← Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
995: Why Seasons of Business Matter (And How to Recognize Yours)
00:32:08
We need to normalize this: not everyone is going to be going through the same season of business at the same time.
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It all comes down to choice, right? We often make decisions based on how we think someone else is going to feel, how we think someone else is going to react, how we think our audience will perceive it, how we think the Internet will react to it, how ads will respond to it, how people will buy, purchase behavior, etc. We're making decisions with all of these external factors. Welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turn to layoff and a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Settle in. It's time to talk strategy. This episode is brought to you by Marshalls, where you never have to compromise between quality and price. The buyers of Marshalls hustle hard working to bring you great deals on brand name and designer pieces because Marshalls believes everyone deserves access to the good stuff. Visit a Market Marshall store near you or shop online@marshalls.com youm're about to make a trade which you do, you listen to. Is it get optioning those options or let's do a little research. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart have you ever looked at someone else's business and thought why does everything seem to be working out for them? Well, I'm over here pulling wheats. Well, you're not alone. We need to normalize this. Not everyone is going to be going through the same season of business at the same time. I'd love to tell you that this was predictable, that we could just all follow the seasons of the year and match our energy to what's going on in nature. Like that sounds fantastic and in many ways would work because our bodies would be attuned to what's going on. However, that's not necessarily how life works and we have to be mindful of where we're at and where we're going and what we can give in this season. By the end of this episode, you're going to be able to recognize the season that you're in and and I'm gonna give you permission to Be in it instead of fighting against it. I'm gonna help you make some smarter operational decisions because of it. So I hope you're ready. We were made to believe that we were supposed to be hustling all the time, that we were constantly supposed to be growing, that our business was supposed to go up like a jackknife and really do incredibly well, regardless of of who we are, what's going on in our world, and what next distraction pops up. Instead of you constantly being in go mode, I want to help you identify the season you're in that represents the energy you have to get. It's going to help you identify how your business is feeling, how you want it to function, and how it's going to grow through this moment in time. Now, while I think there's definitely more nuances to this and probably more than four buckets that we could put this into, I do think four help us at least get us close to where we're at. And so I like thinking of sort of an illustrative kind of way, the first season being a planting season where we're laying the groundwork and we're testing things and we're coming up with new ideas and we're building or rebuilding. But it's all the foundational things that happen inside your business. And I don't just mean when your business is starting. I think it's easy to think if you're laying the groundwork that's just the first year of your business or something like that. But anytime we're bringing something new to life, you do have to have a planting season first, especially when it's big, because the next season can get really heavy and feel like it takes a ton of energy from you and probably the most of all the four seasons that I'm going to talk about today. And that's a growing season where we're expanding our visibility, we're marketing heavily, we're generating demand for what we have to do. A launch would fit into this growing season, and when we're there, if we're not energetically aligned with that, it's going to feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. It is going to feel so against everything we have going on that it's going to feel impossible, and you're likely not going to perform as well as you could if you were prepared for a growing season. I think a lot of people assume that growing seasons are their favorite because it's challenging and it puts these new obstacles that they can overcome in front of them. But I would Venture to guess that the majority of people don't actually prefer a growing season. They prefer a harvesting season where you're reaping the results and optimizing systems and maintaining momentum, and you are getting to benefit from all the hard work you've already put in, all the planning, all the execution, all the effort. Right. And that's usually followed by a season that people tend to be the most resistant to. And it's a season of rest where we're pausing and reflecting and we're simplifying and we're even letting things die off, which can feel really counterintuitive. But there is no better season. There is no, this is the best season to be in, and you should be in this season. The majority of the time. We really are trying to focus more on alignment so that we don't become resistant to where we're at and what we're trying to accomplish. If we don't wrap our heads around this, that internal pressure to always be in growth mode is just going to haunt us. Because we think if things like slow down, we assume something's going wrong. But sometimes that's exactly what you need. I've heard several people describe this sort of situation like a slingshot, where in order to get to the big results and leap forward, you often have to pull back and actually do less than you've done before so that you have the energy to catapult forward. And