3 ways ADHD entrepreneurs can avoid boom and bust in our business!
The ADHD Entrepreneur's Strategy: Escaping the Artistic Feast or Famine
In this episode of the Weeniecast titled "3 Ways ADHD Entrepreneurs Can Avoid The Artist Boom and Bust Cycle in Our Business," I, Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, will be talking with you about the common pitfalls that ensnare many ADHD entrepreneurs.
Essentially, this episode of The Weeniecast is a study of entrepreneurial self-worth.
I'm peeling back the layers on why we price our services the way we do and how we can strut past financial shame like it's last season's fashion faux pas.
It's time to ditch the "starving artist" badge of honor, folks!
I'll share the juicy bits from my own experience with this.
And I'll share some effective strategies to keep your creative spark alight while building a biz that's as solid as the frames in an art gallery.
As we wrap this shindig up, you'll be armed and dangerous – ready to dodge burnout like Neo dodges bullets in "The Matrix".
You'll be equipped to use failures as your personal trampoline to greatness.
And you'll know precisely when to take a breather for the sake of your empire.
Get ready to kick those tired old money stories to the curb and approach your pricing strategy with fresh positivity.
And above all, let's keep the creative joy bubbling without turning our passion into a chore.
After all, if we're not having fun, then what's the point, right?
Let's do this! Click play to listen now!
And if you need help with all this pricing and work life balance stuff, book a free generate income strategy call with me.
Here's the link - https://weeniecast.com/strategycall
Oh, and here's the link to Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic which I talk about in the episode.
Timestamped summary:
[00:02:20] Discussing service impact versus price
[00:06:45] Financial shame and establishing as high-end
[00:12:30] Contesting the 'honor in poverty' mindset
[00:17:00] Prioritizing business responsibilities
[00:22:15] Delegating to avoid burnout
[00:27:50] Embracing and learning from failure
[00:33:40] Feng shui for business: quitting for profit
[00:38:50] Handling ADHD in business strategy
Your next steps after listening
Realizing it's time to work with me? Book your free intial strategy call with me - weeniecast.com/strategycall
Get more support in your ADHD entrepreneur life by joining my hyperfocus community! - https://weeniecast.com/hyperfocus
Wanna get this content earlier, and totally unbleeped? Subscribe to the Apple Podcasts premium version of this show - https://weeniecast.com/winners
Want to just buy me a coffee in return for some helpful insight? Thank you! Here's where you can do that - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/katiethecoach
Mentioned in this episode:
Katie's May Birthday challenge
Clients can't hire you if they don't know you exist... Which is why it's SO important to post content to Social Media. Consistently. But that's easier said than done... To learn how to post consistently, you have to DO consistently. Which is why I've created the 31 Day Challenge- to hold your feet to the fire so you can create content, post, and finally attract your ideal clients to you, rather than chase them down...
Transcript
In this episode, let's talk about the three things you
Speaker:need to do to avoid the artist boom and bust cycle in your
Speaker:business. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money
Speaker:mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast!.
Speaker:As someone who has benefited from a gratitude practice many
Speaker:times in my life, I can tell you from lots of experience working
Speaker:with clients that sometimes you it actually you
Speaker:up. Going into your business and operating it from
Speaker:a position of I'm so grateful that I have work
Speaker:can be one of the worst things that happens to you,
Speaker:because when you become so enamored with the fact
Speaker:that you have work, you set yourself up for what I
Speaker:call the artist boom and bust cycle. Now, this is
Speaker:a business model that will burn you out, prevent
Speaker:you from ever saving for retirement, keep you
Speaker:constantly stressed and freaked out that you're going to go
Speaker:broke. And it's something that happens to a lot of people.
Speaker:So I want you to picture an artist. And they've spent the
Speaker:last three months creating a whole bunch of paintings. They're
Speaker:beautiful, spend a lot of time, they do a lot of detail. Their
Speaker:work is phenomenal. But in the last three months, they haven't been
Speaker:selling anything. So as you can imagine, they're a
Speaker:human that live in a human meat suit, that
Speaker:needs shelter and water and food
Speaker:and occasionally to go out and have fun with friends and might
Speaker:make the occasional impulsive purchase because they probably have
Speaker:adhd as well. Now, unless they are independently
Speaker:wealthy, all that costs money. And if they're not bringing money
Speaker:in, it means it's eating away at their savings.
