Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / When You Hate Your Business

Transcript

When You Hate Your Business · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

0:00
3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff, Ending small business failure.
0:11
Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
0:17
Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
0:21
you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
0:25
Now here's the small biz lady herself.
0:29
Melinda Emerson.
0:31
Hi, everybody.
0:32
I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
0:34
I wanna invite you to enter the small business chat podcast giveaway contest for the next 30
0:39
days starting today.
0:41
You'll have the chance to win amazing prizes if you subscribe to the podcast.
0:45
All you need to do is take a screenshot after you've subscribed to the small fish chat
0:49
podcast and tag me, small fish lady, on Twitter or Instagram.
0:54
Once a week, I'll select a winner and you have a chance to win one of my autograph books
0:58
become your own boss in 12 months or fix your business or you might even get a chance to win
1:02
one of my limited edition small business chat podcast t shirts.
1:06
Don't delay.
1:07
Subscribe to the small business chat podcast today.
1:16
Emerson, the small business lady, and I'm so excited to be back with you on the small
1:20
business chat podcast.
1:21
Today, I'm gonna be talking about kind of a sore subject for people, but it's the reality.
1:28
And it's when you come to the point that you hate your business.
1:32
I've been there guys.
1:33
I've been there.
1:34
I remember when I hated my job before I started my business.
1:38
I can remember getting in my car in the morning and getting a headache driving to work because
1:45
I hated being there that much.
1:47
Like, it was a toxic environment that I worked in and I didn't work with nice people, and
1:53
everybody just was, you know, mean and kinda always played the blame game.
1:58
Nobody was mentoring anybody.
1:59
Nobody was supporting anybody.
2:01
It was just an awful place to work.
2:04
And I was in my mid twenties, and I was like, man, if I stay around here, I'm actually
2:10
actually gonna start acting like all these people in here.
2:13
So I was brave.
2:14
I went out and twenty six years old.
2:18
I had a laptop, a fax machine, and a dream.
2:21
Okay.
2:21
So that's how long ago I had a fax machine.
2:24
That's that's how long ago it was, but literally, I started my business because I knew
2:31
that I was meant to do more than what I was doing at my job.
2:35
And I was working for people who did not appreciate me.
2:38
And I was like, look, I know that there's something else I can do to make money other
2:42
than this.
2:42
This is crazy.
2:43
So went out and you know, started grinding.
2:47
Started hustling.
2:48
Started calling people, printed up business cards.
2:51
I was out at events two, three times a week.
2:54
I wanted to build a great business.
2:57
And I did, but I also built a business that turned me into an absolute crazy workaholic
3:05
lady.
3:06
I mean, I worked 7 days a week.
3:08
I would leave church on Sunday, and go to my office and work 3 or 4 more hours after
3:14
service.
3:15
And and it's because early on in my business, I convinced myself that my value proposition,
3:22
like, that my secret sauce was that we we would just go out work people.
3:25
That that was my idea.
3:27
And and I and I thought that was okay.
3:30
And interestingly enough along the way, I got pregnant with my son 6, 7 years into my
3:36
business.
3:37
And I had to stop.
3:38
I ended up I was 32.
3:41
I ended up with a higher pregnancy.
3:43
They thought my child had a heart condition, sent me home, bed rest, and Wi Fi was not
3:48
everywhere yet.
3:50
So it wasn't like I was able to keep working.
3:52
I couldn't keep working like I had been working, and it was the first time I had ever
3:58
stopped long enough to sort of, like, think about working on my business as opposed to in
4:04
my business.
4:04
And I have to tell you when I had to stop so that I could bring my baby here, At first, it
4:10
was like the worst thing in the world.
4:11
Like, I was like, oh my god.
4:12
I was never ever cut out to be somebody, stay at home, wife, or stay at home mom.
4:16
It was an awful experience.
4:18
But then when I sat back to appreciate the situation I was in, number 1, I was bringing
4:24
forth an amazing life.
4:26
And and that was important, but 2, I had to sit back and look at what my life had become.
4:32
I was a raging workaholic.
4:34
Yeah.
4:34
It was a success.
4:36
But I wasn't really happy.
4:38
My marriage wasn't good.
4:40
My business was doing good, but that was the only good thing about me that my business was
4:44
doing good.
4:45
And I was like, wow, when I was sitting at home laying on my couch in my living room, and and I
4:51
have to tell you guys, I was also very, very sick.
4:54
When I was pregnant, like, I was sick.
4:57
I had morning sickness probably into my 7th month of pregnancy.
5:03
I was so sick that I, I think I barely gained £23 the whole time I was pregnant.
