The Scariest Parts of Scaling a Business (and How to Handle Them Like a Pro)

Speaker 1: 0:00

If you asked me if I brushed my teeth in the morning, I would be like, of course, of course I did. And if I asked you that question, you might be like, yes, I sure did, because that's hygiene, right? That's hygiene that we learn from a very young age, as a little tiny human child. Business hygiene is selling and marketing every day, every day, every day, every day. Welcome to the Scaling Lounge, a podcast for established service-based business owners who believe in working smarter, resting often, playing always and dreaming bigger. I'm your host, adrienne Gallia, and I want to help you create time, financial and lifestyle freedom by scaling with systems, strategy and the support of a team, so that your business is able to grow, with or without you. Let's get to it.

Speaker 1: 0:49

Welcome to the spooky Halloween episode. I'm not worst. I was like I'm going to plan to say it that way, and then I couldn't get through it. I couldn't get through it. So, all jokes aside, this was intended to be like a cute oh, like the spookiest things about growing a bit, the scariest things about growing a business, and as I wrote my notes out, I was like, oh, this is actually, I think, going to be really helpful and like good content. So we're going to talk about.

Speaker 1: 1:20

There are eight things that I'm going to go through that I've identified with the help of the internet, because why would I not source this to the internet? Ask the people what are the scariest things you have encountered in your business or could imagine encountering in your business, and do it from there. So there are eight things total. Three of them are from suggestions that I got from people on Instagram. Thanks, people on Instagram. No one's going to get identified by name, so that we're not outing anyone, and there was a little bit of crossover. There was one suggestion from Instagram that I was like oh, that's actually already on my list, but there are two that I was like okay, I'll add that.

Speaker 1: 1:59

And the last one that I'm going to talk about, which was one that was sent on Instagram, is a little bit more rudimentary. Like, if you, it has to do with someone who's like not yet making sales or is no longer making sales, and what I want to encourage you to do is I have a feeling that this episode might be a bit long because there's like it's actually there's a lot of good stuff in this episode. I'm going to try to clip through it, but if you don't have time, then you can end the episode there, because it might not be applicable for you if you're like, oh, I already make sales super consistently, but I think there's going to be something good that the way that I talk about selling and marketing probably is not exactly what you've heard before. Maybe it is, and that's fine, but even there's always going to be something good that you can, that you can learn from it. But I think that it's really good to revisit basics, because at first I was like I don't know if I'm going to include this because this, like this podcast, isn't really designed for people who are at the, who are new, new, new, new, like really at the early stages of business, really not even making money yet, and I was like, no, no, no. I think this is going to be a good one to address Because even like, as I was typing through things, I was like, oh, this is, this is a good reminder even for me to think about some of this stuff.

Speaker 1: 3:12

So there you go. Not that I'm the most advanced person in the world, but I've made a considerable amount of money over the years and across many, many businesses. So let's get into the spookiest or scariest parts of growing a business, and then also how to handle them. We're not just like rattling off a list and then and that's it. So happy Halloween, whatever. Whatever you're doing on this day, if you're hanging out with your kids, if you're trigger treating, if you're like I don't partake in such charades and shenanigans, then that's fine too. I hope you have a great day, no matter what, but maybe we'll have a little bit of fun of it fun with this.

Speaker 1: 3:48

So number one I'm not this is going to be the only like really cheesy thing that I say is number one is leads, who ghost you, but you but I'll I'll, jokes aside, like this is going to happen, and the first thing that I would say here is do not make it mean anything about you. Leads are gonna like sometimes it's going to happen unintentionally where someone just gets busy and they naturally just sort of fall away. But also there are going to be times where someone doesn't really know how to tell you know, or they don't really know how to tell you that, they don't know how to articulate the questions that they have, and so they're not ready to make a buying decision and ideally they would be able you at least be able to enter into enough of a conversation, or enough of a follow up conversation, with them that you could help them understand what their questions are. That's a little bit more of an advanced selling skill, but, like, also, it's going to happen. So don't make it mean anything about you. Just they ghost you and that's fine. There's more. There's more where that came from. There are plenty of fish in the sea, as they say. But what I would say here is to develop a lead tracking system and a way in a follow up system if you don't already have one.

Speaker 1: 4:59

So, very simply, like, if you are on a call with someone and they say they need time to think, or they're not sure, or they, whatever the case might be that they're not saying yes on that call, which I think is perfectly acceptable would be to say, like to set some type of follow up with them. So no worries. Like, is there anything else that I can address for you here while we're still together? Do you have any questions? If it's an objection of, like I need to speak with my partner, I personally would be like, can we get your partner on a call together? Like so that we're all here, because what I know is that I for sure I'm going to be a better advocate for how I am able to help this person. Then they are going to know how to relay that information to their partner for themselves.

