Suzanne Chadwick 0:00
Hey, lovelies, welcome back to the podcast, we're diving into another episode. And this is a conversation that I am having all of the time. And so I really wanted to have it on the podcast. Today, I was recording a live as I was recording this Podcast, episode two. But I think this is a really important conversation for us to have. Because the last thing I want is for you to create habits in your business that don't serve the future you and the future business that you want to create. So that is what we're talking about today. One of the episodes that I really wanted to do, because I'm constantly having this conversation with clients, is about honoring the time that you block for yourself in your business, treating your business, like your best client, and prioritizing the work that you need to do in order to grow your business and take it further. So if that sounds like something that you struggle with me know. So recently, I had a conversation with a client. And she said to me, Suze, I block out time for myself, because I'm a big one for locking and blocking. So if you want to grow your business, you've got to invest the time in it. You know, it's like anything else. If you want to grow your brand, you've got to invest the time in it. If you want to grow your business, you've got to invest the time in if you want to sell more, then you've got to invest more time in marketing. So whatever it is that you want to grow and develop, whether it's a skill in your business or an outcome that you want, then you've got to invest the time in it. So one of my clients were saying to me, Suze, I block out time in my diary for my projects for things that I want to do. But then I move them. And every time I block it out, I move it. And so we were having a discussion about why that is. And it's not uncommon that when you block out time in your diary for yourself, that you move it, yes. So does anybody do that? Yeah. Because a lot of people tell me they do that. And you've got to really ask yourself, what is it that you're trying to achieve by giving yourself that time, and it's going back to the whole, you're robbing your future self of the growth, the revenue, the opportunities that you want to have in your business, when you don't commit time to it now, and there will always be other things that you can do. There's always busy work, there's always, you know, definitely clients where you can be working on their, their work as well. But the question is, are you actually investing the time to grow your business in the way that you want? And so I said to her, if you're constantly moving, your diary invites for work that you want to do for yourself, then you've got to ask yourself, why is it because you don't see the work that you're doing for your own business as important? Is it because you're like, I can't be bothered? Is there a fear there, that if you do the work, then something good or bad is gonna happen? Like, actually stop and ask yourself, why you're not honoring the time and the commitment that you're making to yourself to do the thing in your business that you really want to do. And, and you've got to kind of sit with that and figure it out. The other thing I said to her is that sometimes visual cues can really help us to stick with things that we want to do. So for example, if you want to go for a walk every day, then putting your runners by the door or laying out your workout gear. If you want to honor the time that you're blocking out in your diary. Then I said to her, I actually want you to write in the calendar invite that you have in your diary for yourself. And it says, I'm going to do it for myself. It says Sue's you are not allowed to move this diary, invite you this is for your future self do not cancel this. So sometimes we've got to talk to ourselves and remind ourselves why we're doing it and ensure that we don't cancel it. Yeah, have accountability to ourselves. So I just said to her, write that in your diary Sue's you're not let him move this calendar invite this is for you to get X project done. If we don't get it done. Now, when are we going to get it done. And then put like a note next to your computer monitor that says I honor the time that I booked for myself. I am going to commit the time to take my business forward to have time for strategic thinking to invest time in my team to work on building the course to work on building my brand to work on whatever it is the sales page that I've been wanting to get out there. So it's really easy because it's the easier thing to do to work on somebody else's business, it's actually not always the easy thing for us to work on our own business, because then we've got to make decisions. And we've got to sit and do some of the work that maybe we don't enjoy doing, which could be writing particular things. And so I just really want you to ask yourself, How can I start to become a business owner, who sees their businesses, their best client, and I remember somebody saying this to me years ago, like such a long time ago, treat your business like your best client, honor the time that you book out for yourself, like, understand that that time is for your future self, and that this is actually going to help you to grow your business, and get your business to where you want it to be. And if you are finding resistance, if you are finding that you're not, like you're canceling that time, then you've actually got to stop. And you've got to ask yourself, why. Because what you could be doing, if you continue to cancel appointments you've booked for yourself is that you could be creating a habit in your business, that is actually going