Speaker:So the artist now has a lot of inventory, but they don't have a lot
Speaker:of money. So they go to market. They perhaps do a partnership with a
Speaker:gallery, and they start selling their pieces now because they're focused on
Speaker:selling. They have money coming in. It's really cool. They start being so grateful
Speaker:that people are interested in their work, and they get so
Speaker:invested in selling their pieces that what are they not doing?
Speaker:They're not producing more art.
Speaker:So they're so grateful. They're ecstatic that people
Speaker:are coming into the gallery, they're viewing their work, they're putting bids
Speaker:in pieces, are going out the door, money is coming into their bank
Speaker:account, but what happens? At a certain point, they run
Speaker:out of inventory, and so they have a full bank account,
Speaker:but they have nothing more to sell. So all that
Speaker:gratitude, all that excitement about, oh, my God, people actually want to buy what I
Speaker:make kind of fucked them up. Because they got so invested in it that
Speaker:they stopped creating art. So what do they have to do now?
Speaker:They have to go back into their studio. They have to start cranking out
Speaker:art like crazy. All the while they're living off the savings
Speaker:that they just made, and that money starts
Speaker:dwindling. And then again, they have to take all the inventory that they've
Speaker:created and they have to go and put it up in a gallery and start
Speaker:selling it. And this cycle can continue
Speaker:forever. And as
Speaker:you can imagine, it doesn't create a sustainable life.
Speaker:It's feast or famine. And if
Speaker:you're creative, which, I mean, most of us with ADHD have some element
Speaker:of creativity, even if we're not in the art space,
Speaker:it's really hard to be creative. When you're
Speaker:so stressed about surviving, when there's that
Speaker:massive money stress hanging over your head that you might not be able to afford
Speaker:rent next month, how are you supposed to come up with something creative
Speaker:that people actually want to buy? It creates way too much pressure. There's an
Speaker:author that people have either very strong opinions for or against.
Speaker:Elizabeth Gilbert. She wrote eat, pray, love. One of her books that I
Speaker:absolutely love is actually about her creative process. And the book is big
Speaker:magic. And in this book, she actually talks about
Speaker:how she waited tables until her third
Speaker:bestseller because she never wanted to put the
Speaker:pressure on her creative work to pay the
Speaker:bills because she knew that nothing would be more stifling to
Speaker:her creativity than having that pressure. Let's look at it
Speaker:from a pretty basic point of view. When you really enjoy being creative
Speaker:in your business, that's where you have the most juice, the most
Speaker:energy. That's where you attract people like crazy. When
Speaker:you're having fun, when you're invested, but when it
Speaker:starts feeling like really tough work,
Speaker:that's when things just become so much harder. That's when you
Speaker:stop having fun. That's when you feel like you're having to
Speaker:struggle for each new client, for each post
Speaker:that you put on social media, it takes so much more work, so
Speaker:much more energy, and it becomes exhausting. And
Speaker:sure, if you want to run your business like that, you
Speaker:absolutely can. But I think there's a better way.
Speaker:So to be able to break out of the artist boom and bust cycle,
Speaker:we need to look at three different areas of how you are
Speaker:managing your business. And some of these are logistical. Here's what
Speaker:you need to focus on in your day to day. And some of them are
Speaker:energetic, some of them are the inner work that you have to do as an
Speaker:individual to be able to run this business and have it be successful
Speaker:in a sustainable, fun way.
Speaker:The number one place that might seem like a backwards way to
Speaker:start is you have to work on your money story. Your
Speaker:relationship with money will either support your success
Speaker:or completely you up. On the more mild
Speaker:side of this, when you have a shitty relationship with money, you're not
Speaker:charging enough, so you're underselling your services.
Speaker:You're probably attracting clients who aren't your sole clients,
Speaker:who maybe don't respect your time as much as people who would
Speaker:be paying more would. And in the worst case scenario, you
Speaker:are so drastically undercharging that you are living at the poverty level.
Speaker:You're barely able to feed yourself and your family.
Speaker:And when I start working with clients and we talk through what their pricing is
Speaker:and how much they think they can get away with charging,
Speaker:there are a few things that come up. Now. There's a huge
Speaker:conversation around your belief in your personal worth
Speaker:and what you deserve to make
Speaker:and what your work is worth paying for.
Speaker:And to this, I would argue, there's no price that can be put on
Speaker:you. You cannot attach worth to yourself.