Speaker 1: 5:41

And if that is not an option, now my sales, like if you get on a call with me, I ask the question like are you the only decision maker? And it goes through like, specifically, I want, if there is another financial decision maker, I want them to be on that call, but that's not always feasible. So if it's a case where you like didn't realize, and now there's a partner who's involved in the financial decision and they are not coming to the call, will not come to the call, cannot come to the call whatever it looks like, then like, gauge your clients, like are they really interested in this? Because how can you coach your client to speak to their partner so that that sort of goes off the rails there? But, like, have some system for follow up? Hey, can we book a call with your partner? I would love to speak with them and, you know, address any questions that they might have, as well as any questions that you might have in the interim between now and when we speak again. Maybe it's simply like you need more time, no problem. Could we say that if I don't hear from you by Wednesday, that I'm going to reach out? Or should we just go ahead and schedule another like 15 minute follow up call, like right now while we're here, and I get really good response from that, especially if you're not being like super aggressive about it. I don't know. I have really good experience with people saying oh, like yes, please do follow up or whatever. So don't make leads who go to mean anything.

Speaker 1: 7:03

The second thing is clients who stop paying you or say they want their. They say they want to cancel their contract, because that is probably one of the worst things that you could hear. I would say that that is actually one of the worst things that you can hear. So ideally we want to have a really low attrition rate, which means where 100. So if you have a really low attrition rate, if you have a zero attrition rate, it means that no one who enters into an agreement with you cancels it. So if you have someone who's on a payment plan and no one, at the end of the day, no one drops off their payment plan, it means you have a zero percent attrition rate. Now they might have a failed payment or they might ask to get out of their payments, as long as they complete their payment plan. That means that you would have a zero percent attrition rate if everyone does it. So you want to have the lowest possible attrition rate. A zero percent attrition rate is actually super rare, but we want to try to mitigate this.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So, again, don't make it mean anything about you, because it doesn't. There's a possibility that someone wants to get out of their contract because what you promised them is not what they're getting. So I don't want to go into all this right now, but at the end of the day, I would not make this mean anything about you, because if you have your ducks in row, if you are doing what you are supposed to do, if you are operating within integrity and blah, blah, blah, blah blah, just don't make it mean anything about you If you're telling people I'm going to help you make six figure years and they get through. It's a 12 month program and they get through six months and they've not even been able to book a sales call. Is it them or are they just not doing what they're supposed to do, or is it something in your curriculum that is going wrong? So there's some stuff to maybe address, but you can address it neutrally where you are. This just means it's something that I can make better, not something that I've done something horribly wrong.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Just don't make it mean anything about you. Just figure out what you need to do from here. Decide way in advance how you want to handle this. If you have never had someone say I want to cancel my contract or I want out of my payment plan, or they just stop paying, for example, if you are on PayPal this is one of the many reasons I don't use PayPal. Some of you know my drama with PayPal in the past, but PayPal allows. If you have someone who subscribes to a payment plan through PayPal, they can go in and just like cancel their payment plan. They don't need your permission to do it. They can just go in and hit I'm not paying this anymore and it's done, and you have no real recourse except for to contact that person and be like hey, you need to get back on a payment plan because you agreed to XYZ. So If that has never happened to you before, or even if it has, but you don't have a system for this.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Decide now how you wanna handle it. Like, give yourself enough time to respond to this. You don't wanna be making the decision in the moment when your feelings are elevated. You're maybe a little agitated or you're really upset, which is very normal, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that but responding from a place of anger or from a place of extreme upset or extreme fear about how you're gonna make that money back or what it's gonna mean for you to be able to pay your bills, or all of the things that would be super understandable. You just don't wanna respond from that place. So decide in advance how you would handle it and then give yourself a moment to be able to respond to that person, so that you're able to respond from a place of neutrality. So ask yourself have I more or less worked through the big feelings and I can be more neutral in the way that I move forward with this conversation?

Speaker 1: 10:48

If the answer is yes to that question, or mostly like, it's okay, like if you still have some residual feelings, okay, but if you can respond outside of that moment, it's probably gonna be better for everyone all the way around, especially if you want to have a positive result or positive outcome from the situation, because if you meet fire with fire, if you go after someone who's like I want out of this and they're already in a heightened state to have to have said that to you of I don't wanna do this anymore, either because they're afraid or they're upset about something, or whatever the case might be, and you respond to it extremely antagonistically is that a word, antagonist? Whatever you respond in a way that's like you go after them and you light their house on fire, all you're doing is probably burning the chance of finding any type of result that's going to make sense for either party, which, if you're okay with that, there are certain situations where I think I would be okay with that, where I light the person on fire because it's so out of integrity, but you also have to. If you're willing to do that and make the conscious choice to do it, then there's that and whatever. You just have to be prepared for whatever backlash comes from it or whatever the result might be. And then I would recommend putting the process in writing as an SOP, which is a standard operating procedure, so that, ideally, you are not the person who is having to deal with this when it makes sense, someone else from your team can handle this, especially if it's not like someone that you're, whatever that means to you.

Speaker 1: 12:17

I'm not gonna get further into that. Like, if it makes sense for you have someone else deal with this, you can build an email sequence for failed payments and then automate it so that you are not the one being notified that, like someone defaulted on their payment plan or whatever. It can just be an automatic. Hey, we noticed, you didn't. Hey. For me, the first email that would go out to someone is like I understand, things happen. Maybe you need to change your, you got a new credit card, all kinds of things happen. But here's the information, here's what you need to do to update your credit card information and this is what's gonna happen moving forward If it happens again. Now we get a little bit more direct as to what the expectations are of what needs to happen moving forward. So, and then you go from there, but you think about what you want to say and what you plan to do in that situation far in advance, so that you're not reacting, that you are responding from a neutral place, and then put this all in your contract. So have an SOP for it and then have it in all of your contracts.

