jenny pace podcast

Episode 11: What I’ve learned from 7 years in business

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Celebrating, releasing, and re-visioning

This summer, I’m celebrating 7 years in business. Having started my business back in 2014, it feels like both a lifetime ago, and like it only just happened.

In that time, I’ve worked with dozens of 1:1 clients, as well as hundreds of course-takers and community members. I’ve written thousands of product descriptions, edited emails, and helped to build brands. I’ve hosted 6 weekend retreats, most of which sold out. I set up and ran a photography studio, with premises and a team of 10, downsized, and finally came directly back to coaching. I accidentally created a product range, sent out thousands of orders, and eventually sold that part of my business. And of course I also moved house three times, got married and had a baby.

Whew!

Ronan was right, life is truly a rollercoaster.

What I’m celebrating

My vision: I have always had a really clear vision of what I want to create, who I want to help, and why I’m in business. It’s about empowering women to forge success on their own terms, to embrace our humanity rather than burning ourselves out, and creating meaningful, positive change in the world.

It hasn’t always been perfectly executed, and in fact I think that’s part of the beauty: I’m always tending my vision, pivoting and tweaking as I go. But I am celebrating the strength of that vision within me.

My clients: My first ever client was Laura at Clara and Macy. She has been an inspiration to me as well (I hope) as the other way around. I can still remember emailing her with my mentoring packages and receiving her response, and how much that meant to me. It certainly feels like our working relationship – and now friendship – were meant to be.

And of course I’m celebrating all the clients I’ve had since then. I’ve learnt so much from them as well as the other way around. I have clients who have been with me for 7 years, who came to my first retreat, who continue to be part of my membership group and 1:1 client list. And of course there are clients who came and went on to do different things, to grow in their own next direction, and I love seeing and knowing that, too.

My resilience: I used to hate the word resilience and its implications. That I’d had to hang on in there and deal with challenges. Now I see it as a strength, because there are always challenges. I’m grateful that I have the grit and determination to grow, learn, and work through challenges, rather than give up.

What I’m releasing

Letting go is a regular habit around here. We accumulate so many limiting beliefs, negative experiences, and to-do list clutter. So it’s always a good time to release what we don’t need!

Here are mine right now:

I’m letting go of needing to do everything myself. Okay, okay, I’m letting go of control, okay?! Kate, my wonderful VA, is doing more and more of my behind-the-scenes work, and it truly has taken me 7 years to let someone else look after my client bookings and calendar. Kate has her work cut out for her, but it’s a relief to have the details taken care of so that I can show up for my clients and community members even more.

And I’m letting go of “shoulds”. I’ve never loved the “shoulds” – those things we should do, the voices that beat us up and tell us to do things that aren’t right for us. Right now, I have a few “should haves” that have been dragging me down, so I’m releasing them and choosing differently.

And truthfully, I’m letting go of guilt. I’m a people-pleaser, and I don’t like to let people down. I know that that has happened, with staff I’ve had to let go, and clients that weren’t the right fit. I’m soooooo much better avoiding those situations these days, and grateful for everything I’ve learned about what works. So I’m learning to let go of the guilt.

Re-visioning

My vision is strong. It’s a strength, and it’s something I love to help others with. Now, as a mother of a two year old, I’m revising the vision to allow for more space and less pressure. Compared to the now endless-seeming energy I had in the early years of my business, I need a different pace.

For me, in my business, that means fewer 1:1 clients and more resources, courses, and workshops that allow me to make a difference in group settings.

I love working 1:1 with clients, so I’ve resisted this a lot! So part of reconnecting with my vision has been to trust that I will return to it again, that there is a whole future of my business that will come to light in a few years – but I’m going to be happy in my present.

There’s no bad time to celebrate and review your business

It may not be your 7th business birthday. (But if it is, say hi!)

One thing I do know is that there’s no bad time to take a moment to check in with where you are, where you want to be, and how you want to get there.

It’s also worth celebrating your strengths, your perseverance, your achievements. We’re not taught to do that, and it really makes a difference. Celebrate something today – right now – that you’re proud of.

Looking ahead

I’m not big on setting massive goals, but I do have intentions and visions for the coming year and years. That 10 year mark is on the horizon, and I’m excited to be in a much stronger, more sustainable place in my business.

I hope your future is looking bright, too.

Episode 9: What if you don’t love your business?

What if you don’t love your business right now?

Running a business isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. It can be tough, especially if you’re a one-woman-band solopreneur doing everything yourself. If you’re finding yourself in dark times in your business, questioning what needs to change – or if you even want to stay in business – I have some free coaching for you.

