The truth stings sometimes and I’m okay with that because I know the truth will get them farther in the end. The truth also means that they LEARN how to grow their business and I don’t become a crutch to them.
2. My revenue increased by 30% for the second year in a row and my expenses decreased by almost 15%. I’m on track to increase by at least 50% and my expenses will decrease by another 5-15%. In an industry where everyone is promoting how to make money quickly and double it every year, not many people are talking about how that is not likely to last and at what cost that is happening.
I can’t tell you how many people who have said “Yeah, I made a lot of money last year but I’m exhausted and my expenses were high to make all of that happen.”
(Who cares if your revenue was $500k but it cost you over $250k to make that happen? There is a less expensive way to get a $250k profit. Know what I mean?)
But who’s talking about THAT?
Did I double my income in 2012? Nope. But I still grew and I got more sleep instead of working around the clock like I used to. I spent more time with the people I loved. I nurtured my soul. I have a business I love now.
Play date with Zachy making cookies.
3. I spent time with my family. If you have been part of my tribe for a while you know how much I love my nieces and nephews and the time I spent with them the past year has been priceless. I will never get tired of my 3-year old nephew “Zachy-Zach” calling me “Anjewwa.” Or seeing my 9-month niece Adelyn stand on her own for the very first time. She’ll be walking any day now.
4. I had many honest conversations with myself. I’m not gonna lie, it was hard. But I feel free. I looked at the results in my life and stopped pretending that the things were okay when they really weren’t. So I got back to basics like meditating, eating better, working out and working on my marriage. I took a look at my money and cash flow and saw where the leaks were.
If you are working hard and still not making money you want then STOP. Slow down.
It will take huge courage to follow the following five steps to fall in love with your business AND to grow it. And when you do that, you will feel free, you’ll make more money and you’ll ENJOY your life. Isn’t that why you became an entrepreneur in the first place?
Step 1: Stop doing things out of obligation or duty. If you don’t truly want to do something, then don’t do it. If you choose to do it, then don’t you dare complain or blame anyone. Blame in any form is keeping you from reaching your ideal success.
Step 2: Have a “come to Jesus” conversation with yourself. What relationships fill you up? What relationships drain you? Stop engaging in anything that no longer serves you. This includes your relationship with money, food, excuses, people, clients, recognition…cross examine everything.
Step 3: Have the courage to say no. This includes saying no to yourself when your habits are tempting you to fall back into your old pattern of mediocrity.
Step 4: Take action on what you really want.
Step 5: Clean up the places where you are out of integrity. This means the tough conversations with people who you’ve let down or didn’t deliver on your end of the agreement. This may mean firing a client who isn’t doing what they say they are going to do. This means firing yourself from doing tasks that you suck at. It’s identifying the habits that are not creating the life you truly want and creating a plan to change it.
Any energy leak in your life equals a profit leak. Cleaning up your agreements will not only plug the leaks but when you fulfill your agreements to yourself, your integrity with yourself trains others how to treat you. This is one of the most awesome parts of this whole process!
Watch out for an announcement later this week about the three reasons why you aren’t making money you want. I’ve studied business models inside and out for the past 18 months. And the ONLY reason why people aren’t making money, particularly six figures, in their business comes down to three very simple things. I’ll be doing a free training on it in the next week.
