Episode 297
Why knowing your business season is crucial for growth [Ep. 297]
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Feeling a bit overwhelmed in your business?
We’ve all been there, and it might just be because you’re battling the wrong season! Just like nature, businesses have their own cycles, and trying to juggle growth, launches, and rebuilding all at once is a recipe for chaos. In this chat, we're diving into how to pinpoint the season your business is in so you can align your focus and plan like a pro.
No more scrambling! We’ll help you figure out if it’s time to sell, create, or simply take a breather.
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Transcript
One of the biggest reasons that I see business owners get stuck, feel overwhelmed or start to get burned out is that they are fighting the season that their business is in.
Speaker A:Yes, your business has seasons just like the environment does, just like nature does.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you cannot be in growth mode, launch mode, rebuild mode all at once.
Speaker A:But the problem is so many people try, right?
Speaker A:And that's why sometimes it feels like nothing is working.
Speaker A:All right, so in today's episode, I really want to dive into how to identify the season that your business is in, how you can align your focus and how you can plan accordingly so that you are not always scrambling and feeling overwhelmed.
Speaker A:Okay, you ready to dive in?
Speaker A:Let's do it.
Speaker A:All right, so let's talk about the seasons.
Speaker A:You know, I mean it's.
Speaker A:We're getting into springtime.
Speaker A:There's seasons, right?
Speaker A:And like we know this in life, right.
Speaker A:That, you know, winter is more of like a hibernation season.
Speaker A:Summer is more expansive.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We're a little bit more outgoing.
Speaker A:Spring is kind of that like fresh and renewed energy.
Speaker A:In fall, we start to kind of slow down and.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like there's just seasons in life and we get used to them.
Speaker A:But what I see so many people miss and the conversations that we're having a lot inside of the Focus Visionary and we talked a lot about this inside the sales simplified masterclass, which by the way, you can buy.
Speaker A:This is now a pre recorded.
Speaker A:It's just a 30 minute or I think it was like 60 minute masterclass.
Speaker A:If you are interested, I'll put the link in the show notes and you can grab that, you can watch it.
Speaker A:It's on Evergreen, it's available.
Speaker A:I will run live again.
Speaker A:But right now if you missed it, you can absolutely grab the replay and there's some bonuses in there as well.
Speaker A:But we talked a lot about this, especially when it comes to planning your 60 days is really understanding what season your business is in.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And if you're feeling like you're always behind, I think this is really something important for you to consider is that are you trying to do all of the things?
Speaker A:Like, are you trying?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like think about it.
Speaker A:In life, you're not going to hibernate and feel super excited.
Speaker A:Like summer, right.
Speaker A:Like you're not going to be in hibernation season and in summer season where it's all about being outside and doing all the things right.
Speaker A:Like you can't be in both places.
Speaker A:Like it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But yet in our business, we think we can do all of these things all of the time as well, right?
Speaker A:And so you've got to look at what are the seasons in your business.
Speaker A:And so this is going to look different for everybody, as it always does.
Speaker A:And what I always say, but, like, think about it.
Speaker A:Are you in a season of selling?
Speaker A:Are you in a season of marketing?
Speaker A:Are you in a season of creation?
Speaker A:Are you in a season of growth and, you know, personal development and really working on, you know, a lot of things behind the scenes?
Speaker A:Are you in a slow season?
Speaker A:Are you in a busy season?
Speaker A:Are you in a season where you want to work behind the scenes?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So, you know, a lot of times we can relate this to certain months, right?
Speaker A:And if you have data, hint, hint, if you have data that you can look back on, you know, like when your busier seasons are, when your slower seasons are, you know, like when you are in launch mode, like if you, if you subscribe to the launch models, you know, when you have launch seasons, you know, when you're in creation mode, right?
Speaker A:Like, you have all of these different things.
Speaker A:And so you can look at it, but what happens is most people don't take the time to actually plan and look ahead to understand what season they're in.
Speaker A:And so then all of a sudden, everything becomes this, like, absolute scrambled mess, okay?