In a few weeks, I’ll be celebrating 7 years in business, and it’s made me feel a little nostalgic. I’ve been thinking about when I started, how things have developed, and key things I remember.

One thing I do remember is asking my audience if there’s anything they’d like me to blog about back in 2015, and the first request I got was: What if I don’t love my business anymore? Do you have any advice or resources for when you just don’t love it?

I didn’t. But I wrote a blog, and offered some food for thought.

It was an interesting question for me because, at that stage, I had zero first hand experience of it. I was still in the falling-in-love stage with my business – and it had been such an incredible start. I hadn’t yet had dark days, difficult decisions, or the relentlessness that can sometimes set in.

But my clients had.

In fact, I had plenty of experience coaching and mentoring clients out of their dark moments, even in those early years. These days, I find clients are more likely to do preventative business coaching, but the vast majority look for my help when they’re not 100% happy with the way things have been going.

Of course, every client and situation is different. There are plenty of things that can derail us, take us down a path we didn’t choose, and make us fall out of love with our business.

Now, with several years’ more experience – and my own dark days to have navigated through – I have an updated version of the blog I wrote back in 2015.

How to fall back in love with your business

There are a lot of parallels between marriage and business – the longevity, the ups and downs, the give and take, the partnership. So it makes sense that there might be seasons of your business where you’re kind of… meh, or struggling through a difficult patch.

If we follow this metaphor for a little bit, you and your business might need some counselling, or to double down on date nights, or just a weekend away together. You might need to have a serious chat about what is working and what isn’t. You might even need some time apart to get some perspective.

These options are all available, and I invite you to think about what that might look like for you – metaphorically and in reality.

Here are some of my observations as a business coach:

1. Regain your balance with the workload

Apparently, in marriage counselling, the most-talked-about gripe is the division of labour, and I see that in my work with business owners, too. There is a LOT of work that goes into business, and in small business it often lands on one set of shoulders: yours.

So if you’re not feeling the love in your business right now, it might be time to review your workload. What do you hate doing? What’s draining you and your business? What can you just not do anymore, and what can you delegate? 

Here are some ideas:

  • Customer service – hire a VA to deal with customer enquiries. You CAN train them up, even if it means telling them what to say for the first month or so. But this can really shift your energy. Equally, if you’re answering the same questions over and over again, it might be time to create some FAQs for your website.
  • Product listings – again, find someone who can do this for you so that you can focus on the things you love.
  • Bookkeeping, stock takes, managing your social media accounts – all these are things you can get support with through VAs, online business managers, freelancers and more.
  • Automate – as well as finding humans to help you, you can find technology! Stop doing things manually when you can automate them. If you find yourself copying and pasting basically anything regularly, you can probably automate that.
  • Book a photographer – yes, photoshoots can be expensive. But they are also a huge time and energy drain! Unless you love doing them and have a great set up, I encourage you to find a photographer you can send this to.

Don’t let boring and tiresome tasks be the death of your business – and your creative passion. Get support and find ways to move forward.

2. Do what you actually love – and get paid for it

If your heart sinks when an order comes in for a particular product (or even all your products), you either need to put the price up or stop selling it.

When your products are priced too low, it’s easy to be filled with dread spending time making and/or packing the order. You’re working really hard, but you know it’s not really going to make a difference to your levels of success.

This is the time to put up your prices.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: about 80% of new clients need to put their prices up by at least 20%.

Don’t overthink it, just put your prices up. (And go ahead and get on the waitlist for my updated Pricing for Profit course.)

Of course, there are some products that fill you with MEH, no matter how much you’re charging. That means it’s time to stop selling them. You might need to take some time to create something else that feels amazing – but don’t take too long over this. You could find that retiring your products is as easy as the click of a button.

Top tip: consider creating products that are more scalable, or even add in some passive income to your business.

3. Create more work-life balance

With less on your plate and more products (or services) that you actually love, you may need to create more work-life balance.

  • Take some time off
  • Give yourself a start time and an end time
  • Go down to a 4 day week
  • Stop multitasking
  • Book creativity into your diary

And of course there’s always the option to pivot completely

If making tweaks to your current business isn’t going to cut it (and you might like to play with that first), then there’s always the option to change your business, or even opt out of being your own boss altogether.

Sound like you? Here are some questions to reflect on:

  • What isn’t working for you right now?
  • What kind of business model are you drawn to?
  • What’s your true and current vision of success?
  • What are you inspired by creatively?
  • How would you like your work-life balance to look?