Speaker:You are priceless. There's no one
Speaker:like you. There's no one who does work the
Speaker:way you do work. And quite frankly, your
Speaker:clients, when they come to buy your service, to buy whatever it
Speaker:is that you're providing, they don't give a fuck. They
Speaker:genuinely do not care. What they care about is what your service
Speaker:is going to provide them. On the other side, at the basic level, let's talk
Speaker:about a service that people can actually pay for, right? It's
Speaker:bug killing. If you have termites in your house, chances
Speaker:are you've hired a company to come and terminate
Speaker:the termites. Now it's important to do this
Speaker:because termites can cause extensive damage to the
Speaker:structure of your home. And if there's extensive damage to the structure of your
Speaker:home, guess what? You're going to have to move out because it's not safe to
Speaker:live in. And what happens when a house is not safe
Speaker:to live in? The resale value plummets,
Speaker:because whoever is going to move into that house next has
Speaker:to either do extensive renovations and
Speaker:reinforcing, or they have to just tear it down and
Speaker:rebuild. Different value than moving into a house that is
Speaker:fully functional and move in ready. You're going to
Speaker:pay to have someone come and kill the bugs.
Speaker:Now, the same service, I want you to think of like the kids
Speaker:that will take a magnifying glass and burn ants on the sidewalk.
Speaker:Not saying I agree with them. Essentially, they're doing the same thing,
Speaker:but with different impact. The ants aren't harming anyone.
Speaker:The ants are just going about their day. They're enjoying the sunshine all
Speaker:of a sudden, like, wow, this spot is kind of warm. A little warmer than
Speaker:it was over there. Wow, it's really, really hot. This is my
Speaker:impersonation of an ant. I don't know if they're that articulate, but there
Speaker:you go. Now, you wouldn't go down the street and ask little Johnny
Speaker:if he was willing to come over and use a magnifying glass on your
Speaker:termite. That's not going to be the scale. So when you think about your service,
Speaker:I want you to think about what is the greater impact it has. Are you
Speaker:the equivalent of seven year old Johnny who's kind of a dick with a magnifying
Speaker:glass? Or are you actually protecting the
Speaker:integrity of someone's house? Are you saving them money? Are you saving them
Speaker:time? Are you saving them heartache? Maybe this house was built by their great great
Speaker:grandfather. It's been the family for a really long time. And it
Speaker:would be a failure on a massive level to their whole family
Speaker:if they were the one to let it disintegrate. Now,
Speaker:chances are, when you think about the terminator, the guy who's going to come around
Speaker:and kill the termites, you're not looking at him and being like,
Speaker:what's your inherent value as a person?
Speaker:What's your hour worth? What do you
Speaker:deserve? You're not asking the guy to sit down
Speaker:and tell you about all the good deeds he does and what organizations he volunteers
Speaker:for and how many kids he has and what his hobbies were growing
Speaker:up and genuinely like. Is he a funny person? Is he a kind
Speaker:person? Is he the kind of person that returns his shopping
Speaker:cart at the grocery store? Because we know those people are worth more. No,
Speaker:you're not asking that. You're asking how soon will the bugs be gone, and also
Speaker:how much damage is already done. How much are you saving me
Speaker:from? Your worth has nothing to do with
Speaker:the price of your services. And I know it
Speaker:feels like it does. I know it feels like you have to
Speaker:justify every dollar you charge your clients. If it
Speaker:feels that way, you have some serious money work to
Speaker:do. Now, this is one of the things that I do in all of my
Speaker:programs, to varying degrees. Because if you
Speaker:don't feel comfortable charging a certain amount
Speaker:for your work, then guess what? You're never going to be successful. There's
Speaker:nothing. There's no tactics, there's no strategy that is going
Speaker:to fix your business if you inherently don't believe
Speaker:that you deserve to make enough money to live. Now, the other side of
Speaker:this that can happen is when you think about
Speaker:raising your rates, you start feeling an immense amount
Speaker:of shame on behalf of your clientele.
Speaker:Because if you have a lot of experience of not being able to afford the
Speaker:things that you want and feeling a lot of shame around not
Speaker:being able to afford it, then guess what? You're going to project onto your ideal
Speaker:clients. You're going to project that awful, shameful bad
Speaker:feeling that bubbles up in your stomach every time you look at a
Speaker:price tag and think, oh, my God, I can't even afford this.
