103: Handling Business Chaos During All Stages of Business

You're listening to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, business life coach, Andrea Liebross. I help women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week, I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly, gain confidence, make your time productive, turn every obstacle into an opportunity, and finally overcome the overwhelm so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's Time to Level Up. Let's do this.

Okay, my friends. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I'm doing something a little different. I am recording this podcast from my kitchen, which I don't think I've ever recorded a podcast from here, but I'm doing it because I have these big huge white pieces of paper. Like big huge, like put-on-the-wall pieces of paper all over the kitchen. Last week, I'm recording this probably a good month before you listen, but last week, I met with my coach, and we really did a deep dive into who my clients are.

I quickly figured out that my client is the same person just in different stages of their business. As we prepare for the Get a Grip masterclass, which is going to occur the week of December 5th, it's actually a class that is in five quick 20-minute parts, one each day throughout the week, all recorded, by the way, so don't let that get in your way from coming. It's a perfect time to come to the Get a Grip class because we're going to talk about how to plan your best year ever now, get a grip on your business, how to plan the best year ever now, not in January, how to eliminate chaos in January because you haven't made decisions, or eliminate chaos in January because you're busting at the seams with all the things that have to happen, probably you're dropping some balls and your family is suffering.

You don't want to do that anymore. You want to plan your best year ever now. We're going to get a grip on your business December 5th through 9th, 20 minutes today recorded, pretty low cost, amazing, knowledge. In thinking about that, and thinking about who my ideal client is last week with my coach, I wanted to share with you that I think this person that I work with, which is probably you if you're listening, is the same person but just in different stages of their business, in the beginning, our businesses and lives kind of feel chaotic, because we are confused. But as we grow, as our businesses grow, as we become the next version of ourselves, we still can't feel chaotic. Things still can feel chaotic, but that chaos is actually created by some success.

I want to share with you what each of those stages might look like and how, by understanding what's really going on in your business, you can plan out an amazing 2023. Let's get started. No matter who you are and what stage you're in, my people want roadmaps, they want to know next steps. They want also to feel happy and fulfilled both in their business and at home. They want to be more present, both in their business and at home. They want more margin or more time in their business and at home, and they want to feel grounded. They want confidence. They want to trust themselves. They crave being consistently focused in the beginning of their business journey and then they crave being laser-focused as their journey goes on.

They want to make enough money to do what they really want to do. They want to be a great example. But they don't necessarily feel all these things. They might be experiencing a little pain, and here is what I mean by pain. It may be painful because they know there are solutions to their issues, but they can't really identify them. They feel a little rudderless in the beginning of their business. Then as they move on, they just want that rudder to be aimed at one destination.

They feel some stuckness. In the beginning, they probably feel like they're killing themselves to create the business. Then as the business moves along, they feel like they're killing themselves because their business is actually successful and it's got to evolve to a different level in order to be sustainable.

In the beginning, they really want to move from what seems impossible to possible. But as they evolve, as they move into the chaos created by success, they want to move from what seems possible and make it inevitable. They want to move past uncertainty. They don't want to be stuck. A lot of times in the beginning, they're uncertain and stuck because of what they're thinking and they know they have to get out of their own way. As their business evolves, if they find themselves stuck, they also know they have to get out of their own way.

Sometimes my clients feel like, on the outside, it looks like everything's rosy, but behind the scenes, it is messy. It's almost like they're duct-taping things together. In the beginning, they're duct-taping things together because they're confused and they don't even know what should be duct-taped together. But as the business evolves, it's duct-taped but bursting at the seams because they have to create some teams and better systems in order to continue that growth. It's kind of like the Wizard of Oz syndrome like what is behind the curtain. Everything looks rosy out here. But what's behind the scenes? We feel that way in all stages of our business.

A lot of my clients are moms and there's a little guilt going on because they think they should be spending more time with their kids. They have guilt on how they use their time. They have guilt thinking they should be spending more time in their business, then they have guilt because they think they should be spending more time with their kids. There's a lot of shoulding going on. They think in the beginning that they should be better at numbers. Then as the business evolves, they think they should be using these numbers to create strategy.

In the beginning, they're focused on goals. As they move forward, they want to focus on vision, but that all seems hard. As my clients move from these pain points, what they want, no matter what stage of their business they're in, they want to feel calm. They want to be organized. They want a business that aligns with their life goals. They want to manage their time better, they want more profit. They want to be more present. They want solutions. They want to be able to figure things out.

The evolution of this woman is super, super interesting to me as actually it is to them in and of themselves. Because what they realize is that yes, we need some systems in all stages of our business, but we also need the right mindset. What we do in the Get a Grip masterclass is we really take a peek at what systems you have and what systems you need, what your current thinking is, and what is the thinking that you need in order to create growth in order to move forward.

They, you, because it's probably you listening, need different aspects of their business examined at different times along the journey. A lot of times, I find that my clients are actually focusing on the wrong pieces. They're worrying about creating a team when they're not at the place where they need a team. They're thinking that if only they had more time, everything would be amazing. But really, they don't want to be spending more time so they’ve got to rearrange their time. They want to know where they are financially but they also want to know where they're going.

They want to be more targeted in who they're working with or who they have working with them. They want to work towards creating ease and flow. They want to feel under control. They want to be healthy and in shape. They don't want to die before creating what they want as a legacy. They want to support their kids and themselves. But they know that they need to do that in a way that doesn't take away from the here and now.

