Suzanne Chadwick
Hey, lovely, welcome back to the podcast. Amazing to have you here. I am just back from two weeks in Bali, which was amazing. First time that we've gone there. I loved it. Apart from the traffic, everything is fan tastic. So we will definitely be going back. And I have to tell you, my lovely business friend, Erica Reitman, who I've had on the podcast before, she always talks about the million dollar CEO mindset, and creating million dollar CEO mindset experiences and things like that. And I have to say, I did feel like that when I was in Bali, because it was my husband's very special birthday. And we really went all out. We hired a villa, private villa for the first week that was fully staffed by Bali family villas shout out to them. And we had this incredible staff and we had a chef and we had a 24 hour Butler. And it was just so Luxe, and amazing. And we felt so special. And then when we went to the Hilton in Nusa Dua for our second week, I thought I just booked like a two bedroom room. But what we ended up in was the Presidential Suite. So we were once again feeling very, very locks and loving it. And I just kept saying to myself, This is my norm, this is totally normal. This is how we are this is how we live. And this is what I want to be able to expect as well. And so just really lapping it all up was pretty amazing. I'm not gonna lie. I could get used to this. I love that my kids are just like, this is their norm, which sometimes worries me. But anyway, you know, I'm sure when you were a kid, I don't know about you. But I never traveled overseas when I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't do a lot of things. But you know, it was still lovely. And I love my childhood. But yeah, I do have to laugh sometimes at my kids when they're in these five star presidential suite experiences private villas, and they're like, Yeah, whatevs. This is just normal. But anyway, it is good to be back, I have to say that I have felt like I have been in a bit of a business fog. For the last six or so months, I came out of q4, with a lot of negative thoughts and some negative experiences. And I kind of carried them over which was not ideal. But I feel like this holiday has really cleared the cobwebs cleared the fog, and I am feeling very clear on what it is that I am focusing on. And I just think you know, something, you just always have ups and downs in business, you can be flying high, business can be booming, things can be great. And then you make decisions, you do things, you make mistakes, and you have dips, and you've just got to ride them out. I was talking to a client about it today on a coaching call where you know, when you get to choose to have the business that you want to have the time that you want to have, you know the work that you want, you can't expect to have that all happen without heartbeats. And so I just think that with the good and the amazingness of business also comes the choice that a lot of times, it can be hard as well. And you don't get one without the other. Anybody that says that business is always easy, and fun and amazing is telling you lies, I'm just gonna say it. And I think it's really important to talk about I shared when I was over in Bali that I was listening to a podcast by Brooke Castillo, which I think it was called success is hard. And it's just that sometimes when we don't always share the fact that business can be hard as well as it can be amazing, then people just think that it's always amazing. And so I think it's really important. One of my business values is honesty and integrity. And so sharing the good with the bad, I think is really important. And so I'm already starting to craft some of the lessons that I've learned in the last 12 months from mistakes and failures and experiences and all the rest of it that I will absolutely be sharing with you because I always find it really valuable when my mentors share things that have gone wrong for them and just feeling like oh my gosh, it's not just me like this is totally part of the entrepreneurial life. The UPS the downs, the good, the bad and all the rest of it. But anyway, I'm feeling amazing after my belly Holliday, raring and ready to go. And today I want to talk about creating a lean and clean business because that is what I'm focusing on right now. It's what I'm helping my clients to do. It's about having a business that feels great. That works well, that's profitable. And that doesn't isn't clotted. Yeah, we'd like minimalist business, not harder businesses. So I'm just gonna say it. But listen, I'm going to be sharing with you some of the things that I'm going to be focusing on over the next couple of weeks and months, as well. And hopefully, these are some things you can think about whether you do them in your business, too. So without further ado, let's dive into this week's episode.