Speaker:I don't have enough money. I don't have enough resources to be able to get
Speaker:the thing that I really want. People think about this as if it's not a
Speaker:big deal when we can't afford something. It's actually a moment that
Speaker:can be incredibly traumatizing to the human spirit. Because when you're in a
Speaker:position financially, when you can't afford the things that you want and you look
Speaker:at a price tag and it's too much, and it makes you have to think
Speaker:about how few resources you have, what it actually
Speaker:activates for you is your survival mode. Because
Speaker:money and our access to money is survival in the here and
Speaker:now. If you don't have enough money for shelter, you don't have shelter. If
Speaker:you don't have enough money for food, you don't have food. And if you're
Speaker:a person who is living in the world, who wants things, which we all
Speaker:do, and you're bumping against these things that you want, and you're thinking,
Speaker:okay, well, I'd like to buy this, and you're seeing the price tag and it's
Speaker:beyond what you can afford. You're constantly being
Speaker:reminded that you barely have enough to live. You're
Speaker:constantly being reminded that you can't live life the way you
Speaker:want because you're not powerful enough to
Speaker:have the resources to do what you want. That is crushing to the human
Speaker:spirit. And also, it's not true for everyone. If you're
Speaker:running a business and you are selling something
Speaker:that you're spending time producing or
Speaker:providing, you do not owe anyone affordability.
Speaker:Just because you've had that experience of looking at a price tag and
Speaker:feeling that shame, just that sinking, hot feeling in your stomach
Speaker:of, oh, no, I can't have this, doesn't mean other people feel that.
Speaker:People when they see that they can't afford something, for some of
Speaker:them, it becomes a vision board item.
Speaker:I can't tell you how many times I've gotten off a sales call with someone
Speaker:and the call ended with them saying, oh, my God,
Speaker:this is so inspiring. I know. I want to work with
Speaker:you. I absolutely want to work with you one on one. It's outside of
Speaker:my budget right now, but this is my goal now. The fact that
Speaker:I can't work with you, that has lit a fire under my ass. I want
Speaker:to work with you in the next six months, and I'm going to make it
Speaker:happen. Just because you feel shame around not being able to
Speaker:afford something and just because you have some trauma tied in
Speaker:there doesn't mean that it happens for everyone else.
Speaker:If you've done the work and you've done the proper market research, and you know
Speaker:that there are buyers for what you do, there's always
Speaker:going to be a price range. There's always going to be the most affordable and
Speaker:also the most high end. The only thing that's keeping you
Speaker:from being high end is your pricing and your attitude
Speaker:towards it. And sure, it'll be so sad for someone if they really
Speaker:want to work with you or they really want to buy your thing if they
Speaker:can't afford to get it right now. But that's not your problem.
Speaker:That is not your responsibility. Your
Speaker:responsibility, first and foremost, is to fill your own damn
Speaker:cup. And if you can't fill your own damn cup
Speaker:first, why are you making your stuff so
Speaker:affordable to everyone else? We have this
Speaker:belief, especially in industries where we're helping other people, to
Speaker:actually offer, like, a spirit level transformation to people, that
Speaker:we also have to be poor. It happens in the creative industries as
Speaker:well. To be a true creative, to be a true artist, you have to
Speaker:starve. There's only honor in creating if you're also
Speaker:starving. I think we get this poverty mindset
Speaker:and this sense of it's honorable to be poor
Speaker:when you're helping other people from religious
Speaker:systems. If you were to look at the church throughout the middle
Speaker:ages in Europe, one of the requirements to be part of the church is you
Speaker:had to give up all of your earthly belongings if you wanted to be a
Speaker:priest, if you wanted to be a nun, if you wanted to be a monk,
Speaker:I'm sorry, you can't keep your family castle and all the
Speaker:horses and the art collection and all the silver and gold
Speaker:and be a priest at the same time. Or at least technically, you weren't
Speaker:supposed to. People did it. But we've been taught this model that you have to
Speaker:give up all of your earthly goods in order to do really good work.
Speaker:I mean, sure, if you want to make that noble, you can. But let's also
Speaker:look at the business of the church. It's a multi billion dollar
Speaker:company, essentially, okay? You're not going to be a priest or a nun or
Speaker:a monk in the catholic church, especially back then, and go starving.
Speaker:I mean, unless you were on a fast or something, which is something people did
Speaker:by choice. But it's not like the church is going to be like, oh, sorry,
Speaker:we just don't have any money to feed you right now. No,
Speaker:it's one of the reasons why people joined the church.