Speaker A:And so instead of trying to force all of these things and force the growth and force and push yourself through it, I want you to really lean into the season you're in.
Speaker A:So, for example, it the.
Speaker A:When I'm recording this, we're just in March, right?
Speaker A:So it's spring.
Speaker A:There's a lot of fresh energy coming.
Speaker A:People are coming out of that hibernation mode, they're coming out of that seasonal depression.
Speaker A:People are going to start being a little bit more active, right?
Speaker A:But with that also comes busier school schedules.
Speaker A:You know, again, depending on your business, depending on your clients, you've got summer coming up.
Speaker A:For some of these businesses, summer is like their absolute busiest.
Speaker A:Balls to the wall, no time to think.
Speaker A:And then for some businesses, it's a little bit slower, right?
Speaker A:You know, I live here in Florida.
Speaker A:Summer is typically very slow because we have, we have snowbird season down here, right?
Speaker A:So these businesses prep for that slower season, and then they spend all of their time kind of cleaning up, creating, making new things, prepping and getting ready for snowbird season again, right?
Speaker A:And so the same holds true in your business.
Speaker A:Like, where are you at?
Speaker A:What are you trying to do?
Speaker A:Do you have a new program that you're trying to launch?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Well, if you have a new program you're trying to launch, what season are you in?
Speaker A:Are you in the season of creation?
Speaker A:Are you in the season of marketing it and visibility, right?
Speaker A:Are you just trying to get more people to know about you?
Speaker A:More people on your list?
Speaker A:Are you trying to pre sell it?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Are you working really hard behind the scenes?
Speaker A:For the past couple months, in my business, it was all behind the scenes.
Speaker A: ce for growth and scaling for: Speaker A:Like, I have big plans for growth and scaling, but I had a lot of things I had to get in place to make sure that actually happened, right?
Speaker A:And so as much as I wanted to be in a season where I was scared selling and promoting and marketing and doing all that, like, I just didn't have the capacity because I was working so hard prepping everything.
Speaker A:Like, when I converted the Focus Visionary Accelerator from like a cohort base to an evergreen, that was a massive undertaking, right?
Speaker A:Like there's a.
Speaker A:There was a lot of work that I had to do and so I had to be focused on that, recording all the videos, getting all the workshop or the worksheets done, you know, and so when you're in that mode and you're still.
Speaker A:I still had clients, I had people in the program that you have to kind of maintain, right?
Speaker A:Because the grind doesn't stop.
Speaker A:We've talked about this before, that I couldn't really be in a season of selling.
Speaker A:I was in a bit of a season where I was like, still marketing.
Speaker A:I was getting visible, I was doing the things where I was just putting myself out there, maintaining my emails, et cetera.
Speaker A:But like, I wasn't actively promoting anything because it wasn't ready.
Speaker A:And I was really working on it behind the scenes, right?
Speaker A:And so this is why I love planning in 60 day periods, because it's very easy to look, look ahead and see, okay, what is the next 60 days?
Speaker A:What's ahead for the next 60 days, where do I want to go?
Speaker A:What type of season am I in?
Speaker A:And also to recognizing and understanding.
Speaker A:Like when you're in a season where personal things are going on, right?
Speaker A:Like, do you have a lot of family coming up?
Speaker A:You know, family obligations, do you have travel coming up?
Speaker A:Do you have vacations planned?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And so understanding and just honoring that.
Speaker A:But what the most important thing here that I really want you to think about is how can you plan according, accordingly for them, right?
Speaker A:Like, if you, the biggest thing I would say to do is like, here's an action step for you is to get out your calendar.
Speaker A:This is the easiest thing that I, I encourage everybody to do.
Speaker A:It's like one of the main steps inside the Focus Visionary accelerator is get your calendar out and look ahead, right?
Speaker A:Look ahead and get all of your vacations on the calendar.
Speaker A:Look ahead and get your, your launches on the calendar.
Speaker A:Look ahead and look and see when you have speaking engagements or travel or anything like that, or if you go backwards and you do any type of reflection work.
