Let’s just get this out of the way now. Plans almost never go according to… well, plan. There is always going to be something to overcome but your reaction means all the difference when it comes to your business. Listen as I share five ways to take back control when your plan falls apart.

If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, then you know that what you plan and what actually happens are two completely different things. When your plan falls apart the first thing you need to do is feel that emotion. 

Acknowledge the loss and frustration and sit with it for a moment. Otherwise it will grow and fester until you feel complete resentment toward the project and possibly your client. 

Next, take simple small actions toward creating a new plan and moving past the emotion. Sometimes just taking a walk outside for a few moments can help energize you and help you to get the creative juices flowing. 

Then you need to start outlining the steps that need to be updated in order to move forward. Do you need to hire someone? How does that impact the budget? Does the project launch date need to change? What do you need to do to get things back on track? 

Listen in to hear all of the steps. Have you ever had a project go completely to plan? If so, I want to know. Join us in the Frazzled to Focused Facebook Group for Service-Based Entrepreneurs and let’s keep the conversation going. 

[02:10] When your plan falls apart it is frustrating as all get out and it’s okay to feel the anger and disappointment.

[04:36] Acknowledge the emotion and feel the loss. What does that mean? 

[06:04] Next, take simple and small action. 

[07:26] Take ten minutes outside focusing on breathing or exercising and then come inside and see how you feel.

[08:07] Outline the steps that you need to reconfigure to take back control. 

[10:28] Find space on the calendar to take any action on the steps determined in step three. 

[12:04] Last, deliver the news and then start taking those small steps. 

[12:48] This is what I want you to take away from this. 

[14:13] Plans can and will change. Your reaction is what’s important. 

[15:56] If you’ve had a plan that went completely perfect, I want to know about it. 

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The one mistake I see time and time again as service providers shift into the role of the CEO in their business is their willingness to take on tasks that they shouldn’t. You’re moving away from implementation and yet you continue to say yes when you shouldn’t. 

Sound familiar? If so, don’t worry. This was absolutely me too and I’m providing you with four questions you should ask yourself before you say yes to any additional tasks. If you walk through this each time, you’ll be surprised at what you keep on your plate and what you offload. 

Bonus: Each time you offload a new task you open up more time for you to be the visionary in your company. 

What are those four questions? 

1. Is this task going to become a habit? 
2. Is this something that you need to create a process for? 
3. Is this something that you want to learn? 
4. Is this something that you love?

If you are committed to journaling each day and you want that to be a habit in your business, then you should definitely keep that on your to-do list. 

However, if you are fascinated by new and emerging social media strategies but know you won’t continue to do them, then that’s something you’d create a process for and offload. You might do the task once or twice, but after that you’re training, leading and growing in other ways. 

Perhaps the task is something you want to learn that will help you and your clients achieve success faster. Then it may be something that you open up time for so that you can learn all the things.

Also, don’t give up, 100% the things you love. The number of times I’ve seen CEOs take on creating Canva graphics just because they love doing them is extremely interesting. If there is something you love that you find to be therapeutic, don’t give it up. Just don’t give it pride of place in your day. Instead use that task to lift you up when you’re in a slump.

Transitioning to the role of CEO in your business is likely one of the most difficult things you’ll do as you scale. But if you truly want to grow, then you have to transition. Let me know if these questions help you gain better perspective on your need to continually implement.

[01:27] As we grow and scale we realize there are so many paths we can take, but which is right? 

[02:46] When you’re becoming the CEO you need to let go of implementation. 

[04:11] The four questions every CEO should ask before they take on any tasks.

1. Is this task going to become a habit? 
2. Is this something that you need to create a process for? 
3. Is this something that you want to learn? 
4. Is this something that you love? 

[05:16] Why you should be the one to create the process for tasks before you hand them off.

[06:23] Are you learning and growing from this task? If so, then you may consider taking it on. 

[08:07] My favorite example of things that CEOs love and simply keep doing because of that. 

[10:52] The questions can be extremely eye opening as you apply them to task management.

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I will never say that business coaching is right for everyone. Because it isn’t. There are so many coaches and consultants selling coaching as the only way to create a successful business, but if you or your business aren’t ready, then you won’t get what you want out of the relationship.