Speaker:They believed in the whole God thing, too. But that's an aside. It's a
Speaker:model. It's essentially a model to make sure that your needs are being met. And
Speaker:there's nothing wrong with that. But you looking at that and saying,
Speaker:okay, well, there's something noble about not having anything, about being broke,
Speaker:being poor and helping people.
Speaker:Unless you belong to a greater organization that's covering
Speaker:your basic needs of your meat suit, it's not noble, it's just
Speaker:stupid. At its heart, it's caring more about what other people
Speaker:think of you than about taking care of yourself.
Speaker:I know this sounds kind of pessimistic, but there's
Speaker:no one out there who's spending as much time worrying about you taking care of
Speaker:yourself than you. No one is going to make sure that you have food
Speaker:on the table like you will. No one is going to make sure that you
Speaker:have enough money for retirement. That's your job. If you choose to
Speaker:prioritize other people thinking you're noble and thinking you're this good
Speaker:person and all this stuff over having those things,
Speaker:that is on you. And if there's deeper money work to
Speaker:be done here, that is also on you. But the beautiful thing is
Speaker:you just heard this bit of this podcast, I just called you out on some
Speaker:bullshit and now you're aware of the problem, which means you can go fix the
Speaker:problem. Congratulations. And I know there are many coaches
Speaker:and consultants out there who genuinely want to help people who cannot
Speaker:afford to work with them at their current rate. You might think that you're
Speaker:being elitist by only working with people who can pay a higher amount.
Speaker:At its core, you don't have a greedy problem, you don't
Speaker:have an elitist problem. You have a business model problem.
Speaker:Especially when I work with coaches and they want to be able to work with
Speaker:people who can't afford like $1,000 a month or more
Speaker:on coaching. One of the things that we prioritize, first and foremost is their one
Speaker:on one business. Right. Your fastest path to cash is always going to be
Speaker:one on one clients who are paying out of their own pocket to work with
Speaker:you one on one. Once you have enough money coming in
Speaker:monthly from one on one clients, that's when you can start
Speaker:rolling out a group that is at a lower ticket, that's more
Speaker:affordable to people who can't afford to work with you one on one. Now, the
Speaker:reason we don't go there first is because if you're just starting out, you don't
Speaker:have the audience for it yet. Okay? Unless you're independently
Speaker:wealthy and you can manage to just kind of hang out and
Speaker:promote your list and post to TikTok and post to
Speaker:Instagram and to LinkedIn all the time and build that
Speaker:audience, you need to be making money along the way.
Speaker:But if you don't have enough followers, if you don't have enough people on your
Speaker:email list, you're never going to be able to fill up a group. It's just
Speaker:not going to happen. And I know some of you are probably thinking about that
Speaker:business grew that you saw online. That's like, well, what about creating a digital course?
Speaker:What about creating a PDF that I could sell on Instagram? Your
Speaker:fastest path to cash is always going to be one on one
Speaker:clients. Jumping to a digital course, jumping to a
Speaker:PDF that you're going to sell, sounds sexy, but
Speaker:the failure rate is extraordinary. There's no
Speaker:proof of concept when you jump into that. One of the best things that you
Speaker:can do to save time and money and frustration
Speaker:is to start off by building your one on one client list. Take the
Speaker:common lessons that you're working on with all of those clients. Turn
Speaker:that into a group program. Now, you want to run this group
Speaker:multiple times so you can test it, make sure there's actually a market
Speaker:for it. Understand frontwards, backwards and inside and
Speaker:out, what kinds of questions come up throughout the group.
Speaker:If there's anything you need to add to the curriculum, if there's anything you need
Speaker:to take away from it, and then, and only then, after you've done the one
Speaker:on one work and the group work, can you turn it into a successful
Speaker:course. And even then, you're going to have to change some things. You're going to
Speaker:have to tweak it. You're going to have to fine tune it along the way.
Speaker:You're going to have to also work on a different marketing plan because the marketing
Speaker:for a digital course is very different than it is for one on one coaching.
Speaker:The sales process is also different. There are a lot of things that you're going
Speaker:to have to figure out, but I'd rather you make money along the
Speaker:way than put all your eggs in a basket that is very
Speaker:highly likely to disintegrate and fall apart. You can
Speaker:absolutely offer affordable things in your business, but
Speaker:do it after you're already paying the bills. Do it after you've
Speaker:already created sustainable money coming in. So your money mindset
Speaker:is one of the most important things that you need to work on if
Speaker:you want to avoid that artist boom and bust cycle.