it can feel really resistant. It can feel really challenging because it's kind of going against your instincts sometimes. But our instincts are trying to keep us safe. And so doing less when we know we have to make money and we want to create a sustainable business is obviously going to feel instinctively dangerous. But you have to learn to trust yourself. You have to believe that you are making the right decision for you in the season that you're in. You just have to. You have to believe in yourself. And if you're having mindset issues, then we need to start there. We really need to get your mindset right before you can even decide where you're at and really set yourself up for success. That slowing down doesn't have to be a negative thing. You can actually use this as a strategy. You're not stagnating. You are giving yourself the peace and the energy and the rest you need to go to really launch forward. Now, if I were to think back over the years and find some seasons where I was kind of going against the grain and doing things that weren't in alignment with where I was, I would find Many, many examples. The issue is not that you are going against it. The issue is when you have awareness, like the awareness comes to you that you're going against the season and that you don't do anything about it. I think it's okay to make mistakes. I think it's okay to try too hard in a challenging season. I think it's okay to make some decisions that feel off. That is not a problem. You didn't mess up. It wasn't a failure. However, I do think you need to recognize what's happening so that when that awareness comes about, you can see, oh, now I know why. Now I know why that felt so off. Now I know why I didn't want to do that thing. Now I know why. Right. And when you have that, now I know why, instead of just continuing to trudge through it, you have to make changes. You have to make changes. Even recently. Even recently. Guys, I had a season where I knew I needed to be resting, but I wanted to be growing because I felt like that was going to give me better odds at getting a better book deal. Which sounds, it's not stupid. Like it makes sense. Like having a bigger list, having more active social channels, having all of these things will result in more money. That's just period, end of story, right? But my life and my health were not allowing that to be true. And initially I was going against it. So much so that I was in the middle of purchasing another business. Like, we'd started contracts. Well, we, we had started negotiations, we had came to a verbal agreement, we started contracts. I really wanted to proceed with the deal. Like I had every intention of moving forward. And everything in my body was like, what are you doing? And it wasn't because the deal was bad. I think it would have been really easy in years past to think, oh, the deal's sour. Like, I shouldn't be buying that business. There's something wrong here. But it wasn't that at all. I very well plan to, when I'm feeling in a more settled place, come back to that opportunity and see if it's right for me then. Because I think the business is fantastic or I wouldn't have even considered buying in the first place. But I had to recognize that adding that other thing was going to be my tipping point. Like, if I added that to my plate in the season that I'm in, I would have gone completely non functional because I was already spread thin, because I was already going through a lot, because I already had a lot on my plate. And I didn't want to disappoint other people. I didn't want to let the other business owner down. I didn't want to let my spouse down. I obviously want the best deal possible for this book that I'm writing. I wanted to make sure everyone else was happy. And I was miserable. I was crying every day. I was stressed. I didn't know how it was all going to come together. I didn't. And I remember sitting down with my spouse, we were kind of talking through the options of, like, we could do this, we could do that, we could do this, we could do that. And he asked me the question, well, what. What can you set down? Because you have all of these things on your plate. What. What can you actually set down? And I didn't have a lot of options for what I could set down. A lot of the things were outside of my control at that point. Like, we were already in it. And so if I had limited options of things to set down, I had to consider, am I going to keep resisting this thing, or am I going to set down what I can? And I think years ago I would have said, nope, I'm pushing through. I'm going to make it happen. I can do all of it. I'm Superwoman. I am so capable. I would have absolutely manipulated myself and gaslit myself and said it was going to be just fine. But when I tell you the relief I felt when I set that down, it was immeasurable. Immeasurable. And I know it's going to lead to better outcomes in these other areas of my life because I listen to my body and I listen to what I needed in this moment, in this time. And you're going to be faced with similar challenges. It might not be deciding to buy a business or not, but you're going to have something that comes up that's going to feel so exciting and so enticing and so invigorating and so like, your dreams come true. Right? And sometimes that's gonna be a hell yes. That's gonna be a go forward that's gonna be run towards this thing. But I've. I've heard this saying that if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. And I think sometimes in business, that needs to be something we're thinking about more often. If it's not a hell yes, are you really going to show up in the way that it needs to have you show up for it to perform the way you want it to perform, or are you just going to go through the motions and then still be disappointed at the end because you couldn't give it the oomph it really needed. Want to learn exactly, step by step how to get