Suzanne Chadwick 0:00
Hey, hey, welcome back to the podcast. awesome to have you here. Today I wanted to share a live that I did, I did write it for the podcast, I did it as a live too. All about the ups and downs in business. It's a conversation I'm having quite a bit. And so I wanted to share some thoughts that I have about how you can manage that in your business and be prepared for it. Because I think preparing ourselves for when things are good. And preparing ourselves when things are not as good is really important and having that foresight to be prepared for it as well. So that is what today's podcast episode is all about. I hope that you're doing well. And I hope that life is good. Just wanting to let you know that now's a great time to join BBA, anytime is a great time to join BBA, we are updating all of the content now. And so make sure you head to CS chadwick.com forward slash BBA. If you want to perfect for this podcast, get your business set up and prepared to have longevity, to have the foundations in place. And to make sure that you are managing your money, you're managing your sales, you're managing your marketing, you're managing yourself in your business in a really productive and profitable way. So just wanting to invite you to come over and hang out with us in BBA and learn how you can build a profitable business without the burnout. Listen, without further ado, let's dive into this week's episode. A conversation that I have been having a lot in my mastermind groups is the ups and downs of business and how you can start to navigate them as well. I think that, you know there is some noise coming out of the US about you know, the business world going up and down. I thought it was worth having a chat this morning about the ups and downs of business. Let me know how you're feeling about business at the moment. Do you feel like it's business as usual? Are you finding that things are up things are down in between coming into Christmas? I think that it's it's really interesting. And so I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts that I had with you on how you can navigate the ups and downs of business and how you can have the mindset around managing that. Because at the end of the day, if you're going to be in business for a long time, which hopefully all of us are, then we're going to go through this roller coaster of the ups and downs, sometimes you're going to be booming business is going to be amazing, you're going to have loads of clients. And other times it's going to be really quiet. And so it's just really about how do you set your business up so that it can navigate when things might be a little bit slower or a little bit lower than what they normally are as well. If you've got any questions during this live, then just hit the little button for ask a question, or just drop it in the comments. And I will try and catch it as well. But when it comes to the ups and downs of business, I think the first thing that I would just say is money management. And if you followed me for a while you know that I talk about this all the time when I came into the entrepreneurial space, one of the things that I spoke to so many women about was I guess the lack of education around managing money in business, and how to be really savvy with it. And so when you're managing money well in your business, then it means that during lean times, you're totally fine. Yeah, because you've already thought about it ahead of time. And so for me some of the things that we like to think about and talk about with my clients is having like three months plus worth of operating expenses saved in your OP x your operating expenses bank account, yes, it's fine to save in your business. I almost want to put that out there. If you're not saving in your business, and you're kind of banking, enough money for you to if you didn't have sales for three months, would you still be able to run your business? If you didn't have sales for four or five months? Would you still be able to run your business the way it is now. And so becoming really savvy with that is really important as well. So really thinking about whether you save money. The other thing I talk about a lot is paying yourself forward. So when you get a windfall when times are really good in business, then you're banking that in your pay account, and then you're paying yourself forward with it. And so making sure that you are looking after yourself financially in your business, I think is a really important thing. And just thinking that I'm going to save this for a rainy day. I'm going to pay myself now but I'm also going to bank it I'm going to save it I'm gonna save for that rainy day when I may not have a bumper month or I might go on holidays, yeah. Or I might just decide that I need a bit of a break. And so you can't have those breaks in your business if you're not managing your money in a really savvy way as well. And then obviously, always saving for tags. So I just paid a really big tax bill this week, which was, you know, never it's never fun. But I'm also like, Yeah, it's fine. I've got it there. And so when we're talking about the ups and downs of business, I think that money management and being really financially savvy, is one of the most important things and it's something I want to talk about more I feel like I talk about it all the time. But I also want it to become a conversation that we're really open about, and that we're able to have these, you know, have open conversations about as well. I think the other thing when it comes to the ups and downs of business is