Speaker 1: 13:16

So, whatever you decide, like if someone says, like I just can't keep going right now and you understand from a perspective of like things happen and you want to, here's the golden rule. I'm gonna back track for a second. My golden rule is that treat people the way that you want to be treated. Contracts exist not to be overly protective of one side to the other. Now, I'm not an attorney, but I know that the structure for contracts like at the end of the day, we want them to be fair. So how can you build fairness into your contracts without screwing yourself over, but also with the understanding that, like, people are humans and that things happen.

Speaker 1: 14:02

So, personally, I allow for pauses in my contract. Now it's my pauses are stated such that like if it's for you to go on maternity leave or some type of paternal leave, or if you are having a baby, if your partner is having a baby, or if you adopt a baby, like whatever that case might be, or a child fostering a child, whatever the case might be, and you need to take a pause from your in general, all of my pauses link back to you are also pausing from your business. So if you're gonna go on a maternity leave for six months or a year, three months or whatever that looks like, and you are not going to operate within your business beyond, just like making sure that your current clients have fulfillment properly, or you keep your evergreen systems running or whatever, but like you are not actively working within your business, then I have zero problem pausing your contract. Now, typically we know those situations well in advance. Like oh, I found that I'm pregnant, woo, or I found out.

Speaker 1: 14:54

Like I actually one time I had a when I was when I'm performing art studio, I had one of my teachers call me. Like on the day was like I just got the call that I'm getting a baby today because she was on the list to adopt her and her husband. And she was like I can't teach my classes tonight, I'm so sorry, I have to go to California to get this child. And I was like, please go, it's okay. Like things haven't. So you know that, whatever happened. Like you just figure out how do you deal with life, you know, and how do you be kind to people to deal with life. And if you're like, no, that doesn't work for me, then do what works for you.

Speaker 1: 15:26

But think about it from a fairness perspective and put it in your contracts. Put the safeguards in that. My perspective on this is put the safeguards in that you would want to have for yourself. Like I said, my contracts are super fair because I would want those safeguards myself I have. With the exception of one-on-one work, my contracts stipulate that after 30 days you can get a refund. Like I don't that's fit. You are allowed to change your mind or you were allowed to go in and critically think about what was being offered and do I really need? Like it's okay, that's I'm not worried about, I'm not gonna be so worried about one person.

Speaker 1: 16:02

And the thing is I've really never had a refund request Like I could count. I actually had one recently. I had two of them recently and I think that those are like the only refund requests I've had in my entire life and I've had a lot like decades of running businesses and you just like it happens, it happens, it happens, it happens. I also have a 90-day termination clause where you can well, this is in specific offers where after 90 days I'm not giving you a refund unless you've prepaid for months in advance. Then I'll refund you the months that you didn't use, of course, but you can get out of it. That's fair right, like, if you decide that this is not for you or you need to go a different way, you've got 90 days where you can say, nope, I'm out. I've never had anyone exercise that. I've never had someone come to me and say I'm gonna use my 90-day termination clause. I have had clients come to me and say I need to pause and we've worked something out. I have had, like I've had to deal with these with certain situations, and you deal with it as it comes. It's not the end of the world. Don't make it about you.

Speaker 1: 17:07

The third spookiest thing is refund requests. This was something that was sent by an Instagram user. This was already on my list to get refund requests, because I think it makes a lot of sense to continue from people who don't wanna continue paying you to go into refund requests. Refund requests are like a step beyond. Someone no longer wants to pay you. They now want their money back Again. Don't make this mean anything about you. Decide in advance how you want to handle it. It's very similar to everything I just said and put the process in writing as an SOP, because it is going to happen at some point. A refund request is going to happen at some point and someone from your team can deal with this.