No matter what happens, I know that you are not served by staying in a business (or marriage) that’s no longer working. There are PLENTY of other options available to you.

Make sure you explore, reflect, and dig deep into how you could fall in love with what you do.

Loved this episode? I’d love to hear! Pop a comment below, rate in your favourite app, or DM me on IG: @thejennypace

Episode 6: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks: a Better Business Book Club review

Introducing the Better Business Book Club, and The Big Leap

This week, I’m really excited to introduce a special part of the podcast: The Better Business Book Club.

I love books, and I recommend them to clients and community members all the time. When I was starting the podcast, I knew I wanted to include some of my most-recommended books with you, too.

These are books that have had a big impact on me and on my clients. They’re the game-changers.

Some of them are classic business books, and others (like today’s) are about self-development and self-knowledge. Personal development is such a huge part of running a business. As I shared in Episode 4, the energy we bring to our business is even more important than the specific strategies we use. So checking our beliefs and our outlook is vital.

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

This book is one I want everyone in business to read. It’s also a book that can bring up a lot of resistance, as it did for me when it was first recommended. I spent years working up to reading this book, and I can see now that that was because I liked being in my comfort zone. A lot.

I often work with clients and we uncover the big vision they have for their business. There’s a lot of clarity and enthusiasm and desire. But it can take a while to actually make it happen. That’s when they need to read The Big Leap.

Key Idea #1: Upper Limit Problems

The first big idea in the book is the Upper Limit Problem. This is the idea that we have an internal thermostat for how much success we can allow, and we subconsciously sabotage ourselves so that we stay within that limit.

The thermostat is typically set in early childhood, and it takes awareness and work to change it.

When I first read about this, I felt like a lot of things clicked into place. I could see that a lot of the things I thought were in my way were internal. And I could also see a lot of these things were within my power to change.

Gay Hendricks asks these questions:

  • Am I willing to increase the amount of time every day that I feel good inside?
  • Am I willing to increase the amount of time that my whole life goes well?
  • Am I willing to feel good and have my life go well all the time?

Saying yes – really, truly – is the hardest and most important step we can take to dissolve our upper limit problems.

Chapter 3 in the book has lots of ways to spot your own Upper Limit Problems and how they show up. For example, worry, criticism and blame, squabbling, deflecting compliments and good things. And, from my own experience, under-charging for your products and services.

Key Idea #2: Zone of Genius

The framework Gay Hendricks introduces in this book is revolutionary, especially if you are a one-woman-band and doing everything yourself!

There are four “zones”:

  • The Zone of Incompetence: we’re pretty rubbish at these things, and there are lots of other people that do them better and quicker than us
  • The Zone of Competence: we can do these things, but we’re not amazing at them. There are still other people who are better and quicker at them
  • The Zone of Excellence: we’re really good at these things, but they’re not our calling; we can usually make a good living at them, but we get stuck here
  • The Zone of Genius: this is our unique happy place! This is our calling, our gift, and we can do these things for a long time without getting bored or tired. The Zone of Genius is typically the key to unlocking happiness and abundance (aka money-making!).

I highly recommend going through your to-do list and putting different things in these zones. And when you read the book, there are lots of great ideas for uncovering your Zone of Genius.

A Caveat On Privilege

This book has so much to offer, but it’s worth noting that Gay Hendricks is a white, straight, cisgender man from the USA. He’s the least likely demographic to be refused power, money, or happiness through systemic and cultural challenges.

If you’re a woman, Black, gay, disabled, or have a history of emotional or physical abuse, you may feel like there are a couple of chapters missing. It’s entirely possible that Gay Hendricks could simply change his mind on the goodness he can receive, and then receive it. Others of us may have systemic racism, lack of power, and legitimate barriers to changing our circumstances.

I still believe this book has wisdom, but I wanted to share this perspective on the book’s limitations.

I love this book!

I get something from The Big Leap every time I read it. And in reality, I want to be taking big leaps throughout my life, so I know it will be in my reading pile for a while.

If you’re bumping on the same turnover for years, or if you get to where you wanted and disaster hits, this is the book for you.

Buy the book

You can buy the book via my Bookshop.org shop. This is a platform that supports independent booksellers, and I’ll earn a small commission, so you can support the production of my podcast!

(You’ll also spot some of my other book recommendations!

optin-cup

Enter The Forge

Life's too damn short to chase someone else's definition of success. I'm here to give you the courage and tools to forge your own path.