Suzanne Chadwick 0:00
Welcome to the brand builders lab podcast. I'm your host Chadwick certified business and mindset coach, author and speaker each week we'll be talking about simple but powerful business and mindset strategies that will help you build a lean, clean and profitable business so you can learn to get out of your own way and pay yourself more more. Forget average, it's time to level up. Hey, lovelies, welcome back to the podcast. awesome to have you here. If I sound a little nasally, I am dealing with hay fever today. So you get my my nasally sexy voice for today's book. Anyway, today, I wanted to have a conversation about what to do when business gets quiet. So I've had a couple of clients in different coaching containers share with me that either businesses become quite quiet, or they're just kind of hearing a lot about, you know, people not spending money, etc. So I really wanted to address it today in a very positive way, and give you some practical things to think about and do. And so today's episode around what to do when business gets quiet, I'm going to split into three different things. We're gonna talk about mindset, actions, and practice. But listen, we're just gonna dive straight into today's episode. So that you can think about this if it's something that you're feeling and experiencing. Now, before we dive in, the first thing that I want to say is that I am a very conscious about who I listened to. And what I listened to. And so this kind of falls into mindset is that I don't really watch the news that much, I might read a paper, I generally know what's going on in the world. But I don't actually sit and dedicate half an hour or an hour to watching the news. And I'll tell you why. Because I just recognize it as all of the worst things in the world are being told to me for an hour. And I think that you've really got to decide what you allow in and what you block out, you know, based on where you're at and what you need at the time. And it's not about not being up to date with what's happening in the world. But it's about doing it in a way that works for you. So the first thing is that if things are a bit quiet in your business, to really catch the thoughts around it. So when it's quiet, what are the first things that you're thinking, you're thinking, Oh, my gosh, like, I'm not going to get any business, nobody's spending money bla bla bla, bla, I'm not going to perpetuate them here in this podcast and reiterate them, that would be not the point of this podcast. But I really want you to decide what you're allowing in and what your what thoughts, you're allowing to dominate at the moment, and deciding what thoughts you want to have. And the reason I say that is because you will go into fight flight or freeze. So when we experienced with a negative situation, like what we feel might be happening in the market, we will either go into flight where we will avoid. So we'll just avoid it, we'll hope that if we don't look, then it'll figure itself out, we'll go into freeze mode where we'll just do nothing. Otherwise, we'll go into fight mode, which is what I would highly encourage you to do. So for example, when the market gets quiet or when I get quiet, then I'm like, okay, great. What are the projects that I really want to do that I think could help me increase my leads that maybe I've not had time for in the past? What are the things that I want to make better? What is what's the help that I might need right now? What are the things that I can think of that could help me right now in this moment? And so those are the thoughts that I'm having, it's all about stepping up to the plate and being somebody who is a problem solver, somebody who is like a, you know, never say die kind of person, and somebody who is willing to think outside the box, and know that I can figure out the best way in order to move the business forward, whether the markets up or down. You know, there's somebody who talks about mindset a lot. I think the one thing that you've always got to remember and that I hope you get when you listen to this podcast is the fact that these are skills that you can build. These are mindset traits. These are ways of being that are like a muscle that you can build. The bottom line is is that business is always going to be a roller coaster. So there's always going to be times where it's amazing and feels easy and businesses flowing. And there'll be other times where it's a lot harder. And I just want to say this and I feel like I've said it before but even people who have got multimillion dollar businesses who you know when we look at it's just like wow, they're just killing it. And I love the fact that they share that not everything always goes their way. But they have tough times as well, that they have failures. And so I just think in general, as business owners, this is about you building the muscle of resilience. This is about you building the muscle of, I know what to do when things are not going my way I know what to do when things get tough. I know what to do when business is quiet. Like I have a strategy or I have a way of being or I have a thing that I go to, which is that resilience, problem solving fight mode of right. Okay, what do we need to understand here? What is happening in the market? Do we need to, you know, shift our offer? Do we need to make a little bit of a different offer? Do we need to, like speak to our clients more? Do we need to go back and do other things? Like, what is the mindset here that I want to have? How can I set myself up for success? When things are hard, and when things are easy? And not just being somebody who is a fairweather person where it's like, oh, well, you know, as long as things are easy, then business is good, and I'm okay. But then you don't really have a plan of how you're going to be. And we're talking about mindset right now, how you're going to be how you're going to act, what you're going to do, when things might