Speaker:The second one is a priority shift. And I know for those of us with
Speaker:ADHD, prioritizing things is one of the hardest
Speaker:things that we have to figure out every single day. So I'm going to make
Speaker:this so easy for you. Your mind is going
Speaker:to say, oh my God, I'm so grateful for these clients. I'm going to prioritize
Speaker:them above everything else. Your clients who are already signed
Speaker:up with you, who are already paying you are absolutely important. Of
Speaker:course you're going to prioritize them, but they do not hold the number
Speaker:one spot. You know what does?
Speaker:Visibility marketing. One of
Speaker:the reasons why the artist is constantly going broke is because they run
Speaker:out of inventory to sell. If you're a coach and you fill up
Speaker:your practice with ten clients and you're working on those ten clients
Speaker:and you kind of ignore your marketing, what happens when those clients start
Speaker:finishing? If you haven't been marketing the whole time, you start
Speaker:panicking. There's no pipeline. There's no list of people who are
Speaker:waiting to work with you. So you're kind of starting from scratch in your
Speaker:marketing and you're probably going to dip down into like four or
Speaker:five clients before you start backfilling them, which means you're
Speaker:going to dip below your cost of living and it's going to stop
Speaker:being fun. It's going to start being scary. Your number
Speaker:one priority every damn day is to be visible because
Speaker:people can't hire you if they don't know that you exist. And
Speaker:remember that you cannot have consistent cash flow
Speaker:or a consistent business without consistent
Speaker:marketing. One of the saddest parts about
Speaker:recessions is that a lot of companies go out of business. And
Speaker:I know you're probably thinking, well, duh, it's a recession. Of course they're going out
Speaker:of business, not necessarily it's how they
Speaker:react to the recession that actually puts them out of business. A lot of
Speaker:companies, when hard economic times fall on us, which
Speaker:happens fairly regularly because that's how the world works, they panic and they think, okay,
Speaker:cool, where can we cut money? Where can we cut expenditure within our budget?
Speaker:Oh, cool, marketing. We're going to cut marketing. It seems
Speaker:like kind of a fluffy thing. I mean, of course they know that marketing works.
Speaker:They wouldn't be spending money on it before if it didn't. But it's really hard
Speaker:to say, okay, well, this ad campaign or this marketing
Speaker:strategy is delivering x amount of dollars to us. There's
Speaker:no clear delineation between the two. And so
Speaker:executives in their panic mode will think, okay, anything that's not
Speaker:delivering a clear return on investment gets cut.
Speaker:Well, what happens? They cut the marketing and then the sales team starts
Speaker:struggling because they don't have as many leads. They don't have as many people coming
Speaker:in and buying their stuff. So then they have to start working harder and harder
Speaker:and harder and then they start not making quota. And then because they're not
Speaker:making quota, there's not as much cash coming into the business. The business starts having
Speaker:to lay other people off. Maybe in the product side or
Speaker:in the customer service side, the clients you have start getting unhappy
Speaker:because the quality of the products have gone down. Maybe the support has
Speaker:gone down. Getting through to someone to re up your plan
Speaker:or whatever it is you're buying starts getting harder and before
Speaker:you know it, you are flirting with bankruptcy.
Speaker:Like I said before, gratitude can fuck you up. Yes, be
Speaker:grateful for the people who are working with you, who've hired you, who are buying
Speaker:your stuff, and also, they are not going to
Speaker:quit. They are not going to ask for their money back. If you
Speaker:prioritize visibility, it's the difference between the
Speaker:mindset of a business owner and an employee. If you
Speaker:are constantly prioritizing serving the client
Speaker:as your number one and neglecting the greater needs of
Speaker:your business, you are not operating like a business owner. You are
Speaker:operating like an employee, which to your credit,
Speaker:you've only been trained to be an employee up until now. If you've worked any
Speaker:other job, that has been the training. Here's how you plug in and do the
Speaker:thing. No strategist thinking, you don't have to plan the greater
Speaker:path, but business owners have to do that. Your number
Speaker:one priority is always going to be visibility and never
Speaker:forget it. And of course, a close second is your paying clients.
Speaker:Now, the third thing that will help you overcome the
Speaker:artist boom and bust business model. Ooh, what am I going to say
Speaker:next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel,
Speaker:squirrel, squirrel.