So what I want to do is share with you, I guess, five things that we're doing in the business and how you can potentially do this as well. One of the things that I'm really focused on is having a lean, clean business, because I feel like when you have a lean clean business, it's easier to see where things might be going wrong, or what you can improve on. And so it just makes it easier for you to be able to get the results that you want in your business, if you've got a lot going on, then it can be really hard to see the wood from the trees and understand what you need to change, evolve, get rid of all the rest of it. And so that's something that I teach my clients, it's something I talk about, it's something that I use as a practice in my business as well. And so I want to take you through a few different things. Now before we dive into the five things that I'm kind of focusing on and how you can potentially do it in your own business. And actually think the things that I'm going to share with you today, every single business, no matter whether your product service, whatever business you are, these are just standard things that I think are really important for you to take a look at, think about and really nailing your business as well. And can I just say I'm always working on this. So there's never like in, you know, I got their tick and have ended discussion. Like I'm always working on this. But the first thing that I just want to talk about before we dive into that is really tapping into how your business feels for you. So I'm going to ask you, how does your business feel? Does it feel hard? Does it feel heavy? Does it feel simple? Does it feel easy? Does it feel streamlined? And I think just really naming it, I was actually on a dislike a coffee call with a group of entrepreneurial women. And we were talking about resistance. So for example, what have you been resisting lightly. And it was really interesting that the conversation that we had, I just said that, you know, when I listened to other people, they're like, I'm just really resisting, you know, doing sales or reaching out to my audience, because I'm just really busy. And, you know, I've just got a lot on, and it just feels like a lot to do. And that's not really naming why you're in resistance. So I'm just using this as an example. But I feel like it's the same when I asked you how does your business feel? Sometimes people can be like, it just feels hard. And it's like, okay, well, why does it feel hard? Like what elements of it feel hard. And so sometimes it's so worth taking the time to name it, it feels hard, because I don't know how to sell or it feels hard because I don't understand the systems or it feels hard, because I don't actually know what's working. And so when you can start to name, how your business feels like what is it about your business, it's either feeling good or bad or otherwise, and you can start to drill down into it, then you can start to fix the problems that you might be experiencing. So for example, if I say my business just feels really heavy at the moment, or what is it feel heavy? Well, it feels heavy, because I feel like I have to do everything. Okay, so if I feel like I have to do everything, is there an opportunity for me to decide, either to outsource the things that I don't want to do? Or do I need to get rid of some things that I shouldn't be focusing on? So I'll give you a really quick example. And I'm going to talk about this a little bit later, is that I've kind of got like many products in my business so I've got the bold speakers collective courageously, you simple sales, podcast brand plan. Now I don't actively, like do launches for those. They're sitting there. But in my mind, I'm like, I'm not promoting them. I'm not marketing them. And so if I'm not marketing them, I've got products and services sitting there that I'm not selling. And so the question is, okay, well Sue's do that feels heavy. So do you want to sell them? Well? Yeah, I do. But do you want to market them separately to BBA? unamplified? No I don't. Okay, so these are the options you either get your VA to set up a marketing schedule for those individuals small products, otherwise As you just roll those products into your other courses, as bonuses or as additional content that people get, and then you just clear the decks, so that the only thing that is available for people to opt into by do with you is BBA and amplify. Now to me, that feels really great. So that's one of the decisions that I'm making. But it's only when you name it as in my business feels heavy, or it feels like you know, not where I want it to be, or it feels whatever, because of these things that you can start to make decisions about how you change it. So that's the first thing I'm going to ask you. How does your business feel? Does it feel easy? Does it feel simple? Does it feel streamlined? Does it feel heavy? Does it feel hard? And then I want you to drill down as to what exactly that means? What bits of it feel the way that you are saying it feels? Does it feel like you know, what's going on? And do you know how to affect and change what's happening in your business. So I think this is the other thing, and one of the things that we talk about in VBA a lot, because obviously within VBA, it's about you learning the foundations of running a business really, it's about learning how you set your brand strategy, your business strategy, how you understand how to manage money, so that you're managing it, well, you're paying yourself etc. And so if you don't know how to run your business, if you don't know, the key elements that you can look at to say, am I running it well? Am I doing the things that I need to do in order to grow the business in order to market what I've got in order to get more sales, etc, then it's going to be really hard for you to affect change, it's going to be hard for you to understand what needs to change what your numbers and metrics mean, which we're going to talk about. But just understanding those things, I think is really important. So the first question is, how does your business we'll name it. The second question is, do you feel like you know how to affect change in your business? So that's really understanding how a business runs? And what are the shifts and gears and levers that you need to push and pull in order to make things happen? Yeah, and so I think that those are just two things that when we talk about creating a lean and clean business, I want it to feel clean. And I want it to also be lean, so you can affect it. And it feels really good. And so years ago, I've shared this as part of my brand story, I did a massive cleanup, we have lots of products and services, I got rid of 80% made the business feel lean, clean, profitable. So we're back there. So we're kind of back there. Yeah. So the bold speakers collective I've had for quite a while I put it online, actually, like when we went into COVID as well. I've had it as bonuses, which has been great. But I don't really do that much speaker coaching anymore. And so it's a great program, but I'm gonna roll it into amplify. And when we have a speakers retreat that I usually give that as a bonus as well, because it's relevant. But when I take a look at the podcast brand plan, and also courageously you, they were really somebody else said to me, you need like lower priced products. And so I created those, and they're great. But do I want to continuously sell them on their own? Not really, I just want to focus on BBA and amplify. And so I just really want you to think about, like, what does your service product and service landscape look like? And what do you need to potentially clean up for it to feel clean and lean to you as well. And so that's just the first thing is really tapping into your business feels your business energy, really thinking about? How could I clean this up? What needs to be cleaned up? And how can I start to really make my business feel like something that I'm excited about? And it does what I want it to do? Yeah. So those are just the fields that I want to start with first. So let's dive into the five things that we're doing at the moment that I think is worth every single business doing. The first one is actually like an email cleanup. And so I have really been working on my email messaging, my email content, I want my email to be part of my coaching. Yes. So like I said before, if you're not signed up, then make sure you get assists chadwick.com forward slash subscribe, because I really want to be sharing more in depth content, like what I'm sharing here on the podcast, going into more coaching detail going into more business detail on my emails so that it's like incredible value for you. And so, one of the things that we're doing is the email cleanup so we've got, you know, several 1000 People on our email list, we're about to do a big scrub where we're probably going to be getting rid of about 3000 off the list. And I just want to share the thought around this too because a lot of people might kind of feel like Oh, that feels like you're getting rid of like so many people, but these are people who have either unsubscribed their email bounced so they put the wrong email in there unconfirmed. So

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