really making sure that you're selling to your clients current needs based on what's happening in the market as well. And so I was talking with a client yesterday, we were having a session. And I was just talking about whether the message that she's sharing with her audience is one that really speaks to who her client is. Now, I kind of did a funny reel yesterday, which was a Snoop Dogg audio about who I am. And I shared what my clients really value about me, you can go and use that same audio and play with that. But I think it's really important for us to be able to name describe, talk to our ideal client. And I feel like when people hear ideal client, they switch off. It's like, Yeah, I've heard that before. But what is it that your ideal client is feeling right now? And how are you naming and claiming them so that they're like, Oh, she's speaking to me. And I think that when the market gets noisy, and when the market has a little bit of a downturn, it's the people who speak directly to their audience in a very, like, knowing way, like, I know exactly who you are, I know exactly what you want. And I know what's happening for you right now, at this moment in time, that rise above the noise. And so if you're just sharing the same message over and over again, consistency is really good. But Relevancy is even more important. So I'm just gonna say that good. Again, consistency is good. Relevancy is more important. So there's no point being consistent with a message that's not connecting with your audience at a deeper level. And so us being in contact with our clients as having the conversation, what are you struggling with right now? How are you feeling about what's going on in the market? You know,

what are things that I can help you with more right now? Those sorts of questions which are open ended, and not yes or no, not closed questions, can give you a lot of information about how you can be selling to your audience right now. And how you can really speak to them about what it is they need. And so when the market is sometimes I'm not saying it is here in Australia, but when the market is in a downturn, then we have to be more relevant. And it's such an important thing. And so how are you having more of those conversations? And what are your clients telling you as well. And then the third thing that I think is really important when it comes to the ups and downs of business, is that you need to be agile. And so one of the conversations that I'm having in my mastermind is in the one that I'm in, and a lot of those businesses are like multi six, seven figure businesses that have been around for 10 years. So they're not flashes in the pan. They're like tried, true, tested, been around for a long time. They're really talking about how do we take what we've already got right now? And how do we maybe adjust it to what we think our market wants. So for example, one of my mastermind, colleagues, she's had a like a year long program, and now she's only offering it for eight weeks, obviously, the price has come down, but then the support and the cost has come down as well. And so when you take a look at your products and services, is there a way to be more agile with them? Is there a way to take them and offer them in a different way and just test it out? I think sometimes we get a bit stuck in, this is what I do. And this is how I do it. And it's okay for us to shift and change things as well. And for us to test out different methods and models of how we want to run our business, how we want to charge how we want to deliver our services, and our products too. So if you are finding that you're not selling as much, or you're finding that it's just not as busy as usual, I really want you to think about obviously, that you've got the money bank for yourself for the rainy day that you're speaking to your clients current needs in a way that really connects with them in a deeper way. And then also just being really agile in business. You know, can you change the payment plans? Like I've got a podcast episode Coming up, that is instead of being affordable, be more accessible. So it's not about dropping prices. But it could be about giving your audience and your customers a different like you could pay over 12 months instead of over three months. Yes, so the price stays the same, but it just gives them the access to the product or service in a way that can really work for them. So I really want you to be thinking about how do I think bigger? How do I think differently? How can I shift and change what I'm doing without constantly creating more products and services, but really being agile and creative with the products and services that I have at the moment as well? And I'm actually going to throw this out there? Do you need to raise your prices, so that you're pricing yourself out of the weeds and the noise of the market in order to elevate your brand and stand out? Now some people would just be like, Oh my gosh, I would like if business is like not booming, and it's not busy, I'm not going to raise my price as soon as well. The question is, is that depending on what it is that you do the people who are looking for your service, they may be looking to invest more to get more service to get higher touch to get more support, rather than getting something that there's like a million of them. Yes. So if you sell something, and there's a lot of people that sell the same thing, I'm just gonna bend your brain a little bit and challenge you to think a little bit differently. And just say what would happen if you raise your prices, and you ended up