Oftentimes, I think when we first start our business, we're in a place where we want to design our day to work for us. Then as we grow, we start looking at designing our decade. Like I mentioned before, in the beginning, we want to be consistently focused and as we grow, we want to be laser-focused. In the beginning, we crave confidence. As we grow we, crave curiosity. What I'm really describing here, my friends, are the two different coaching programs, the people in each of those, where they're at. In the beginning, those I am working with inside Committed to Growth—which is soon going to change its name, just FYI, stay tuned on that—inside Committed to Growth, they're seeking confidence, and then inside Runway to Freedom, they're looking for curiosity.

Inside Committed to Growth, they're seeking permission and then as they move into Runway to Freedom, they want power and autonomy. They want to be decisive. In Committed to Growth, they crave organization. In Runway to Freedom, they crave systems. In Committed to Growth, they want to own their time, they want to manage their time. In Runway to Freedom, they want a time margin. In Committed to Growth, which I'm going to give you a little teaser alert, it’s going to change its name to “I've Got This”, in that stage of the business, they're working on creating worthiness for themselves. Then as they grow and they move more into the Runway to Freedom stage, they want to act from the place of being worthy.

We also, no matter what stage we’re in, want to be in touch with our numbers. That's another piece of the puzzle and use our numbers in different ways. In the beginning, when we're creating a business or in the beginning stages, we want to stack our support team. We want people that can play different roles on our team, probably subcontractors. Then as our business grows, we want the people on our team to actually be way more responsible, accountable, and kind of elevated in their thinking. They want a team that's going to find solutions for them.

When we start a business, we just want knowledge, but as our business grows, we realize we've got all the knowledge, we just want to be the experts. Then when we start a business, we want to have goals, and as the business grows, we want to have a vision. These, my friends, are the shifts that happen as a business evolves, the shifts. We shift from thinking small to thinking big. We shift our mindset from shoulds to wants, from scared to delegate to love delegating, from not recognizing our problems, to “I know what all the problems are, but I really need solutions.” All of this is to say in order to identify where we're at, we need to get a grip on our business.

In the Get a Grip masterclass, it is not meant to be extra work for you, it's meant to be all completed in 20 minutes a day for 5 days. At the end, you're going to walk away knowing exactly how to create your best year ever in 2023. It's going to take the guesswork out of this because what I'm going to do is I'm going to guide you through looking at your business and where you are and what's working, what's not working. It's going to become crystal clear as to what needs to happen next year if you want to keep moving forward.

If that's what you want, then we've got to figure out how to make that happen. We got to figure that out. It's rough sometimes figuring that out on your own. I always say coaching is really about questions. Coaching is really about helping you answer questions that will give you guidance, that will give you a roadmap. We can't really create roadmaps on our own, it just isn't possible.

I want you to go back and listen to the episode that is about creating or having an organizational checkup. I want you to go back and listen to that episode. Episode 93. Episode 93 is the episode, The Organizational Checkup, Get a Grip on Your Business. Go listen to that one. That'll start you in the right direction, you'll get on the kind of the path, but I really want you to come join me in the Get a Grip masterclass because in there, we're going to go deeper into specific areas of our business, into our systems, into our team, into our marketing, into our planning, into our mindset, but you've got to have someone extracting all this from you.

You can't do this alone. You can't figure out how to be more consistent unless you've identified what the problem is. You can't achieve your daily or weekly goals unless you know what your goals are. You can't move from being reactive to proactive until you figure out where the fires are, what you keep reacting to. All of that, that's what we're going to discover inside the Get a Grip masterclass.

If you want to get a taste of what it's like to be coached, to have these questions asked of you and see how it feels, try it on for a little bit to see if it's something that might add some value or might elevate your business and add value, come join us. Come join us because I want you to move from the person who is experiencing chaos because of confusion to the person that is experiencing chaos because they have been successful.

I don't want chaos for anyone, let's get real. But I want to see you move through that evolution and I want to help you get to the place where you are feeling like you are not just a one-man show. Then you're not a one-man show with a few contractors. But I want you to get to the place where you are feeling like a CEO with a team. It's possible. Some of my clients in Runway to Freedom are at the cusp of that. They're there, but they know that they can't stop now. They know that really what this comes down to is them continuing to perfect their systems and hone their thinking, continue to put new thought options into their brains. Let's discover all of this together.

Starting on December 5th, we will work through this whole process. I'm going to tell you, it’s fun. It actually is kind of a little bit of a relief. Because you get to see the handwriting on the wall. You get to see what you want to work on. When it comes to January 1st, when you get to January 1st, it won't feel so chaotic. It won’t feel like it's a burden. It won't feel confusing anymore. You're going to get some clarity just by doing the work right now in December. By doing the work in December, you're going to have clarity for January, you're going to be able to get through this whole holiday season feeling like you have your act together, not worrying about what's going to happen in January, not dreading opening the doors but going through those 2023 doors, feeling empowered, confident, and having clarity.

Head over to andrealiebross.com/getagrip2022 to reserve your spot in the master class. You won't want to miss this. You will not want to miss being part of Get a Grip because if you miss it, you won't have as great a grip as you want. Okay, my friends, chaos created by confusion moves into chaos created by success, which then leads you to no chaos but calm; a calm CEO. Let's aim for that. Alright, I will see you there.

Thanks for listening to the Time to Level Up Podcast with me, your host, Andrea Liebross. If you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode, I encourage you to take a screenshot and share it with them. Okay. Now, what about you? You've listened to the podcast, and if you now know that you're ready to upgrade your life, upgrade your business, upgrade you, then stop being only a listener and start being a liver living that upgraded life. Head over to my website and schedule a call. Right there on that call, we'll start changing the way you think and act so that you can have the freedom to achieve the impossible in life and business, and have the resources to do it. You deserve an upgrade. Let's do it.