Speaker A:Do you know like which months are typically busier for you?
Speaker A:Do you know why they're typically busier?
Speaker A:And if they're typically busier just because of the seasonality of it, and then what are you doing to prep for it?
Speaker A:Like if you know you're coming into the summer months and those are your top, biggest, busiest months, well, what are you doing now to prep for that, right?
Speaker A:Like, do you have your systems in place?
Speaker A:Do you, do you have your shipping in play?
Speaker A:Like, are you ready?
Speaker A:Like, do you have the things, the people, the processes in play to make sure that people are getting onboarded quickly, to make sure that their client experience is seamless, to make sure that they are being serviced in a reasonable amount of time, Right?
Speaker A:Like whatever your business model is, are you planning for that?
Speaker A:And then also if you know it's going to be slower, do you have something that you can maybe create to kind of bridge that gap?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So is it maybe more of a no commitment offer?
Speaker A:Is it like one where it's month to month?
Speaker A:Is it that you want to run kind of just a pop up offer, what I call cash injection offers, right?
Speaker A:Like when you know these seasons are coming, you can plan accordingly for them.
Speaker A:But what happens is most people just keep going in the grind.
Speaker A:They're count going in the grind, going in the grind.
Speaker A:And then all of a sudden it's like, oh crap, it's the slow season now what do I do?
Speaker A:Now you're scrambling.
Speaker A:I need sales, I need money.
Speaker A:I didn't prep for it, I didn't have money set aside.
Speaker A:I didn't know that I was going to have to be doing this, right?
Speaker A:And so it gets to, to this point where then things start feeling overwhelming and then you start scrambling like, oh my gosh, what can I sell?
Speaker A:What can I do?
Speaker A:What can I, you know, and you're jumping from one thing to the next to the next because you're in this season where you're like, I gotta do Something and I don't know what to do.
Speaker A:Well, if you plan accordingly for it, like you would have financial things set aside for ideally because you would have known it's coming, right?
Speaker A:So like, if you know you want to take the month of August off, or you know you want to take the month of December off, what do you need to do to prep for that?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:How can you honor and prep and prepare to be in whatever season your business is in?
Speaker A:Okay, so a couple things I think are really important is one, to identify what seasons your business has, right?
Speaker A:So do you have launch season?
Speaker A:Do you have slow seasons?
Speaker A:Do you have busier seasons?
Speaker A:Do you have behind the scenes seasons?
Speaker A:Do you have visibility?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Seasons?
Speaker A:Do you have launch seasons?
Speaker A:Do you have.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like what are the seasons in your business?
Speaker A:Are they creation?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Are they marketing?
Speaker A:What are those seasons like?
Speaker A:First and foremost, you have got to look and identify to figure out what those seasons are.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:Then once you know what those seasons in your business are, when do they occur, right?
Speaker A:Get them on the calendar so that you can start to plan ahead for them is most important.
Speaker A:And then what are you going to do to plan for them, right?
Speaker A:What are the things that need to be in place and how can you set yourself up for success to make sure that you are prepared for that, but also that you are honoring it, right?
Speaker A:So like if you know that in the summer when you have kids home and maybe you don't have as much child care, what are you doing to make sure that you are honoring the fact that you have your.
Speaker A:Your kids are home, right?
Speaker A:And it's okay and maybe you don't have as much child care.
Speaker A:So like, what can you do to prepare for that?
Speaker A:Do you need to have an offer that isn't.
Speaker A:That's maybe more asynchronous versus having to be on zoom because you can't really be on zoom with the kids home, right?
Speaker A:Or is it that you're in a season of like massive, massive growth and you need to look into hiring somebody or looking into getting some bigger processes in place so that things run a little bit smoother?
Speaker A:Those are just some things that you want to start and you want to prepare for and you want to have plan plans associated with, right?
Speaker A:Everything is all about being proactive, right?
Speaker A:We want to step into this is what I mean when I say stepping into and owning that role of CEO, right?
Speaker A:Like the CEO inside of you is the biggest, is the decision maker.