with people who are like, actually, I want more of you. And I want the opportunity to work with you. And so I'm happy to pay more for it. And I think sometimes we don't do that as well. I'm just going to come up. So econ profit code, Relevancy is something you speak about in play big brand bold, love the book. Thank you. Yeah, it is. And I'm always going to talk about relevancy, because that's where we have to constantly be evolving and changing our message. And how we're connecting with our audience, is that the market is always changing. You know, as I'm doing this live, it's now November 2022. But at the beginning of 2023, the market, the market may change as well. And what what we've had in the last few years is different to what we've got now. So how have you changed? How have you changed what you're doing? What you're talking about? What you're offering, how you're offering it? Are you giving your clients more accessibility? To what it is that you're doing? Are you having real, really great conversations with them. And I think that this is something that I talk about a lot, because I don't think enough people do it. And if you are not selling what you've got, then you've got to really look at what you're doing and how you're doing it. And it's not about putting your head in the sand and saying nobody's buying the markets, not good. People don't have money. We're coming up to Christmas. Yeah, people aren't buying because it's Christmas time. And that's just not true. Yeah. And I also want you to think about if you are, you could be a service or a product based business, obviously product based businesses during Christmas, that could be a really peak seasonal time for them. But I also want you to think as a service based business, is there an opportunity for me to offer my service as a Christmas present, to my audience to help them think differently, maybe they don't need another Christmas present. That is this particular thing. Maybe they want to improve their mind, maybe they want to get their family to support them to get a coach or get somebody to help them do something else like with their website, or their copy or whatever it is. And so I think that we have to educate our audience as well on what the opportunity is to work with us, and how they can maybe think about it a little bit differently. Like I have to say I said to it's my birthday this month, and obviously Christmas is coming up too. And my husband said to me, what do you want for your birthday and for Christmas? And I'm like, I just don't need stuff like I do not need another thing. I either want experiences, or I want like I want to learn something new, a dev. And so I just really want you to think about how are you educating your audience to say, Have you thought about buying this the experience this product or this service, as a Christmas present? Yeah, as a Christmas present or as a birthday present. And so really getting creative and educating your audience on how else they can think about purchasing from you as well I think is like a really smart thing to do. And yesterday in VBA in our Facebook group, I was asking all of my clients like when was the last time you marketed yourself. This is a conversation that we have a bit because we then BBA I teach the memos with ISM, which is a monthly energized marketing offers and so on. There's lots of different ways that you can market yourself. And, you know, some people were saying I market myself twice. And I feel like a broken record. And I feel like I'm over selling. And I'm just like, twice is not a lot. And so it's, it's about the different ways. Yeah, it's about the different ways that you can market yourself. And I'm just going to be really honest, right now I'm in the thick of magnetic mastery, which is the live event, I need to make sure that we're selling the tickets. So we're getting bums on seats, so we're getting creative with it. I went down to the venue yesterday, show it so I showed like the venue because people buy with their eyes, never forget that

people buy with their eyes. And so if you are not showing, and how you can show if you're a service based business, you can show through testimonials, you can show through screenshots of clients results, you can show through screenshots of you coaching a client, if you're a product based business, you already know that you know your product, the look and feel of it is important, but also showing like you talking about it or you showing how you're creating it, things like that. So we buy with our eyes, Desire comes from what we see as well. And so if I see it, and I can see the process of it, and I can see other people doing it, and I can see how happy other people are. That's amazing. So I've just asked a group of my amplify clients to do video testimonials for me why? Because we buy with our eyes. Yeah, we buy with what we see with what we hear. And so you've really got to access all of your clients and your audience sensors in order to build desire. So desire takes a lot of different senses. I want to see it, I want to smell it, I want to hear it, I want to feel it. And when I have those sensors, and obviously you can't always do all online, but the more that you can connect with your audience around their sensory decision making, the more you build desire for them. Yeah. So I just want you to really think about how you can do that. And so when it comes to selling especially, we're just talking today about the ups and downs of business. When it comes to selling you've got to think about and get super creative with the different ways that