Speaker 1: 17:48

There's absolutely no reason that you ever, ever, ever even need to know that something has been asked like this, unless it is X circumstance. So for me, that X circumstance is if it's over $100, you need to ask my permission. If it's less than 100, just issue the refund. Just do it, even if it says no refunds. Like maybe I'm giving away a secret here that you might go and say, oh, this says no refunds, but it's only $40, so I know that I could get a refund from Adrienne. Like, yeah, you could actually, but I'm gonna operate under the assertion that you are going to be a person who has integrity. And if you are a person who would hear that and say, like I know that I think, even though it says no refund, I'm gonna take it. And then I'm gonna ask for a refund because I don't wanna get one, like you are not a person who is an integrity, just saying, and I would happily give you a refund to not ever have to deal with you again, because when you ask for, unless there is, this is something that I implement in my business, but if you ask for a refund depending on how you ask for the refund I take you off my mailing list and that's if it's just a, if it's a like this really just didn't work for me and it wasn't what I was expecting, but I really appreciate. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Like I wouldn't ban them, but if so, the one time in the last year that I got a refund request was scathing, scathing, and I was like that's not about me. When I went and looked at it, I was like that has nothing to do with me and I was like block that person from ever coming back on my email list. And that was that and I didn't think too much more about it. I went through the process of going I wonder if I could have made this better and I was like absolutely not. This was so much value and this person like I know who this person is and they chose to show up, live for part of it. And they were negative Nancy the entire time and like I recognized the behavior, I was like nope, I don't ever want this person to be in my stuff again and I don't need it. And now they've whatever, whatever, whatever I'm not worried about it Refund them and be gone. Bless and release. But your refund policy should also be in writing somewhere so that it should either be in your contract or, at the very least, if you don't have contracts for every offer, then you can put it in your terms and conditions or your terms of service on your website.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Number four spookiest thing is clients who roast you publicly or just general, the general public, who don't really actually know anything about you and choose to roast you anyway. But we're gonna get to that. That's a continuation of this one. Clients who roast you publicly Again, don't make it mean anything more than it actually is. If you are in business long enough, you're going to have to deal with this. It's going to happen. Someone is going to get upset and if they don't, if they choose to handle their whatever they're upset about while they're all up in their feelings, there's a really good chance that it's gonna come off in a way that's going to be upsetting to you. If they work through whatever's going on and then they choose to communicate to you what they're upset about or what their problem is, then hopefully you can both approach this as two responsible, communicative adults who understand that confrontation is a part of being an adult. But you might not feel that way about it. They might not feel about it. There's all kinds of factors that come into this, but it's gonna happen if you're in business for long enough.

Speaker 1: 21:04

This one time I was running my theater company. This one time I got a public Facebook review From so it was the only one star review. I'd never gotten anything except five star reviews. I got a one star review and it was when I say scathing, I mean like five paragraphs about and I realized this person was someone. I ran a New Works Festival, like a playwriting festival, and it's someone that I rejected from the festival. I recognized the name and now hear me out here. Rejection number one is gonna happen. But also I would get like for this playwriting festival I would get like thousands of submissions to take five people. Five people got staged readings.

Speaker 1: 21:47

This particular person got rejected and then I mean brutally roasted me on the internet and I was like oh hey, paul, whatever his name was, like I'm so. He was like your productions suck everything about, like you don't have good lighting, you don't understand. I had to wait in line, blah, blah, blah, and I was like you clearly have never been in my theater. I'm really like I don't have you on any list of having purchased a ticket. I see that you entered my playwriting festival and didn't like. I snapped back at this person and I was like, hey, internet, do you mind leaving my theater? Some nice things if you have been there and you feel that it's deserving of nice things, of course. But I got a like a really terrible review and then, like my reviews blew up because everyone loved it. So there's that. But yeah, it's gonna happen and you're close. So back to your clients. That was a side story that I didn't really need to go on the tangent of.

Speaker 1: 22:42

But again, give yourself enough time before you do anything and then look at that person's intent to inform your next step. If it is scathing, like our friend Paul the failed to playwriting candidate if it is scathing, there's a really good chance that they're just hurting. And looking back on that situation, I'm like it happened because he was mad that he got rejected. I can appreciate that. Rejection sucks. I also. I heard this this week and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. Rejection is protection, like there's a reason when you experience rejection, that, like it's for something else is gonna come along. So let people like have their hurt, it's my blessing release. But if it's honest, even brutally honest, like have your little pity party, that's fine, it's understandable. It might suck, let it hurt, let it sting, and then find a way to do better. Like I was saying earlier, like if you're not getting results for people, it might be really hard to hear, but like, figure out how you can do better for them. So have your little pity party and then move on.

Speaker 1: 23:41

Number five is internet trolls, which our friend, paul, our friend Paul to playwright I have no idea what this guy. I know that it was a guy and he was from Virginia. That's what I remember about him. And I was like oh, you're from Virginia, you've never been, you've, I'm sure you've never been here. Paul, paul to playwright was more of an internet troll. So this was my. I was like, oh, troll, that's sort of Halloween-ish internet trolls. And in my notes I wrote and not the cute kind, I'm weird. So, internet trolls again, don't make them about you. And again, if you were in business long enough, it's gonna happen, especially if you run ads. If you run ads, internet trolls are gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Now my mindset twist, my plot twist on this is that I think trolls are helpful because they give you insight into where you hit a nerve with people, which usually means that something's working. It usually means that you've got something positive happening with your messaging because it triggered someone. The only reason that someone is going to go out of their way to say something nasty to you on the internet, as a person that they do not know, is because they were triggered by what you said. 1000% that is the only, unless they are just a miserable human being, and then in which case, like whatever, but even if it's just because they're miserable human being, they're probably responding to it because they were triggered by it. So let that. If someone is triggered by what you're saying and what your messaging is, I believe that you're doing something right, because when you can find places where people start to feel really validated or invalidated which that's when someone feels invalidated that's often a sign of what triggers them. That means that you are hitting on values. So, like I say, go all of them in on this.

Speaker 1: 25:27

This happens to me when I talk about leadership, especially because I talk about leadership in terms of, like the public school system and I've had teachers get offended and I'm like I love teachers. This has nothing to do with you. This is not a knock on like your ability to educate. This is not a knock on you as an educator at all. I have the most respect humanly possible for educators. I think the education system is a bit broken, especially when it comes to developing little leaders and future leaders of the world. But anyway and so.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Anyway, I had an ad this one. Here's one more story and then I'll stop telling stories. I guess you can't promise that, but I'll try. Where these I was talking about leadership and it was. I recorded this as a podcast episode.