Speaker A:It's the one that's proactive.
Speaker A:It's the person that's looking at the facts and going, okay, I know this season's coming up.
Speaker A:Here's what we're going to do to prep for it, right?
Speaker A:Like, even if you're a team of one and it's just you, you got to put that CEO hat on, and then you got to.
Speaker A:You got to talk to yourself as the technician, the expert, the.
Speaker A:The professional, and you got to tell yourself what you need to do to plan accordingly for it, right?
Speaker A:But you got to give yourself that time.
Speaker A:You've got to give yourself those days to be able to manage that, all right?
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And also understanding that, like, business is not linear.
Speaker A:It's not linear, and you cannot try to force it, okay?
Speaker A:You cannot try to force this.
Speaker A:So you're not going to market and build at the same time.
Speaker A:You're going to give yourself permission to slow down when it's needed, right?
Speaker A:There are moments when you have to slow down.
Speaker A:It's like that.
Speaker A:Slow down to speed up.
Speaker A:That's what I feel like I've been doing.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:It's a really hard time, right?
Speaker A:Like, it's hard to be in this kind of slower season knowing that, like, you want to build and you feel like, oh, man, other people are moving ahead of me and they're.
Speaker A:They've got all this momentum, but guess what?
Speaker A:That might be the season they're in.
Speaker A:They're in that momentous season, but guess what?
Speaker A:They're going to probably hit a wall or they're going to have their period where things are going to change, and then they're going to have to grow and they're going to have to recreate and get into creation and all of those things.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And just understand that, like, everybody's business moves through those seasons at different times, and you really can't compare to where other people are at because again, my business is not your business.
Speaker A:Your business is not mine.
Speaker A:I don't have kids at home.
Speaker A:You might have kids at home, right?
Speaker A:So, like, there's no.
Speaker A:It's not like we can even look at it.
Speaker A:You're not even comparing apples to apples.
Speaker A:So you have to just really recognize where your business is and then plan ahead, right?
Speaker A:Plan ahead for those high sales seasons.
Speaker A:Like accountants, I tell them all the time, right?
Speaker A:Like, you know, tax season is going to be busy.
Speaker A: your busy, busy tax season or: Speaker A:So what are you doing to prep for it?
Speaker A:Can you start getting people ready in December if, you know you're going to take December off Then, like, maybe you need to take December off so that you are well rested and ready to rock and roll.
Speaker A:Because, you know, January through March is going to be nonstop balls to the wall, people coming out of the woodwork, people you haven't heard from in forever.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like, this happens accountants all the time in the, in those first three months.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And then maybe in April, you plan to just catch your breath and then you figure out, okay, what's next, Right?
Speaker A:Because you're in.
Speaker A:You've.
Speaker A:You've gotten through that busy season and now you just want to take a breather.
Speaker A:You know, you can do these things, you can have these slower seasons, but you just have to plan for them.
Speaker A:And that's the most important key aspect.
Speaker A:Everything comes back down to planning.
Speaker A:Everything comes back down to looking at the facts.
Speaker A:Looking at the facts and knowing and understanding the data that's being presented in your business.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:So first and foremost, you're going to identify those seasons.
Speaker A:Second, you're going to get them on the calendar.
Speaker A:And third, you're going to plan accordingly.
Speaker A:You're going to make a plan to honor and respect and be able to execute on those seasons accordingly without feeling like you're going to do all the things.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:You good?
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:I love you.
Speaker A:I believe in you.
Speaker A:I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for listening today, but remember, now it's time to take action.
Speaker A:My goal is to get you results.
Speaker A:So what is one action you can commit to taking this week?
Speaker A:Feel free to share it with me in my DMs or tag me on your socials.
Speaker A:Not sure what action to take?
Speaker A:Grab the link in the show notes and schedule a strategic power hour.
Speaker A:We can talk through it together and get you a strategic plan of action in just 60 short minutes.
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Speaker A:As with every podcast, reviews and ratings are what help us continue to show up and grow.
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Speaker A:Thanks.
Speaker A:Talk soon.