So, should you hire a business coach? 

The first things to consider are your current goals. Where are you at with them? If you haven’t reached them, why not? What’s holding you back? If you have, what is the next step? 

Also, is your business making enough money to support investing in a coach? If you’re living paycheck to paycheck and aren’t sure how you’re going to pay for groceries, then investing in a coach is a terrible decision. Do not ever put yourself in extreme financial risk just to work with a coach. 

Now, if you’re bringing in the money and you’re looking to hit some big goals, then coaching may be right for you. Listen in to hear all the questions you should be asking yourself before hiring a coach. 

Be honest with yourself. Coaching is a huge investment in both yourself and your business. Don’t take the decision to hire a coach lightly.

[01:33] Are you someone who thrives in doing things on your own? 

[03:02] I’m probably the most skeptical coach you will ever find. 

[03:57] If you’re not bringing in money, you don’t need a business coach.

[07:36] Who is business coaching right for? 

[09:20] What coaching looks like on the service-based side. 

[12:31] If you no longer need support, what other options are there? 

[13:56] The questions you need to ask yourself when deciding if coaching is right for you.

1. Where was I 6 months ago? Am I still there?
2. What did you do to get to this point?
3. Where do you want to be 6 months from now? 
4. Are you going to need to do anything different?
5. What space do you have for something different? 
6. Are you open to feedback? 
7. Are you open to being honest?  

[17:17] Now is a great time to take a moment and decide if business coaching is right for you now or in the near future.

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Did you work really hard to create space for the summer, only to get to the season and feel all sorts of funkified? That my friend is the service provider summer slump and it is completely normal. Listen in to learn how you can get out of it and keep building up your business. 

Let me paint a picture for you. You made it through the school year. You caught up and then *gasp* got ahead on work so that you could enjoy some downtime. You walked into the summer thinking I’m going to #HotBoss this summer!

Then you’re a couple weeks in and you just feel like your business is heavy. You’re struggling to create. You’re struggling to stay on top of tasks. You honestly feel like this business thing is too much. 

Then this is the episode you need! I’m sharing first what the service provider summer slump is and then I’m providing you practical tips you can use to get out of it. 

First things first, you need to find out if the slump is really what you’re experiencing. Listen in and take notes!

[02:16] What the service provider summer slump is. 

[03:40] Why the slump feels so heavy.

[04:38] We’re talking about how to get out of the summer slump. 

[05:19] How to determine if this is actually happening to you right now.

[06:31] Review your goals. 

[08:17] Pick a small action you can take. 

[09:48] Reach out to a trusted peer. 

[11:15] Set a goal that feels good to you.

[14:06] Just don’t stop.

Episode 3: Why Your To-do List is Keeping You From Success

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Sprint to Scale

There are two different schools of thought when it comes to the topic of time tracking. On one side, there is a group of people that are adamantly for time tracking, otherwise how do you know what your day consists of? On the other is a group who believes that you are running your own business and as such time tracking is unnecessary. 

I fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t think that ongoing time tracking is necessary, but if you’re looking to scale or to lighten the load of your business, understanding your time is imperative. 

There are five areas that are most important when you’re tracking: marketing, client work, admin work, business strategy, and phone calls. When you’re trying to figure out your days and where your time is going, these are the most important for your business. 

If you’re spending 15hours a week on administrative work, then it’s time to offload and automate. 

Time tracking allows you to make decisions from a place of fact. Spend two weeks tracking your activities and you’ll likely be very surprised at where all the time is going. 

Are there any areas in your business that feel heavy right now? Let’s lighten the load.

[01:04] There are two schools of thought regarding time tracking. Hear them both. 

[02:27] How to protect your time as a service-based business. 

[03:31] You are your own client.  

[05:20] Knowing your strengths and where you’re spending your time is integral to scaling. 

[06:53] Learn the five most important areas to track your time in. 

[09:27] Time tracking allows you to make decisions from fact. 

[11:30] Track your time for two weeks and see how you feel about your days. 