Speaker 1: 26:09

I turned part of a podcast episode into an ad and it was like if you have person A and they have this idea, and then person B has this idea and person's A idea was really great and person's B idea person B's idea really sucked, really was just not feasible. There's benefit in approaching both ideas and treating them, respecting them equally, and this person on the internet was like this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You're a piece of shit. Just went into, was really rude, really actually swore at me and I was like lady, you got problems and again, bless and release. I responded to this person because thanks for the engagement on my ad dude. So. But I was just like this person said, if person B's idea I remember the name was Stephanie.

Speaker 1: 26:57

I didn't do this intentionally, but I remember I made person A and person B, sarah and Stephanie, and those were my two first voice students and I didn't realize until after that I had done that and I was like, oh, that's interesting. Anyway. So I remember that it was Sarah and Stephanie, but Stephanie was the person who had the poor idea and she was like Stephanie's idea was that to do? I mean, it was really egregious, like really a horrible thing. And I was like then why would you hire someone who is clearly that divested in your business and who is clearly that disengaged with wanting to even show up and contribute to the conversation? Like that still is on you. That's which is the whole point of what I was saying. It's still on you. If you make a horrible hire, that's on you. And so I was like you're very welcome to run your business any which way you see fit. If you don't agree with this, then cool, run your business the way that you want and have a great day and that was it.

Speaker 1: 27:46

But I was like, oh, I don't want the way that I speak about leadership. I know I'm onto something because it really makes people angry and that's fine because it's very much like against the old, but it's not leadership. The way that you're gonna get in like a traditional leadership book and like corporate leadership is not that. So, anyway, just bless and release, bless and release, bless and release. Number six losing people. And I think this is like team and clients. I think that this isn't the spookiest thing. Like this is the scariest thing. I think that this is the saddest thing. It's the scariest thing Losing people that you really enjoy working with, really love working with, both on your team and like your actual clients.

Speaker 1: 28:25

Again, don't make it about you, but also make it about you because I want you to be happy for them and look at where you can do better, if it makes sense to do that, like if someone on your team is leaving because they got a better opportunity with a lot more pay, be happy for them and you can also look at would it have been possible for me to have compensated them in the way that they wanted to be, because probably they deserve to be compensated to that level. Or was there something like is there something about the work environment I could have improved on? And of course you're not gonna like. It's not helpful to go down the rabbit hole of all the things that you could have done better, but it is worth it to at least like have the check-in with yourself and be like I know, like no, this was what it was gonna be and that's fine. And again, if it's a client, look at what could I have done better, or did this person move on because they were ready for something different, or whatever. Make it about you but also. Or don't make it about you but also, like, look at what it might be about you. And then I truly believe that this isn't a man of Francis quote it's always this or something better. I think it's a man of Francis, but I love that it's always this or something better. The person who's leaving you again, rejection is protection. This person who's leaving opens a huge opportunity to be filled by someone else or by something better. And I think that goes also back to if clients ghost you or potential clients go, if leads ghost you, if clients abandon their contract, if client, whatever happens, rejection is protection. It's going to open the door to something bigger and better.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Number seven is investing things that suck. This was sent by an Instagram user and I was like, oh, I feel you, I feel you. So I'm gonna say that this is maybe the thing that you do want to take a look at what it maybe means about you and I say that with love, even though there's a really good chance you'll probably make this about that person, because the question is asked from the stance of investing in things that suck. So, if you're like, I invested a whole lot of money, this person swindled me out of money and it sucked, was it that? Now there's a really good chance that the product was terrible? Now, this is an opportunity for you to be more discerning next time. That's not to gaslight you, that's not to like victim blame you, whatever none of that. But also, how can you be more discerning of people who are just like really solidly great marketers and have not a quality product? There's a good chance that you might come across one of these people and you might not be able to recognize what that looks like, and that's okay too, but it is an opportunity to like maybe be more discerning next time. And also, is it that this person sucked or is it that this just wasn't the right thing for you or that you just weren't ready for it?

Speaker 1: 31:20

And this I will also put back on, like the person who enrolled you into the program, because there are things that, like I was in a program that I'm to this day, like a little salty about. It was like a five figure investment. It was the first thing I ever invested in. It was a good program. I should never have been led into it because of where I was starting brand. I was starting completely over. I had only run brick and mortar businesses and I just shouldn't have been. But I also really advocated for myself to be led in. But they would have let me in. I know that they would have let me in. They let literally everyone in. And I know that they let complete newbies who had no business experience in because I saw it and the people who were complete newbies and had no business experience failed in this program. Like I didn't see anyone get anywhere close to what was the program promise, who was new in this program.

Speaker 1: 32:11

So like you just have to figure out, was I really ready for this, like if you have never had a business before and you invest big money or even some money into a program that's gonna teach you how to run something evergreen. You're probably not ready for that. You may not wanna hear that, but you're probably not. Like when you're starting out, you just need to learn sales marketing mindset, like that's it, and we're gonna talk about that more in a minute too. So where can you be more discerning? How can you think about, like, what are you actually ready for? Because oftentimes you're not wrong, you're just not ready. That's another saying that I really. That's another saying that I really like.