reduce as far as the number of clients revenue, etc, goes. So that's the first thing that I want to say is, mind your space. Decide on what you want to do, and how you want to be in this moment, decide on the mindset that you're going to choose, because that'll determine the next thing that we're speaking about, which is all about the actions. So now that you've got your mindset sorted, and you're ready to go bigger on the things that you're doing, let's talk about what those actions could look like, as well. So hopefully, you've got a bit of a strategy around different elements in your business. You know, I talked about this all the time. So seeing where you're at with that, I think is the first thing. So for example, for us, we've got a strategy around what we want to do for the year, what are the things that we're selling? What are the, you know, things that we want to grow and build, etc. And so just checking in on the strategy that you've got, and then seeing where it's falling short. So if you have your business strategy, where you're like, Okay, this is what we're going to sell. This is how many we need to sell in order to hit the goals that we've got. And you're not there, then it's really taking a look at what have we done? And how has that worked? And what do we need to tweak and change? And what do we need to increase and do differently? Like, what did we think was gonna happen? And then where are we with it? Because you've got to remember business is a hypothesis. It's a test, which is why this is called the brand builders lab, because you can have a strategy that could work really well at one point in time, but then the market might change, and it might need to be tweaked. So I think just really knowing well, What was I expecting? What am I doing and what isn't, isn't working is the first thing. The second thing is drilling that down and saying, Okay, so let's say we're in May now, the end of financial year here in Australia is the end of June. And so when I take a look at, say, my profit and loss for the current financial year, where am I at? And what kind of revenue do I want to generate in the next six weeks before the end of the financial year? Now, obviously, we want to be doing this all the time. But just looking at that and saying, Okay, is there anything that I can do right now, we're coming into the end of financial year, this was something that I shared in my heartbeat community this morning was just around. We're coming into end of financial year, what's your strategy? And if things are quiet at the moment, then now's a great time to think about, okay, what are the offers that I could make? What is something different that I could do? What is a new way of marketing that I could potentially, like be testing out and trying here? And I think that really looking at okay, for the month? What's my strategy, then? What does that look like for the week? And

then what does that look like on a day to day element is important. So for example, for me right now we've got our Mei BBA bonus bundle. And so we've got like $1,000 worth of bonuses that we're offering right now I did it, you know, just before the end of financial year, even though it's aligned with end of financial year, and wanted to increase the number of clients that we've got coming into BBA as well. And so, talk about it on the podcast, doing social things, doing webinars, you know, just looking at different elements doing ads for it. And so looking at different elements of what is the all of the activity that we're generating around this particular offer. And I think this is something that when I listen to clients, it's something that they miss. They're like, well, I've got this offer, and I've put it out there. And I'm like, Yeah, but what are all the, you know, what's your marketing? Octopus? What are the different ways that you're going to be marketing it. So like I just said, we've got, we've just done some webinars where you can get that webinar on replay. We're doing social posts, I'm doing stories and videos, we're doing some ads for it. We're emailing our list about it. I'll be doing some lives with it. And so it's not just about having an offer. It's about thinking about how am I bringing the energy to that offer? How am I, you know, really putting it out there in a bigger way. Because I know that when I post something 10 times, people might only see it twice. So just really understanding how the market works and making sure that you're connecting with your dif potentially different audiences in different places, and doing it on a consistent basis over a period of time, so that they're not just seeing at once. And then also really looking at the low hanging fruit. So to me low hanging fruit could be things like old clients. So if you have clients where it's repeat business, the question is, could you be connecting with some of those older clients to say, is there anything that you've got at the moment that you need help with, we're coming into the end of financial year, I've got this offer on I wanted to let you know, reaching out to the community and say, Hey, guys, you know, is there anybody that needs this particular product or service, I am making this offer at the moment. And just having that low hanging fruit that you can access and go to as your first port of call, I think is really important. And just being really savvy with the offers that you make to like, when you understand your audience really well, then you can make offers that are meeting them where they're at? Yeah, so I want you to think about that. And the second thing that I wanted to talk about with action is really understanding your lead flow. So leads are people who are actively coming to you to work with you. Now, for me, I've got a number of different lead activities that we've got in the business, you know, we've just got the active ones, which means that it's me showing up being visible connecting with new people. It's things like