Toggl

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The number of times I’ve heard from clients and peers that they hate selling is a touch alarming. I personally have always liked the sales aspect of my business but that could be because I came from the sales side of corporate. That being said, there are ways to sell without feeling icky. Listen in to learn how to grow your business, even if you hate selling. 

We all operate from a system of beliefs, morality, and thought that guides our actions. Yours may not be the same as mine, but you do have them. These systems guide your feelings when you seek to sell and they’re what determine what feels good and what does not. 

No matter how you feel about sales in general, if you are reading from a script and viewing every interaction from the angle of sales, you will not feel good about it. Instead approach sales from the point of view of building relationships and you’ll start to see the beauty of sales. 

You need to introduce and educate and stop trying to convince. 

Listen in to learn what this means and how you can apply it to all of your business interactions. Once you do, you’ll find that the sales process feels much more organic and true to the person that you are and the values that you hold. 

Once you’ve listened, swing on over to Instagram and let me know what feels good and bad about the sales process to you.

[01:20] Learn how to grow your business even if you hate selling. Something I really enjoy.

[03:28] The number one thing I hear from clients and peers who are struggling with sales. 

[05:28] You need to introduce and educate your potential clients. Learn the specific parts to this. 

[07:46] Why additional questions are a great sign. 

[08:51] Patience and answering questions is a huge sign of respect for your client. 

[09:22] This is relationship marketing versus selling. 

[12:06] What is something that can be a positive experience for your client that feels easy to you? 

[13:07] A quick personal story that represents my experience with relationship marketing and building my business. 

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Quotes: 

“Sales does not have to be this 5-part process that if you don’t follow these word tracks 100% then you’re not going to make it.” 

“There’s this moral and ethical boundary that I think everybody lives by, and while it might not be the same for each person, you know what it is.”

“When was the last time you felt good about somebody convincing you to do something? As an adult, does it feel good to have someone try and tell you that you need to make a decision that you don’t want to do?” 

“As long as somebody has questions for you, guess what? They are so interested in you they still want to know about you and your service. They are still in the sales conversation.” 

“We assume that because we’re not getting a yes, it means that it’s a no. It’s 100% not it.”

Your client experience as a service provider is pretty much everything. Why? Because when you surprise and delight your current clients, they refer you to people that they know. Rather than spending money on paid advertising, invest in your client experience and you’ll see a world of difference.

But how do you create an amazing client experience? Honestly, there are so many ways to do this, but one of the best is to set yourself up to over deliver. Not in a way that pushes against your boundaries or that makes you feel resentful. Instead, set clear boundaries and only do more when it feels good and right.

So many times as service providers we feel as if the power in our relationship with our client is solely with them. That’s not necessarily true. When you set clear boundaries and then enforce them, you set yourself up for mental and business success and you also create opportunities to wow. 

Listen in to hear why I’m so passionate about the client experience process, ways you can surprise and delight, and how you can create your very own methodology. Your clients are your key to ongoing work and sales. Make sure that they feel heard and taken care of without trampling all over your own boundaries. 

What will you start doing to wow your clients? 

[00:40] Why there is so much power in building an amazing client experience. 

[03:51] Learn why client experience is so important.

[07:14] Your client experience is one of the first steps toward establishing yourself as an expert. 

[09:00] Why and how can you create your own client experience methodology? 

[13:54] How you can surprise and delight your clients. 

[16:18] I share the importance of closing your loops. 

[18:31] Setting boundaries is not the same as putting up walls that divert the client experience. 

[19:41] Everything is not going to be perfect. Make sure you correct it. 

[20:58] Learn tangible ways you can wow your clients. 

[25:10] Relationship marketing is just connecting with people.

[25:53] The questions you need to ask yourself as you’re building out your methodology. 

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When you find yourself stuck in your business, talking things over with a coach is one of the best ways to find clarity. Which is why I’m offering on-air coaching sessions to help business owners talk through some of their blocks and hopefully help listeners as well. 

In this very first coaching session, I’m chatting with Meagan Beltekoglu all about her current offers and how to shift them into a high ticket offer. We also idg into ways she can market this offer and get it in front of her ideal clients. 