Speaker 1: 32:45

And then to the actual point of like it sucks to invest in things that suck. I also want to encourage you to think about this kind of like dating and again, I'm not saying this to be gaslighty or to sit Like. I completely agree that there are a lot of people on the internet who sell things that they shouldn't be selling and who can absolutely not deliver on the promises that they say they can, and I think that that's a massive problem and it is not your fault and it absolutely it does suck. I'm 100% with you on that. And also, think of this a bit like dating, where just because you get your heart broken, it does not mean that you should completely close yourself off from ever dating ever again. It doesn't mean that you should never go and try to find love again or find someone that you can share part of your life with or whatever. It just means you learned a lesson. It's getting you a step closer to understanding what you actually want. So, ideally, you're not going to have learned that lesson to the tune of like 10 or 20 or $30,000, or I know people who've learned that lesson to the tune of like $100,000.

Speaker 1: 33:47

Oh, and I feel for you and I have so many feelings that if you've been around for a minute, you've probably heard me express them. So many feelings for the people who sell things that are absolutely cannot deliver on the promise that they say they can, for the vast majority of people who purchase them, but also as the person who is on the side of investing in those things, like you just can't get too hung up on it or it's going to completely consume you, and take that from someone who has gotten a bit consumed from those things. So, last but not least, number eight this was also set in by an Instagram user and I'm going to tell you this is going to turn into like a little masterclass here. So this is running out of money and having no clients, no new clients booked. This is, oh man, I feel for this position to be in. This is not a fun position to be in.

Speaker 1: 34:36

So the first thing that I want to address here is there is no shame in going and getting a normal job. I don't care if you're already making $50,000 a year, if you're already making $100,000 a year, if you're making no money a year, there is no shame in saying I went through my savings or I don't have enough money left to pay the bills, or my expenses are too high, that my expenses are so high that I'm not able to pay for everything and I don't have money left over and I don't know how I'm gonna pay. If you are in a place of like real scarcity there is, or if you just want to avoid getting to the place of feeling real scarcity, like it is okay to go get a job. In fact, I would almost say that it's maybe a better idea to go back and get a job, because if you feel safe and secure, it might be easier for you to show up for your business from a bit of a better place and to feel more confident in your ability to make money because you're already receiving it.

Speaker 1: 35:32

I would highly recommend you go listen to the episode that I recorded with Christine Michelle. The title probably has something to do with manifestation. We'll link it. We'll make sure that it gets linked, but the way that she does she's like a multi-six figure, came from like a boss. Corporate position is a multi-six figure. Business owner has done so many amazing things in her business and she talked about how, like she got to a point where she went back and drove Uber and at some point she had to declare bankruptcy and like did that while running a very successful business and then like she talks about how it really helped her be able to create more. So I think it was a cool reframe and I would recommend going and listening to that.

Speaker 1: 36:10

If you feel like that would be helpful and supportive for you, then what I want to say is it comes down to one of three things. This is. The really helpful part about this is, if you are not booking clients, there is, I guarantee you, only one of three problems is going on. There might be more than one, but it's definitely one of these three things. It is either a marketing problem, a sales problem or a mindset problem, and that's it. It's not a sales funnel problem, it's not an offer problem. I mean, you might have an offer problem, but it's that your offer is not your product. It's not a product problem. If you have an offer problem, it's actually your messaging, the way that you're speaking about that product, the way that you're articulating the value. That is marketing, that is messaging.

Speaker 1: 36:53

So I'm gonna sort of go through all of these things and, like I said, this is gonna turn maybe turn into a little bit of masterclass. If you're like I'm already making sales, this is not gonna be relevant to me. This might just be a good little refresher, like I said in the beginning. So it's very likely not sales. The other thing that I wanna say about this before I get into it is that's the good news If you are not making sales, or not making as many sales as you want to, not booking the clients that you want to, that's really good news. That it's only one of three things, so we can process of elimination this thing right.

Speaker 1: 37:21

So let's get into this. That's what I wanted to say. It's very likely not sales. It's very likely not a sales problem unless you are getting on a ton of sales calls and you're not closing any of them, or if you are closing like less than 15% or 20%. I know people who are like I've got a big sales problem and because I'm only closing 30 or 40% of people that I get on sales calls with and I'm like no, that's fabulous, actually, that's great, like we can work with that and that's completely normal. Like industry average is 25, 20, 25%. So if you're doing less than 20%, especially less than 15%, it's probably not that you're bad at selling. So there's a nice little mindset reset for you. There's no reason to believe that you're bad at selling, because it's actually probably a marketing problem Nine times out of 10, well, not nine times out of 10. I would say it's very rare that it's a sales problem. It's more likely a marketing and or a mindset problem. So marketing and these aren't really I'm saying problem, but they're not really problems because they have solutions. So it's fine. We can be solutions focused, not problem focused.