you sell. Yeah, so I sell through I call it story selling, which is come and see come along for the ride, come and check it out. Yeah, what other things could you do that could help people who are sitting like on the fence about buying something coming to something doing something? Is there something that could make it a like a great decision for them. So for me with magnetic mastery, we've got goodie bags that we're creating as well. But for me, it's all about the quality, not the quantity. So I want like really beautiful like less, but high quality stuff. And then I've also thrown in like somebody will also get a 90 minute strategy session with me, I'll do a random draw of everybody that's bought their magnetic mastery ticket. And you know, we've got gorgeous things that are happening at the event. And so you've your audience is only going to know what you're offering, if you tell them and a lot of times when I speak to clients, they assume that their clients know all of the amazing things that they're going to get. And so I really want you to sit down. And I want you to think about all of the actual, like the practical things that you're like, right to lists, all the practical things that your clients get when they buy from you. And then all of the emotional things that they get when they buy from you. And then I want you to ask yourself, are you selling both? Are you selling both, because that's what will make you stand out because everybody's like, here's my thing, buy it. But if I say, when you buy this, you will spend the day in an incredible environment, you will connect with people who might become your business besties, you will walk away with a magnetic message that you feel so incredibly passionate and connected to that you

can't help but sell it. And you will spend the day in beautiful environment where you will get to work on your business and not in your business. And you will feel amazing at the end of it, you'll walk away trusting yourself. Like you can either sell the thing, or you can sell the opportunity and the outcome and the desire and the wow factor of the thing. So just know that when you are in a market where you might be competing, I'm just gonna say the C word competing against other people around what people are buying. You've got to think differently. You've got to think bigger as well. Yeah, I'm just gonna come up into the comments. Deb says love this idea and supporting local small businesses rather than the big chains. Yeah, absolutely. And so you've got to think about like that's a values alignment as well, isn't it Deb? So I just really want you to think about what's the value alignment that so we're talking about? These are the benefits of buying my product. This is the emotional out outcomes of buying my product. And what's the values alignment here. So if you're somebody who wants to support small business, if you're somebody who loves high quality handcrafted things, if you're somebody who, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, then that is the value alignment selling as well. And so in a more competitive market, really tapping into somebody's values, I think that comes back to one of the earlier points that I made, which is really knowing your audience super well. So that you know that actually, this is something that they really value, this is something that they really want. And so by me selling the benefits of the product, the emotional outcomes and the values alignment, that's like what you that's, that's the perfect combination as well. And so bunches of sales says how can we attract higher paying clients. So a bunch of the style, I always say that in order to attract higher paying clients, your brand has to be positioned at a higher level, My example is always the same, I'm not going to walk into Chanel and ask for something that costs $5. And I'm not going to go into Kmart and expect to pay 5000. So if you want to attract higher paying clients, you have to be a higher quality brand or business. And so you've got to take a look at if you want to charge, I don't know, let's just say $5,000, for something, then when I come to your website, I need to feel like I'm getting I'm like, that's where I'm at. If I read your copy, I need to feel that's where it's at. When I look at your content, I need to feel that's where it's at. At the end of the day, from a sales psychology perspective, people make decisions within three to five seconds as to what they think they will pay for what you have. And so you've got to look at your business with a critical eye, you've got to look at your business and say, if I was somebody else, and I was looking at all of this, do I think that I would pay X amount. And also just the quality of like, how you show up what you talk about, etc, will make a big difference to what people are willing to pay for what it is that you have, you've got to be able to sell, like I said, the the benefits and the emotional and the values. And then you've got to position yourself at the Chanel level if you want to. If you want to be if you want to work with high paying clients, then make sure that you look and feel and sound and it works in a way where they're like I like I know that this is going to be a great investment as well. And so I have work to do since bunches of stuff. And that's okay, you know, something I feel like and I you know, this is my journey as well, when I started my business nine years ago, and it was a side hustle, and I wasn't sure it was going to be a thing I created like my branding on PicMonkey or something. It was terrible. Yeah. Because