Speaker:Now, the third thing that will help you overcome the
Speaker:artist's boom and bust business model, that ugly cycle that
Speaker:will keep you constantly stressed out and freaking out about money, is
Speaker:that you need to scale, fail, and bail
Speaker:fast. And I know I made sure that that rhymed.
Speaker:I was really excited about the scale and fail
Speaker:because everyone knows about failing fast. And of course, scaling is important. But
Speaker:then I went through my brain hole of all the other things that rhyme with
Speaker:those things, and I figured out that bail fits in perfectly with this model.
Speaker:I'm inappropriately proud of this. Okay. Anyway, so,
Speaker:scaling fast, you need to set up your business
Speaker:in a way that you will be able to step away from the day to
Speaker:day running as fast as possible.
Speaker:You are a human. You exist in this meat suit. Meat suits
Speaker:are not consistent. Sometimes they get sick. Sometimes they get injured. Sometimes
Speaker:they get burnt out and tired and need a rest. Sometimes
Speaker:beings in other meat suits have demands on you, like
Speaker:children and spouses and family members. They need you
Speaker:to show up for shit. And that means you can't necessarily be in your business
Speaker:that day. So as soon as humanly possible, as
Speaker:you're growing this business, set it up so you're not the one
Speaker:who has to do every damn thing every single day. If you do
Speaker:that, you are literally setting your business up for failure because your business
Speaker:is solely dependent on your
Speaker:meat suit needing to show up and do the things every damn day. And that's
Speaker:just for people who don't have executive dysfunction. If you
Speaker:have adhd, like we talk about here a lot, your executive
Speaker:dysfunction can absolutely get in the way of you doing things every
Speaker:single day. Even if you're not sick, even if your kids aren't
Speaker:home with the flu or need you to come and pick them up from basketball
Speaker:practice. We all know that feeling of sitting at our
Speaker:desk with our eyes completely disassociated,
Speaker:thinking, I know what I need to do. Why can't I do it? Damn it,
Speaker:I'm going to fail. And just running
Speaker:ourselves ragged and exhausting ourselves by not even doing the thing.
Speaker:Set your business up so that can happen in the background so that other people
Speaker:can do that when you can't. You need to scale as fast
Speaker:as possible. Now, along with that, you're going to fail.
Speaker:One of the biggest red flags that I see with
Speaker:people who book a sales call with me, who talk about joining my programs or
Speaker:signing up to work with me one on one, is this immense
Speaker:fear that they have around failure. They're so terrified to fail. Those are
Speaker:the clients that I've started turning away. Because if you're so afraid to
Speaker:fail, you're never going to try anything. And if you never try anything, you're never
Speaker:going to succeed. Failure is the only thing that is guaranteed
Speaker:when you start a business. I failed a gazillion times. I fail every
Speaker:single day in a million different ways, and
Speaker:I have the choice of saying, oh, wow, I failed.
Speaker:Oh, well, I better just quit now, because failure sucks, and I don't
Speaker:want to do this anymore. If I'm going to fail, it's absolutely a choice I
Speaker:can make, or I could stick with my mindset and say, cool. That's one way
Speaker:not to do know kind of like how Edison, what did he do? He invented
Speaker:the light bulb, which, I mean, I have light bulbs all around me. I'm very
Speaker:grateful for this man, for inventing light bulbs. They make a lot possible for me
Speaker:and for you. But to get there, he failed a
Speaker:gazillion times, and his whole mindset was, I didn't fail. I found
Speaker:a thousand different ways to not make a working light bulb. You
Speaker:are on this massive adventure to find a gazillion different
Speaker:ways to not be successful. It is a wild ride, and
Speaker:it's one that you can either make fun, make part of the process,
Speaker:or you can have it be a big, scary forest that you don't want to
Speaker:step foot in. Totally up to you. But I can tell you what you'll be
Speaker:doing a year from now if you're not willing to fail and it's working for
Speaker:someone else. And, of course, bailing. No one wants to
Speaker:bail on a project. No one wants to bail on a business. No one wants
Speaker:to bail on an idea that you were convinced was going to work.
Speaker:But sometimes you have to. Sometimes we have to look
Speaker:at the definition of insanity, which is trying the same thing over and over
Speaker:and over again, expecting different results, especially in business.