Speaker 1: 38:26

So marketing is anyone reaching out? Is anyone saying hey, I'm interested in what you do? Is anyone booking calls. Are you booking calls but not closing them? So if no one's reaching out, you're not really booking calls. You're not really getting people to your sales page. You're not really getting people to whatever. It's a marketing problem. It's not a sales problem. It's a marketing problem If you are booking calls but not closing them, like there's a possibility. If you are just really not closing any of them, there's a possibility that it's a sales problem, but, more realistically, it's actually a marketing problem and you are having to take too much time that they haven't consumed enough of your marketing material to be able to make a decision, an informed decision, of whether or not they actually want to buy something from you.

Speaker 1: 39:12

So this is about addressing your marketing and your messaging, and I would highly recommend going back and listening to the episode that I did on the four. It's like the four things that you need to know about your audience or in order to make a sale or to make more sales Will link that also so, because that's gonna get more into the messaging side of things and I have a much better way of speaking on on this since I recorded that episode, because I actually have developed a framework around it for the stuff that, if you've listened to any of the episodes with Steve, the stuff that Steve and I were doing, like I developed a proper framework around messaging. So there's that, but it's still a good episode. So here's the thing, here the questions I want you to ask yourself Does your marketing address all those four things that I talk about in that episode? You can listen to that episode and figure it out. But what I will say is, if you are a service provider, if you are a physical service provider or an online service provider, you might not need all of those messaging aspects.

Speaker 1: 40:06

If you have a really really dialed in offer so like, for example, I have I have one client who is a web and tech personal web designer and a tech person, but only for, like, dance studios and Gymnastic studios. That's so clear. Like your, your messaging doesn't need to be necessarily as Super, super, super pinpoint dialed in because the offer is so clear on what it, what it is and and who and who it's for like there's, it's so specific. I have another one, another client, that is a wedding planner but primarily focuses on just dark, romantic, very different weddings. Again, it's not really about learning how to message, because that offer is so clear and so specific in and of itself.

Speaker 1: 40:53

But if you were a, if you were a more generalized practitioner, if you're like oh, I do web design but like kind of for anyone, that's problematic. If you are a copywriter, but for anyone you write any kind of copy and do blah, blah, blah, blah, like that's relatively problematic. You want to go address those marketing points, you want to dial that in some. And if you are a coach, to some extent a consultant, I would. I would say consultant too, if you are a Course creator or membership owner, then you need your messaging Thousand percent. You need that messaging dialed in. Then, beyond that, does it develop trust? Does your marketing develop trust and respect? Next question Does your marketing address objections in advance? Next question Does your marketing address buyer types? So, to recap those questions Does your marketing address all the things that I talk about in that, in that one episode that I'm gonna link here for you you can go listen to that. Does it address, does it develop trust and respect with your people? Does it overcome objections in advance and does it address buyer types?

Speaker 1: 41:50

If you are missing, if you are missing any of those things, especially if you're missing a lot of those things. This is a solid reason that you're struggling to get clients. I hope that this is illuminating for you. And if you want to grow and you're like, Well, I don't know if my messaging of my marketing does all of those things, then this is a really great opportunity to go back and look at, because I guarantee that tightening those things up will make you more sales thousand percent, especially if you're doing these things consistently.

Speaker 1: 42:15

If you are completely positive that you have all of those things, then you might have an audience problem and that is like the only secondary Well, but it's an audience problem. Is it like a subset of a marketing problem? It's more of a visibility, it's a traffic problem. But the if you were like I know that I have all those things dialed in, I'm doing those things, I'm doing them consistently it's hitting off. I'm hitting all the things, I'm doing all the things that you might just not have an audience. That's, that's right for what you're doing, or they might you might have developed an audience that is not qualified. They might look like they're ideal to buy from you, but they're not actually qualified to buy, which means they're not willing to pay your rates, they are not actively seeking the solution that you provide and they do not trust either Themselves and or you enough to be able to pay to get that help. That's qualification. So you might have an audience problem if you're like, yeah, I totally have all that other stuff dialed in.

Speaker 1: 43:10

It's food for thought and then mindset. So it's either a sales, a marketing or a mindset problems. Now, mindset is a whole can of worms in and of itself and what I will say here is do you, do you? Here's? Here's a clear mark, here's a clear mark of a mindset issue at the beginning. So this is gonna be specifically for more newbies. I guess it could happen at any stage, but especially for people who are like, really not yet making sales quite yet.

Speaker 1: 43:34

Do you find that? A lot of the stuff that you do, a lot of stuff. You're busy, you're, you feel productive, but nothing really ever gets done. So you're doing all the Google Docs. You're spending lots of time in Canva. You're posting pretty things on the internet with no calls to action or whatever, or only a call to action every 10 posts, or here and there, randomly. You're tinkering with a website forever. You don't want to launch your thing because you don't have a website or you're afraid to put yourself out there because your website's not done or whatever, whatever. So you're doing all this busy work that feels like you're really contributing to your business, but you're not making sales because you're not putting yourself out there. At the end of the day, not really. That typically for me is it's not always this, because have you ever heard like the the biggest mindset problem is saying that you have a mindset problem and the biggest mindset problem is telling someone that they have a mindset problem? This is not me trying to tell like you have a mindset problem if you're doing this, this thing.