I was like, I don't know if this is a thing or not. But let me just say, and then over the years, as the business has grown, as I've become really clear on who I am, who I serve, what I offer, then my branding, how am I brand position has gone up. And so it is something that can be an evolution, like unless you come in all guns blazing, you know, and you're like, I know exactly what my brand is, I know where it's going to be positioned, I know what my pricing is, etc, then sometimes it can take time to get there as well. And so I just want you to know that you're not alone. And that you can absolutely shift your brand position to start to charge more. But I think you've got to start to really think differently. Yeah, I think that I think that if you are looking at other businesses, and you're thinking, if I just make my business like that, then it'll work, then that's just not true at all. So you've got to come from a place of differentiation, like what's different about you, you've got to show up to build trust, and you've got to build the relationship. And you've just got to think about how can I do this in a really different way as well. So I'm just going to come back to the comments. The Grateful awakening, thank you so much for sharing these insights definitely has me thinking yeah, absolutely. And so that's what I always I just always want you to be thinking I always want to challenge you to think bigger, to play bigger to connect with your audience on a much deeper level. You know, I'm planning out a, it's like a savvy sales bootcamp is what I think I'm going to call it. But one of the things that I'm really talking about is interaction marketing, and I am all about interaction marketing. Yeah. And relationship. Marketing is one of those things. And so I think it's just really important for us to start to think about, who am I interacting with? How am I interacting with them? What's the conversations I'm having? Am I caring at a deeper level and also being unattached? And so what that means is that We need to have many balls in the air, you've got to become a juggler, when you're a small business owner, you've got to become a juggler. And so you need to have multiple sales balls in the air, you've got to think about, if one person says no, you've got to have another five people who are potentially going to say yes, or 10 people that are gonna say yes. And so that's like the oldest sales thing ever is that you never want to rely on one thing, like, even when I was in consulting, and we were doing like 50, or $100,000 deals, I always had, like 10 people that I was at the beginning of my conversation with and then I had another 10 people that I was, like meeting with. And then I had another 10 people where we were in the sales process, because at the end of the day, only one or two or three of those might come off, depending on what your price point is, and what you sell, only, you know, one or two of those might come off. And so you've got to make sure that you're always building those interactions, you're always building those relationships in order to make sure that you're selling and you're getting the revenue in that you want to get in as well. You know, and I talk about this in brand builders Academy, which is going to be the bold, bold Business Academy in 2023. I talk about this all the time. And so it's really important for you to understand your sales process. And for you to be able to manage it well. Yes. So that is what today's live is all about. I am literally recording it on the podcast as I do this live because repurposing, but that's what we've been through today. So if you've missed this live, I'm going to repost it here, but also come across to the brand builders lab podcast. And you'll be able to listen to that and a lot of other content as well. But what we went through today is around the ups and downs of business and managing that the first thing is becoming a incredible money manager. Yeah, but the second thing that we talked about was making sure that you're selling to your clients current needs, and really having amazing conversations with them and being relevant. Yes, relevancy beats consistency, just constantly being consistent with the wrong message. This is not going to help you. So relevancy over consistency, but put them together and you've got a powerful combination. The third thing was being agile in your business think of different ways. Yeah, it's not about affordable, it's about accessible. So how can you be more accessible to your audience? How can you get creative with what you've got, and sell it in a different way to? And then we ended up talking a whole lot about sales, which I hadn't planned on, but all good, I always love talking about it. So I hope that that helped. Amy, you're so welcome. I can talk about this stuff all day, I've got to jump and go get on my AMPLIFi coaching call. But if you do want to find out more about how you can really manage your money, your sales, your marketing your mindset, well, then definitely check out BBA. And come and join us because I talk about this stuff all the time as well. Well, that's it for another week. It has been amazing to have you here as always, and remember to follow me on all socials at Suzanne Chadwick. But thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, then I would love you to leave a review so that others can find the podcast and come and hang out with us every week. Until next time, have an awesome week and make sure you keep playing big and branding bold.

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