paid to generate leads in your business? I'm ready to give you the exact steps that help me generate tens of thousands of qualified leads and millions in low ticket digital product sales. I won't just show you what I did, but teach you how you can do it too. I'm talking not just how to create low ticket digital products, but also showing you how to use them strategically to generate leads for your other existing or future offers. I'm sharing it all@bossproject.com jumpstart including exactly how I made $8033 and generated 277 leads my very first month selling digital products. Find out more at bossproject.com jumpstart when did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp Message Privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com Curious how I've added nearly 10,000 subscribers to my email list in just six months. Well, 9,528 to be exact. I want to share all of my strategies, all of my marketing, all of the behind the scenes with you. Head to bossproject.com leads right now to get this case study completely for free. That's bossproject.com les on the other side, there's going to be a super quick two minute survey and I want to hear more from you about your current struggles with email marketing and what has you super excited to build an email list. Filling this out helps me deliver more quality content like this case study right here. So grab your copy. Now fill out that quick survey at Boss Project Adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules but behave as if they do not exist. New Teen the new fragrance by Miu M. Defined by you we all are going to need quieter seasons. Whether it's because you got burned out or something shifted in your life, or something you couldn't have predicted came along, you're Going to need that. Rest is required. If you look at nature, I think it's such a good example of what is necessary. There's always, always going to be that season where everything dies off and everything becomes quiet and animals go in hibernation and things slow down and the sun out is out less and there's less output. Right. Nature teaches us that this is normal. And yet by the sheer invention of the light bulb, we think we need to be doing more for more hours in the day. Actually heard something super crazy that I'd never heard of before last night that talked about natural sleep cycles and how many, many, many, many years ago, before electricity, I couldn't tell you what century this was in. They would have two sleeps a night, two sleeps in the same night. They would go to bed when the sun went down, and then somewhere around midnight, they would wake up for a few hours. And this is where they would journal and write and become creative and potentially do things with their partners and have conversations for several hours in the middle of the night. And then they would go back to bed and they'd wake up at dawn. And there's theories out there, and they haven't been able to prove it yet, of whether that's actually a more natural thing for us to do or not. But I think it's so ironic because even in that you're following the natural kind of cadence of the day, but even the acts of doing things by the moonlight, those are going to be more restful activities, even if you are not asleep. So I want you to be thinking about how can this season be restful, but you're still doing things. I think the reason we become resistant to rest is we think that means we have to do nothing, that we just have to let it all go, that we have to just put absolutely everything down, that we can't maintain anything. And that's just not. That's just not how that works. That's just not how that works. There's still things that are happening. They're just slower pace, they're less energy, they take less of what you have to give. And so if nature is doing that, what would that look like for you? Because rest is restorative for a reason. It all comes down to choice, right? We often make decisions based on how we think someone else is going to feel, how we think someone else is going to react, how we think our audience will perceive it, how we think the Internet will react to it, how ads will respond to it, how people will buy, purchase, behavior, et cetera. We're making decisions with all of these external factors. But I encourage you to make more decisions based on your factors. Your internal things that you have going on, the things that are affecting you and your mindset and your energy levels and the way in which you can show up. Because you're always allowed to change your mind. You've just convinced yourself that once you've made a decision that you can't alter your direction. That being said, I do know there's plenty of people out there that are constantly in the mind changing game where they make a decision and they're constantly pivoting out of fear. That is not what I'm talking about here. If you're like, yeah, I can set that thing down, okay, are you doing it because you need to be in a season of rest, or are you doing it because you're scared of the outcome, or you're scared you'll be judged, or you're scared, whatever. If there's fear involved. That's not what I'm talking about. If you are sure of yourself and you know what you need and you're resisting that, that's the problem. Because you can change your mind, you can change your business model. I can't tell you how many times throughout this business I've actually changed the way I have sold entirely to match the season of life that I was in. Because while these things are cyclical and we can have these seasons come up for us in kind of various points in our life, in our business, some of that is going to happen on a short time frame. Like I'm in a planting season for the next 60 days. Okay, great. With the plan to shift into a growing season after that. Amazing. I plan to harvest next spring. Great. Okay. However, yes, yes, yes and yes. And there are sometimes seasons that sort of overlap