5:09
Yeah.
5:09
That's another story I gained on my weight after I had my baby, but my point was is that I
5:15
had to think about my life And when I thought about the business and my life that I had
5:22
created for myself, I hated it.
5:24
I did not love that business anymore.
5:28
And that business was the the the most important thing to me in the whole world.
5:33
And all of a sudden, I was like, I can't live like this.
5:37
I can't work like this anymore.
5:38
When this baby gets here, I'm not gonna wanna work 7 days a week anymore.
5:43
And so that was how I got to the revelation of of hating my business.
5:50
And I never thought it would happen to me because I love being an entrepreneur.
5:55
I love being a successful young woman entrepreneur.
5:57
I love being top 30 leaders of the future in America and top fifty women in business in
6:01
Pennsylvania and, like, I loved all that stuff.
6:04
And then all of a sudden, when I finally had to stop, and realized that I was waking up every
6:09
day in a race for whatever craziness that was going on, that I had become almost like an
6:14
adrenaline junkie for drama and confusion.
6:16
And And that's how I was running my business.
6:19
And I know that some of you out here listening to me right now, I know that that's what's
6:25
happening to you.
6:26
I know that that's what you're doing.
6:27
You're working.
6:28
You're working so hard, and you probably have gotten to the point where that business that
6:34
you use, that job that you used to hate, you probably had thought about going back there or
6:40
maybe going and getting another one or What are you gonna do now?
6:43
Because you don't love doing this business.
6:45
Well, I'm gonna give you a formula of some things that you can think about.
6:50
Because I know what it is to have too many bad days in a row.
6:55
I know what it is to have a high turn with your employees.
6:59
And, you know, start getting a bunch of customer complaints or, you know, y'all bad
7:05
reviews and you know, I know what it is to look up all of a sudden and realize that you have a
7:10
room full of doers working for you, but you don't have anybody in your whole business
7:14
thinking how your business makes money other than you.
7:18
And that is a really scary place to be.
7:21
When you realize you're the only person in your business thinking about how your business makes
7:26
money.
7:26
That means you know you're exhausted falling in the bed every day, and it's just like this
7:32
constant pressure that's on you, you gotta make it happen.
7:35
You gotta figure out how to make money to pay all these people, pay the rent.
7:39
Pay the the loans back.
7:41
And it, you know, and then on top of that, you do have business, but then you got constant
7:47
cash flow problems because You got customers that aren't paying you on time on a very
7:53
regular basis, or you have multiple customers not paying you All of these things are
8:00
stressful.
8:01
And and they can damage your health.
8:03
They can damage your relationships.
8:05
They can damage your self esteem.
8:07
I mean, I have a very good buddy, Barry Moltzu, is been on this podcast, and he talks about how
8:13
he believes that he has diabetes right now today because of the level of stress he had in
8:19
his first two businesses.
8:20
And and I I think that there That's real.
8:23
You know, cortisol flowing through your body is bad.
8:26
That is not what we want.
8:28
And if you're living on a constant diet of bull crap stress.
8:33
That is what you're doing to yourself.
8:35
You're killing yourself.
8:36
I mean, there's too many small business out owners out here.
8:39
You know, having heart attacks and stuff because running a business is hard.
8:44
You know, you don't know what you don't know about running a business, and it is tough.
8:49
So one of the things that we wanna think about is just how you can develop systems and things
8:56
in your business so that you can fall back in love with your business because that's really
9:01
what I want for you.
9:02
And I actually have developed a little system to help you kinda think about if your business
9:09
is going the wrong direction, you probably know why.
9:12
And so it's about making the decision that you're ready to to tighten things up.
9:18
I mean, like, you really have to make the decision that that troublesome employee that
9:23
you know is a pain in the butt that is a £800 gorilla that antagonizes everyone else working
9:29
for you.
9:30
You have to make decisions that you're finally ready to go for them.
9:33
And that you're willing to do the work to do a new job description, to put it out there, to
9:38
screen applicants, to interview people, like, that you're willing to go through all the work
9:43
to get rid of that headache.
9:45
Or, you know, you got too many solar plane customers.
9:48
You know, you gotta start firing them and get new ones that value you more that value you
9:53
enough to pay you on time.
9:55
And that's a hard thing too because that's a scary thing.
9:57
And when you talk about fire customers, you're like, woah, wait a minute.
10:00
But you have to realize that you can only take so much.
10:04
And everybody's money isn't good money if they're if they're not good to you.
10:09
And so you know, I know as a business owner, sometimes we stay in bad relationships because
10:14
we don't have time to break up.
10:15
No.
10:16
I want you to make time.