live webinars, it seems like evergreen as well, where we've got people who are signing up specifically for this thing that I'm teaching or that I'm sharing. And so I know that that's something that they want that something they want to get better at that something that they want to learn. And so I think just really being clear in your own mind about what it is that you are offering, and what is bringing new eyeballs, new people into your list, your email list, and how you're communicating with them as well. So if things are a bit quiet, then I really want to ask you, what are you offering? Like, what are you offering? Where are you offering? And how often are you offering it. And if you're like Suze will, I've got an offer, but I don't really share it. And I don't really have a strategy around how I'm putting it out there. That's a problem. Like, that's not the best way to run a business. And so, you know, if you're somebody and I've got a client who gets lots of referrals, and she's pretty much fully booked. And so that's not something she needs to be thinking about all the time, it is definitely something that needs to be as a part of her strategy. But it's really, if you don't have, you know, constant referrals coming into you, or you need to be going out and getting leads, then you've really got to think about how are you doing that? And then the last thing is really around practice. Yeah, so professional practices. So checking in on your regular practices, you know, do you have a solid marketing and sales strategy? Like we were just talking about? Where are leads coming from? What are you doing with the leads that you get? What are you doing around your visibility, and so whether the market is up or down, I think that there is just a way of doing business, that you decide what that is for you. Like, I'm not going to tell you what's going to work best for you. I can give you some of the core things that I think are going to definitely help you to increase the number of people that are seeing you understanding what it is that you do and how you help them. But I think that it is about the common practices and the day to day practices that all accumulate to help you to achieve the goals that you want. And so if you have got really great practices in place systems and strategies in place, I'm going to bundle that in with practices. Then even when the market does get quiet and things This might reduce a little bit for you, it doesn't mean that it just goes dead. It means that you've still got people coming to you still got things happening for you, you still got things that you can go out and get and make happen as well. And so common things are, you know, having a an attraction strategy that is on autopilot. I am also setting up ads for BVC because we want to increase the number of clients coming through and doing content shoots. And so really focusing in on particular things, I'm working with somebody to redo some of our funnels and take a look at, you know, what is our small priced offer? And then what are our upsells, etc, how can they be better. And so the practices that you have kind of sit within asset optimization, which I talked about, and that I'm going to be talking more about when it comes to the three stages of business. But I think that you know, when you are in that, consolidate and elevate, and actually I'm even going to say you can start to do this really well when you in the build and test is to start to set up practices, where you have common things that are done on the regular every single either day, week or month, where you know that by doing that thing, it is going to grow your brand, it's going to grow your business, and it's gonna give you the best chance. And I think that's the thing is that when you don't show up, like if you go into freeze or flight, you are not giving yourself the best chance of having the success that you want of having the clients that you want of building and growing the business that you want, and bringing in the revenue that you want. And I even said to my husband the other day, I'm like, I really want to massively increase my revenue in the next 12 months. Do I care what's happening in the market? No, I know that people are spending money, my thinking around it is that I am a big believer that when the market is a little tighter, it's the people who show up the most. It's the people who connect with their audience the most. It's the people who make great offers. They're the ones who are the people who have the money. That's where they're spending the money. Like I know people who are in my circle, who are having some of their biggest months, who are whose businesses are consistently growing. Now they are very active, they are out there building their business growing their business. And I just think we've just got to have an honest conversation about it. It's not something that just happens, it's not something that if you do nothing, then business is going to come to you. As a business owner and CEO, you've got to be actively going out there and getting what it is that you want, assessing what's going on in your business, and then making sure that you are doing the work upping the ante, like really going after the results that you want to have in your business. And so creating practices that help you to do that are so important. So that's just what I wanted to share with you today. When business gets quiet. Think about your mindset, your actions and the practices that you create. And if you can nail those three things, whether business is up or down, then I think that you will be the one who wins when things get a bit quieter. If you've got any questions, let me know if you need more help. Come and join me in brandbuilders Academy and you can get coaching on the regular with me you can be part of, you know this energy that I want to bring to you and help you to continue to build and grow your business. We'll see you next time on the podcast.