Speaker:If you're trying to create a service and you have tried all the different ways
Speaker:to make work, and it's just not working, it's probably a sign that you need
Speaker:to bail. Now, of course, a lot of people bail too soon. This is
Speaker:one of the benefits of having a coach in your corner who can help you
Speaker:poke holes in all the stories you're telling yourself about why it's
Speaker:failing, who can help you really look at the data and see? Is there
Speaker:something wrong with your marketing? Is there something wrong with your sales process? Is there
Speaker:something wrong with the value proposition of what you're putting
Speaker:together? But one of the best qualities you
Speaker:can have as a business owner is knowing when to walk away,
Speaker:knowing when to quit. When I was in
Speaker:college, I lived in a basement apartment in this house, and the
Speaker:family that lived upstairs was so nice. And the mom was from Indonesia, and
Speaker:she was really into feng shui. And she'd always lend me books on feng shui.
Speaker:And she would tell me, like, if you want a boyfriend, you're going to have
Speaker:to clear out half of your closet, because in feng shui, if you want
Speaker:someone to come into your life, you need to have space for them in your
Speaker:life. Now, I had a lot of clothes that wasn't going to happen. I wasn't
Speaker:leaving half of my closet empty. But I want you to think about feng
Speaker:shui in your life, okay? If your life is full of
Speaker:something that's just not working, is there going to be room for
Speaker:a more profitable opportunity to come in? Probably
Speaker:not. If you are working and grinding 60
Speaker:hours a week on a business that isn't working, no one else can
Speaker:really understand that it's not working to that degree. So there may be
Speaker:people out there who are like, oh, my God, I would love to partner with
Speaker:this person, but they're too busy. They would never be able to be
Speaker:available for money making
Speaker:opportunities. You need to have space for those opportunities to come
Speaker:in. And sometimes that means you have to quit stuff that doesn't
Speaker:work. And I know
Speaker:as someone with ADHD who starts a lot of things
Speaker:and doesn't finish them and then holds a lot of
Speaker:guilt and shame around all the things that are left half done,
Speaker:like the 27 knitting projects that I'm still in the middle of that I probably
Speaker:will never finish, but I will continue to pack up every time
Speaker:I move and take it to my new place and then unpack them
Speaker:and put them in just the right spot in my apartment so that when I
Speaker:do feel like finishing them, because I am still convinced, even though I know
Speaker:better, that there's going to be, like, this magic moment where the motivation just kind
Speaker:of pops up and I'm like, yes, that scarf that I
Speaker:gave up on seven years ago, now is the time
Speaker:I'm going to finish this. I know we can have a little bit of shame
Speaker:around quitting things, because in our minds, we have this
Speaker:story that we're not finishers, and we get so latched on to
Speaker:this idea. Like, I got to finish this. I got to see it through. Because
Speaker:we don't want that story to be true. I know it can feel really icky
Speaker:for us to quit shit. Because every time we quit something,
Speaker:that voice just gets stronger and stronger. There's more evidence that we can't
Speaker:see things through, that we're not finishers. But that's the beauty of having
Speaker:ADHD, is our minds move so quickly. And
Speaker:sure, sometimes it means that you start a sweater and then you buy all the
Speaker:equipment for it and you don't finish it. And sure,
Speaker:that's unfortunate, but it's not the end of the world. Now, it
Speaker:might put you in the position where you own more yarn than your car is
Speaker:worth, kind of like where I am. But it doesn't diminish you as a
Speaker:person. It doesn't diminish your worth, doesn't diminish how
Speaker:much you deserve, and it's not proof that a business
Speaker:isn't going to be ultimately successful for you. So remember, scale
Speaker:fail and bail as fast as you can. Squirrel. Squirrel. If you're ready to
Speaker:stop being a weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go
Speaker:ahead and book a generate income strategy call with me by going
Speaker:to
Speaker:weeniecast.com/strategycall.
Speaker:On this call, we will talk about your goals, your dreams,
Speaker:and your frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit
Speaker:for both of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together.
Speaker:My hair is so staticy when I was a kid, so I have, like, fine
Speaker:hair, but I have a lot of it. And when I was a kid in
Speaker:our minivan, I used to walk in. All of a sudden, my hair would just
Speaker:be static, like, sticking into the roof. And I'd start screaming bloody murder
Speaker:and crying. Like, my hair is electrocuted and, like, freaking out.
Speaker:And my mom had to keep a squirt bottle in the the
Speaker:car, and she just turned around, like, squirt my head,
Speaker:and I feel like crying. My
Speaker:hair is electrocuted. Anyway.