Speaker 1: 44:27

I've seen in my experience that keeping like busy does not equal productive and productive does not equal effective. And so if you are doing things just to like occupy your time and you don't have intention behind why you're doing them and you are not, I sent this in an email the other day, or I wrote this in an email to send in the future, I don't. I wrote this the other day anyway, where it was like if you asked me if I brushed my teeth in the morning, I would be like, of course, of course I did. And if I asked you that question, you might be like, yes, I sure did, because like that's Hygiene, right, like that's hygiene that we learn from a very young age as a little tiny human child.

Speaker 1: 45:01

Business hygiene is selling and marketing every day, every day, every day, every day. And if that burns you out to think about, then okay, we can talk about that. Maybe doesn't have to be every day, like surely I don't mean showing up seven days a week and Manually selling and marketing, but like it means showing up and selling more or less every day. That is business hygiene. Your business has to make sales. Either it's gonna make sales or you have a hobby. So proper business hygiene is showing up to sell and to market.

Speaker 1: 45:33

So if you aren't actively doing those things, or you're doing those things in form of like things that are not really moving the needle forward, it might be a mindset thing. Just mean to examine. You might be like no, I don't think it is. And I will say cool, I believe you. I believe you. If you don't think it's mindset issue, but I'm gonna ask you a series of questions and I want you to evaluate these on a scale from one to ten and then we can, we can go from there. So if you're. If you're driving, you can just answer these carefully, just listen. But if you are sitting down, if you're on a walk, like maybe just pause. I would encourage you to like close your eyes, really listen to what the question is, and then, either way, I want you to just whatever the first number that comes into your mind is, that's the number. I want you to say so on a scale of one to ten, with one being Like not at all and ten being hundred percent on a scale of one to ten. I'm just gonna go through.

Speaker 1: 46:23

There are one, two, three, six questions. Question number one, on a scale of one to ten how much do you believe that you can can Market and sell? Next, question number two, on a scale of one to ten how confident are you that you could make a sale this week? Question three oh, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you trust that your business is going to work out? Or, if you're a little further along, how much do you trust that you're going to get the next thing that you really want? Question four, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you trust yourself to make the thing happen that you want? How much do you trust yourself? Number five on a scale of one to 10, how safe does it feel to have the thing that you want in your business? And question six on a scale of one to 10, how worthy are you of having the success that you desire? Okay, so if all of it were, were any of those answers low? That's a really great question.

Speaker 1: 47:23

If it, if anywhere, you had like anything below a number six, I would say that's an opportunity to figure it like what's going on? What's going on there? Just let's, let's explore that a little bit. So this is not super helpful to be like. If you answered you know, how safe does it feel to have everything you want? And you answered two out of 10, like it should just be like okay, well, now you should maybe go examine that and work on that. But it's a whole separate episode. It's a whole can of worms. Like we're not going to get further into that, but I want you to examine if you like really don't feel safe having what you want. If that was a really low number, if you don't feel worthy if that was a low number, if you were like I was four out of 10 on how worthy I am to have the success that I desire. Hmm, that's something to be examined.

Speaker 1: 48:06

Please come back to mindset things and these will. These will affect the way that you show up in your business. They will either affect the way you show up in your business or you will have to dysregulate yourself to just push through, push through, compartmentalize and just do it, and that's not really healthy either. So just food for thought. So some things to think about. I hope that was helpful for you. Like there's going to be a whole.

Speaker 1: 48:28

I don't I'm not about gatekeeping information. If you're having a problem finding clients like, that's where I would start. What's going on and find support around the thing that you need to support around. Do you need to work on your marketing? Do you need to work on mindset? Do you need to feel safer with receiving money? Do you need to do you need to work on the worthiness that you feel to have the things that you want? Do you need to work on trusting that you can actually do this? Whatever that looks like, let your, let your, let you, let yourself, support yourself. Let yourself support your human in whatever's going on with you there. So I'm going to round this out.

Speaker 1: 48:59

This was a relatively long episode.

Speaker 1: 49:01

I want to round this all out with. Again, happy Halloween If you celebrate Halloween. But I want to round this out with you. Know, no one's business is perfect. I guarantee you that anyone who has ever gotten anywhere in their business has had feelings of unworthiness and not feeling safe and not trusting themselves and not feeling confident and not believing in something, having marketing issues and having sales issues and having people ghost on them and having people who cancel contracts and having people who do all the things. I don't care how successful they are. I guarantee you that they have dealt with it. In fact, I would say the more successful they are the more I know they've dealt with it. So, no matter what you see on the internet especially whatever you see on the internet like no one's business is perfect and we all started like wherever you're at right now, we've all been there. We've all been there At some point. We've all been. We've all been where each other's been. Like there's, it's business is such a mirror.

Speaker 1: 49:56

Is this going to air before or after? I already recorded the episode with Carrie. No, this is going to record. Carrie's episode is the next episode we talk about. We get into some of this. So that's. There's a little preview. Listen to Carrie's episode on Thursday when it airs and we get into some really good stuff around around all of this and like the shame that we can feel in business and all that good stuff. So I hope this was helpful for you. The spooky it was a. It was a. It was a cute. We love a theme. It was a cute theme. But I hope that this was helpful for you and if it was, please do subscribe. If you have not leave a review, share it with a friend. I would greatly appreciate it and I will catch you in the next one.