10:18
To break up with anybody that is antagonizing you and making it harder for you to do
10:23
business.
10:23
So that's so that's the first thing I want you to think about.
10:25
But then, I also want you to think about why did you start your business?
10:30
And then once you kinda get back to that, then I want you to think about why should you still
10:37
be running it because you really need to get to an honest answer there.
10:42
Are you still running this business because you don't know what else to do?
10:45
Are you still running this business?
10:46
Because you're so leveraged.
10:47
You can't even punt if you wanted to because you're too leveraged in debt.
10:52
Are you still running this business because you actually have something to contribute to your
10:57
industry and to your customer's business?
11:00
Why are you still running this business?
11:02
Get clear about that because it is really, really important.
11:06
Then look at your look at your people issues in your business because Let me tell you
11:11
something, guys.
11:12
50% of all business problems are not so well hidden personal problems.
11:17
So if you are having problems with your staff, I'd be willing to bet it has something to do
11:22
with how you're relating to them, how you're interacting with them.
11:25
You know, first of all, sometimes we don't hire staff when we need them.
11:29
And then when we do hire people, we tend to hire the wrong people.
11:34
Right?
11:34
Your cousin that needs a job, that's not the right person.
11:37
Give him a check.
11:38
Do not give him a job.
11:39
I'm gonna do another podcast later on about working with people that you love or people in
11:45
your family because I I've got a whole thing.
11:47
I think about that, but you wanna make sure that you're hiring the best possible candidates
11:52
for any job.
11:53
But then you also wanna make sure that you're actually taking the time to train people,
11:57
because what happens to us, we're so busy.
11:59
We're running this business.
12:00
We're doing ten jobs at one time.
12:02
We'll hire somebody and then be like, give them the keys and say, good luck.
12:06
Like, we don't take the time to onboard people and train people and stuff.
12:09
And that's really bad.
12:11
You wanna make sure that you're spending time with your new employees, particularly your
12:14
millennial employees.
12:15
You wanna make sure that you completely showed them how you want things done.
12:21
So then when they don't do that, borrowing them is a really short conversation because they'll
12:26
know that they haven't done it the small biz lady way.
12:30
They'll know.
12:31
So it is a short conversation.
12:33
So that's the kind of thing you wanna think about.
12:35
But the other thing too is You have to think about what is it like to work for you?
12:41
You know, are you a good boss?
12:42
What is your leadership style?
12:44
Are you talking to people like their little kids?
12:47
Are you treating them like adults?
12:48
Are you making them think, or are you thinking for everybody?
12:51
You know, so you wanna make sure that you are doing everything you can to have a nurturing
12:58
environment in your business.
12:59
And you set the culture.
13:00
You're the boss.
13:01
You come in late.
13:02
Everybody else don't think they're supposed to be late.
13:04
If you use mistakes as a way to browbeat people and talk down to them and treat them bad.
13:11
No nobody is gonna take any risks for you because it doesn't pay because you beat people
13:17
up.
13:17
You know, so you wanna make sure that, you know, everybody can't figure out what kind of
13:21
day you're having by how you're speaking to everybody.
13:23
You know?
13:23
And The other thing you wanna think about too is you wanna make sure that you're treating
13:28
your family, like your number one customers.
13:30
Like, you wanna make sure that you're not taking your days out on your family too because
13:34
that's a great way to hate your business and have your family hate your business because
13:39
your business always has you in a super bad mood.
13:42
So those are things that you wanna be thinking about as well.
13:45
And then you've gotta think about the money and how how you can make more money.
13:49
How can you make your business more profitable?
13:52
That certainly will help you fall back in your love fall back in love with your business again
13:56
if you figure out how you cannot feel like you're working for 10¢ on that dollar, but that
14:02
you're actually making money and able to pay yourself a regular paycheck.
14:07
Like, that's really, really important.
14:09
Too many of you guys out there still skipping paychecks and stuff because your businesses
14:14
aren't making enough money.
14:15
And it's because you're not focused on that.
14:17
You're not focused on selling and making sure your business is selling its most profitable
14:24
stuff.
14:24
Sometimes we're making sales, but we're making sales on stuff with our lowest margins.
14:28
You gotta focus on the things that are really making cash money.
14:32
Right?
14:32
So you wanna make sure that you're really focused on that and that you're staying on top
14:36
of your cash flow management and that you're automating as much stuff as you can.
14:40
You know, your invoices and stuff.
14:42
If your time is billable at $250 an hour, why would you be doing a $30 an hour work preparing
14:49
invoices?
14:50
Yeah.
14:50
That's not good.
14:51
You as the business owner, you gotta be working on the things closest to money every day.