with all of that that are just based on bigger things that are happening in your life. And so, for example, when I was in my car accident and suffered my traumatic brain injury, I had planting and growing and harvesting and resting seasons after that happened. But the way I planted, the way I grew, the way I harvested, the way I rested varied based on this bigger trajectory. And I think we need to be mindful that not every growing season is going to look the same. Sometimes we have a lot to give. We have a lot of time, we have a lot of energy, we have a lot of resources, and sometimes we have a little. And that doesn't make it better or worse. It just makes it different. And so that's a good opportunity to look at okay, if I have this thing that's sort of a longer trajectory for me, how might my model need to shift to better match the pace I can actually keep the pace I can actually maintain? We're not trying to do more than we're capable of. We're not trying to put more out there than we can ever sustain. We are trying to match that energy as much as possible. But we'll sometimes go through this period where we're shifting down. Like imagine you're driving a car. A stick shift. I've never effectively driven a stick shift. My mom tried to teach me when I was young and I was very bad at it and I haven't tried again since. But I do know the concept, right? So imagine you're shifting down, right? You're going from third gear to first. I'm pretty sure you start and like the higher the gear, the faster you go. It doesn't matter. Just, just, just roll with me, right? So you're downshifting. If we're downshifting, we can change everything that is necessary when we're downshifting. And it can feel strange because sometimes that means letting go of offers, letting go of social platforms we've put time and energy into. It could be reducing expenses, it could be changing our goals. But all of that pruning is both normal and it's going to create space for something new again. I don't know how much you know about plants, but my husband's a landscape architect and you trim at least twice a year. And there's seasons where that makes sense and seasons where if you did it in this moment, you would actually hurt the plant. And so you have to know when it makes sense and when it's destructive. That's for you to judge, not for me to judge. But pruning can be something that's really restorative and helps the long term growth of your business. I want you to be really intentional about where you're going forward. And so I want you to reflect on this a little bit. What's currently feeling effortless? What is making you feel drained, or are you forcing it? What are you craving more or less of? Are you in a phase of creation, maintenance or redefinition? This isn't a time to judge. This isn't a time to make decisions. Right now, we're just naming it. We're creating that awareness. We don't have to fix it right this second. We just have to become naturally aware of what's happening kind of in our views. Right? Because when we live out of sync when we try harvesting, when we should be planting or resting, when we need momentum like that, mismatch is not going to give us the fruits of our labor that we want. Awareness is that first act of alignment. And once we have that, that's when we can go into the fine tuning and focus on what's going to make sense. What adjustments, practical adjustments do we need to make in this season? Like if you're planting some alignment things could be focusing on research and development, testing offers, focusing on list growth, audience building, simplifying your revenue streams, creating more stability if you're growing, leveraging systems, hiring strategically ramping up visibility, focusing on repeatable marketing and sales processes. If you're harvesting, double down on what's working. Create evergreen systems prep for automation reduce live launches if you're resting, audit, reflect, let go update sops Consider a rebrand Reimagine your way forward. This is where you're going to protect your mental bandwidth and avoid the shiny object pressure. Success is not constant motion. Every day the sun sets and then it rises, but it's going to set again every single day. That rest is necessary. And it doesn't mean you won't come back. More often than not that resting season is the most productive in hindsight. It's where you get clarity. It's where your creativity comes back. You don't have to chase this. You don't have to stress yourself out trying to figure it out. You just need to honor your rhythm. If you wake up today and you're not feeling it, what are you feeling? What do you need? How can you do more of that? I want to give you a little bit of a path forward and leave you with some clarity. I encourage you to either journal or potentially have a discussion with a biz bestie or a partner or a friend and talk about what season you're in right now and what it would actually look like to stop fighting it. I encourage you to share your reflections. Share them on social media. Share them with your community. Share them with the people in your life. And if you do choose to share on social, I'd love if you'd tag me and tell me more about it or drop me a DM over at Abigail Says. Even if all you do is take a screenshot and share this on social and just write the season you're in. Just say planting or growing or harvesting or resting. That will be you claiming it. You can do this. I know you can. You've gotten this far and I know you figuring this out is only going to help you get further in the future. Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me Abigail says and bossproject so we can share it. Okay. Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from BossProject. I'd love if you'd join my VA VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me if you'd leave a rating and review. It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.