Meagan is a Vetted Clickup Consultant and Certified Director of Operations and she helps business owners take their systems and processes from post-its to streamlined. Her biggest issue to date has been finding ways to create and sell a high ticket offer out of all of her lower end offers. 

We break down her current offers and how she can bring them together to build out a complete systems overhaul for established business owners. We then chat about ways to market this new offer and why referral partnerships should be a main focus. 

Then we dig into ways she can get this offer out there now rather than continuing to focus on mapping out a process that she already knows she can do. If you’ve found yourself stuck in the mapping phase, then you’ll want to listen to the very end of this conversation. 

What areas of your business do you need help in? 

[02:45] Welcome back and get ready for our first ever coaching session. 

[03:46] Listen as Meagan shares more about herself, her business, and her background. 

[05:29] Learn what she’d like help with in her business and what she offers right now. 

[07:55] Who does she peg as her ideal client? 

[10:09] Does industry or revenue matter with regard to her ideal client? 

[12:50] What does her project timeline look like for her various offers? 

[17:11] Why she needs to break down her big offer into stages. 

[21:10] Learn about creating referral partners. 

[26:22] How she could use case studies and her networking group to sell this offer.

[30:24] Some homework for Meagan to work on.

[36:03] What is Meagan’s favorite feature of Clickup?

[37:58] Why she loves Sprints.

[39:15] Her next steps.

[41:01] Connect with Meagan.

Director of Operations Program

Miro

Clickup

New Leaf Digital

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Sprint to Scale

I am a recovering to-do list addict. I admit it here and now. In many ways I love nothing more than checking stuff off of the list each and every day, but what I found is that my to-dos had nothing to do with moving my business forward. Which is why I’m sharing why your to-do list is keeping you from business success.

You may be wondering, Amy, if you love a to-do list as much as I do, why are you saying I should ditch mine? 

Because your to-do list only takes into account day to day activities. It doesn’t allow you to create space for business growth. Think about it, how often do your business building tasks get shoved to the end of the list? 

Instead of creating to-do lists, I recommend building out buckets. This is very much like time blocking, but it gives you the space to allocate time for all aspects of your business and your life. It also lets you better use your time in the day so that you can take advantage of your high energy times. 

Listen in to hear all of my tips and tricks for creating a better system that allows you to successfully scale your business.

[01:25] Why is your to-do list keeping you from success? 

[02:19] Learn the problems your to-do list presents for successfully scaling your business. 

[04:28] If your to-do list keeps you focused on tasks in your business, then try this instead. 

[06:04] Bucketing leaves you space to incorporate the fluff stuff in your day to day. Learn more.

[07:35] Look at your business holistically and dive into the strategy around each of your projects.

[08:53] The three most important pieces to every project are priority, project, and timing. 

[09:49] What to do with the things that just pop up in your day. 

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Boundaries are important in every relationship, so why do we let them slide with clients? One of the main reasons I see service-based businesses suffer is because they’re not establishing health boundaries. Listen in to learn how to set boundaries in your business that will lead to better results for everyone. 

Did you know that properly set boundaries actually show that you value yourself? That’s right. It’s a sign that you have an appropriate amount of self-respect and that you demand that same respect from others. Which is crucial when you own your own business. 

So what boundaries should you set? 

One of the most important has to do with the times that you are working. Establish your work day, whatever it might look like, and then communicate those hours to your clients. The most important part of this equation? Sticking to your own rules!

Next, you need to establish clear lines of communication as well as when your clients can expect responses and updates. You don’t want to give clients fifteen different ways to communicate with you. Pick one or two and then stick to them. 

I want you to fall back in love with your business and be delighted to open up your computer each and every day. Boundaries are one of the best ways to do just that.

[01:35] Why are boundaries important? 

[02:44] The first part of scaling successfully is creating a boundary on what it means to work with you. 

[05:09] Top boundaries you should have and that your clients should know about it. 

[06:34] Determine how you’re going to communicate with your clients. Pick one or two places tops. 

[10:00] You can hold true to your boundaries and still provide an amazing client experience. 

[10:37] Before you set any boundaries you need to do these things. 

[13:34] I want to know if these boundary tips work for you. Let me know!

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