14:55
Like, that should be your priority.
14:57
Even if you like building the widgets, pay somebody else younger to build the widgets so
15:02
that you could be out building the customers because that is your most valued activity.
15:06
So once you look at those things, I would say also too, look at your processes.
15:11
Do you have documented processes for how things running your business?
15:15
If you don't, I guarantee you that's 50% of what's making you hate your business.
15:21
So you need to make sure that you document your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly processes.
15:27
What how does your business run?
15:29
Because the other thing too is how are you ever gonna train anybody to work for you if you're
15:33
not documenting how your business runs, it's really, really important that you have
15:38
processes and systems for things in your business.
15:41
The other thing that you wanna do is look at your productivity.
15:47
Like, how could technology help your business run better.
15:51
And if you can't answer that question for yourself, it might be worth hiring someone who
15:56
could come in and help you look around your business and say, okay.
16:00
You know what?
16:01
You can automate that.
16:02
You know what?
16:03
You could have everybody out in the street with this app on their phone so you can make sure
16:07
people are delivering stuff on time and you can track things.
16:10
You know, you just wanna make sure that you're automating as much stuff as you can and that
16:16
you're not using paper when you could use an app for that.
16:19
And there's a lot of apps for that.
16:20
So if you guys head over to my website fix your business dot com.
16:24
I actually have a lot of different apps suggestions depending on where you are in your
16:28
business because I know the problem now is that they're so many apps or so many software CRM
16:33
stuff, a marker, an automation stuff, you don't know which one to pick.
16:37
So I've actually taken some time to give you a list of the software and things that I think
16:42
are really, you know, gonna serve you.
16:44
The other thing I want you to think about is performance and, like, what what are you guys
16:49
measuring in your business?
16:50
As a matter of fact, are you measuring anything in your business, right, because are you
16:55
looking at your Google analytics every month?
16:57
Are you at your email open rates, do you know what your cost per lead is?
17:02
Do you know what your cost per sale is?
17:05
Do you know exactly what your sales cycles typically are.
17:09
These are all things that you need to know.
17:11
I mean, certainly, if you're buying ads like, you know, paid ad campaigns online, you wanna
17:17
make sure that you are looking at all of that.
17:21
You know, otherwise, if you're not tracking the effectiveness of paid campaigns, you are doing
17:29
marketing that you're not measuring, which is tantamount to going into trash can, throwing
17:35
some money in it, and lighting it on fire.
17:37
I mean, that that's exactly the same thing you're doing because you're, like, just giving
17:41
money away.
17:41
And that same thing for, like, vendors and stuff you're using.
17:44
Like, you're using an SEO vendor or if you're using a copywriter that's writing sales phones
17:48
for you, how are those things converting?
17:50
If they're not converting or they can't show you track record on how they've helped other
17:54
people convert stuff.
17:56
Do not hire them.
17:57
I mean, it's just crazy.
17:58
Just don't do it.
17:59
Because, again, these are all things that'll make you hit your business, and I don't want
18:02
you to do that.
18:03
Want you to fall back in love with your business, so I want you kinda looking at stuff.
18:06
But I also want you to make sure that you're looking at your website.
18:09
We all know your website, your number one sales tool.
18:12
Well, let's talk about that.
18:13
Is your website ready for company?
18:15
Do you got your welcome mat out?
18:17
Do you have 2 or 3 ways to capture people's contact information?
18:21
You know, do you have traffic magnets to bring them to your website?
18:24
Are you publishing content on a regular basis so that your website is constantly updated?
18:30
You know, these are all things you need to be looking at and doing so that you can make sure
18:37
that your website Does your website load quickly from a mobile device?
18:41
All of these things are very, very important.
18:43
And you wanna be tracking that and really you wanna make sure that you are communicating with
18:48
your hosting company.
18:50
If things aren't loading quickly, you need to know why and is and it's something that you're
18:54
paying somebody to take care of.
18:55
So you wanna make sure that whoever's hosting your website, if your stuff is low and quickly,
19:01
they need to tell you why and make sure you're not make sure all your apps and stuff are, you
19:05
know, plugins and stuff are updated behind the hood of your website because that sometimes can
19:09
slow a website down too, but you just wanna make sure that you're doing everything you can
19:15
so that people can find you.
19:16
That is the key.
19:17
And, certainly, if you're a retailer, you gotta make sure you got the basic stuff directions,
19:23
hours of operation, click the call buttons.
19:25
You know, please don't make me wreck my car trying to call you so that I can find your
19:29
flower shop make sure it's right there.
19:32
Easy for me to find.