to be a little bit detrimental to the future of your business, if you constantly put put your business to the side. And so really just make a decision about I'm a CEO, who commit to learning new skills to take my business forward. I'm a CEO who honors the time that I booked into my diary for myself, I'm the kind of CEO who has that strategic thinking time, and I love it. And I'm gonna get really good at it. And even though sometimes it's uncomfortable, I'm still going to do it. And so just think about like how you want to lead in your business as well. And I did a podcast episode A while ago, on the CEO and leaders mindset, if you haven't listened to that, then definitely go and check that out. But I just think that you get to decide how you want to show up in your business and having those thoughts, you know, that thought management, which I talk about all the time in the morning, of this is how I want to show up and this is what I want to do means that hopefully you're going to actually follow through on it. So anything that you're not following through on in your business, you've actually got to stop yourself and ask yourself the questions. Why? Because until you like figure that out, it's gonna be really hard for you to work through it and start to make those habits, better habits that help your business to grow. It's kind of like the five simple business buckets that I talk about all the time and you can grab it in my LinkedIn bio, the training and the download for it. But it is just that consistent work that you do it is consistently building your brand like me jumping on a live this morning, me report recording the podcast, me recording a video this morning for Tik Tok, like it's 10 past nine, as I'm doing this right now. And for me, I've kind of tick the box off. Have I shown up? Have I given value? Have I shown my face? Have I connected with some new people so that I can really start to have more relationships and have more conversations? Because at the end of the day, your business is about people recalling you? Yeah, because remember, what's brand strength? brand strength is somebody who recalls you. They know who you are, they know your face, they know your name. And what you really want is you kind of want to build a brand that lives rent free in your community and your customers minds. That's my goal.

I'm like, How can I help my clients and my community to think differently? How can I show up on the regular so that they like you know somebody something, Susie, somebody who is consistent with how she shows up. Because when you do that when you honor the time to build your brand, when you make it simple for yourself. Like I said, I've done doing podcasts alive, and I did a tick tock this morning. And it's all done in like 15 minutes. When you make it easy for yourself, then you help to build your brand recall in your audience's mind because they see you on the regular. And so you've got to ask yourself, are you doing that you don't need to be doing all the things I just want to take a step back on that. You don't need to be doing all the things you could just be doing one thing really well. But how are you showing up and committing the time to your business and your brand? And can I just remind you like you are your brand's ambassador. And so if you're not showing up, I'm guessing nobody else is showing up to promote your business. Nobody else is showing up to build your brand. Nobody else is showing up to connect with your audience and have conversations with them and ask them questions and engage with them. Are they if you've got somebody doing that then you know well done to you but most business owners don't have that. So you've got to ask yourself, How do I become my best brand ambassador for my business? How do I become the person that gets out of their own way to learn the skills and be in the sock and be okay with being in the sock for a period of time, until like, because I know that the more that I do it, the more confident I'm going to become. So when you treat your business like your best client, when you treat your business and you show up as the brand ambassador, then I can guarantee you it will have a cumulative cumulative effect. It will be something that people are thinking about, it will be something that, you know, people remember as well, because they're seeing you so often and I remember saying this years ago, is that your brain doesn't know the difference between online and in real life. And so if you see me every day, it's going to feel like you'll see me in real life everyday as well. Or if you're listening to me on the regular as then it's going to feel like yeah, like I just spoke to Suze or I just heard from Suze yesterday. So I just want you to think about there's a couple of questions here. Number one, how can you make the decision to make your business your best client? What would that look like? If you had the best client? What would be the things that you would be doing for them? Number two, is how do you honor the commitments that you make to yourself when you block the diary? How do you hold that time for yourself and make sure that you get the projects done that are going to move your business forward? That you build a habit of honoring that time and not moving it for other things or other people? Asking yourself how do I become my business's best ambassador? Like how do I become my business's best brand ambassador? How am I showing up and making it easy for myself to build my brand connect with more people? And then just really think about how you are connecting with your audience in new and different ways and having those conversations yeah.