19:33
It's so this stuff is easy, but you're not doing it.
19:37
And that's why you hate your business because you're not getting the business you should
19:41
because people can't find you, and you gotta make sure that you're getting found online.
19:45
And that people have a really good landing experience when they find your website.
19:50
The other thing I want you to think about too is you know, do you have a sales system?
19:55
Do you have times set aside every week to sell to call, to follow-up, to ask for the business,
20:03
do people hear from you?
20:04
You need to make sure that you set aside time either every day or that there's one day a
20:10
week.
20:11
That's all you do, but you have to make sure that you have an organized sales process.
20:16
And that's from bringing in leads qualifying leads, getting proposals out the door, and then
20:22
following up after you get a proposal out the door.
20:25
What is the whole chain of that?
20:28
Who is responsible for that?
20:29
Are there multiple people responsible for it?
20:31
Whatever it is, you gotta think it through.
20:33
But the number one thing you gotta think about is how are you generating leads Leads are
20:39
important, but you can't just let leads fall when they come in.
20:42
How are you nurturing the leads?
20:43
Do you have sales funnels on your website?
20:45
Is somebody making calls?
20:46
Do you have a call center?
20:48
What is going on?
20:49
Do you have live chat on your website?
20:51
How are you closing the sales?
20:54
Critically, critically important.
20:56
And then how often are you planning for what's gonna happen next?
21:00
How often are you developing a strategic plan in your business for what's gonna happen next
21:07
year.
21:07
You know, every fall is a great time for you to start looking at your budget for the next year.
21:13
And your strategic plan for the next year.
21:15
And when I say strategic plan, I'm saying, what are you gonna spend your money on?
21:21
Are you launching any new products or services?
21:24
What are you gonna put on sale this holiday?
21:27
All of that stuff, you gotta think about.
21:29
You gotta write it down.
21:30
You can't wing it month to month.
21:32
You gotta think it through so that you can communicate it to your team so that everyone
21:36
knows what's gonna happen.
21:38
That is how everybody gets invited to think and innovate on what's going to happen.
21:45
And it's really citing when you're doing in advance, and you're not all stressed out.
21:49
And that is how you can fall back and love you with your business, but let me tell you
21:52
something.
21:52
At the end of the day, you got a persevere.
21:55
You gotta stay strong enough, long enough to win in business, and you're not gonna do that
22:00
if you don't do all this other stuff.
22:02
You know, you can't just say, what was me?
22:04
I gotta skip another paycheck.
22:06
What was me?
22:06
I can't take a laptop free vacation.
22:09
Nobody wants to hear all that.
22:11
You know, no one's coming to rescue you.
22:13
You gotta rescue yourself.
22:15
And there's a way to do it, but you have to do the work yourself, and you have to be
22:20
consistent about it.
22:22
The reason why I've been able to stay in business for 20 years is because I am
22:26
relentlessly consistent and habits and things that I do in my business.
22:30
And that is how I've been able to be successful year after year after year.
22:35
And you have to do that too.
22:37
So I'm gonna stop there because I feel like I may have overwhelmed some of you listening to
22:43
me, but I really want you to fall back in love with your business.
22:48
And hopefully, if you take even just a couple of the things I said and do them, your business
22:53
is gonna feel differently when you do.
22:55
So here's my action point for the week.
22:58
Make the decision that you're finally ready to fix what's going wrong in your business.
23:02
If you don't like it, I'm pretty sure you know why you don't like it.
23:06
So get your mind prepared to do the work you need to do to turn things around.
23:12
You can do it.
23:13
I believe in you.
23:14
I'm willing to Emerson the small business lady.
23:16
And if you want more tips and tools on how to fix your business, head over to the fix your
23:23
business online course, and you can get more information at succeed as your own boss.com.
23:28
Alright.
23:29
Now I'm gonna give you the action point of the week because I want you to fall back in love
23:33
with your business.
23:34
It is time for you to make the decision that you're finally ready to fix what's going wrong
23:38
in your business.
23:39
I know you know what's going wrong, and so you have to get your mind prepared to do the work
23:44
required to turn things around.
23:47
It's time for you to develop smart habits in your business so that you can live your dream
23:53
life as an entrepreneur again.
23:55
And fall back in love with your business.
23:57
And if you want more help on how to fix your business, head on over to succeed as your own
24:01
boss.com and check out my 12 week online course.
24:05
To fix your business master class.
24:07
I will help you turn things around in your business.
24:10
I promise.
24:11
Alright.
24:11
I'm Melinda Emerson, the small business lady, and I am over and out.
24:15
See you next week.
24:18
Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
24:23
For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
24:29
So swab to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.