My 5 top tips to fall in love with your business again!

This episode is going to be launched around Valentine's Day,  so if you're feeling uninspired or burnt out by your business, this episode is here to get the love back!
I've got 5 top tips to fall in love with your business again.

First up- reflect on those amazing customers you already have who help make your dreams a reality each day. What has been the best experience you've had, what have you loved most about your customers, what bit of work have you loved doing the most, and use feedback as insight into how you can keep growing every single day.

That's just one tip of five so if you want more advice tune in now.

In the episode I refer to my previous episode on personal and business reflections of 2022, you can listen to that here
Apple -  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-personal-and-business-reflection-on-2022/id1625102330?i=1000590580705
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/episode/3F1EdElvO22zuizZfEURlU?si=PJpFUEf3RwWhrw1eDoLD-g

Follow me on social media, it's @jenlistercoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn.

My website is Jenlister.com

Click here to get my 7 mindset steps to starting or scaling your business

Music and production by the amazing Strike Productions

Podcast management by Dean at DBVirtual 

Transcript

Jennie Lister: 0:04

Hello, and welcome to the Jennie Lister podcast. Here I'll be chatting about life, business growth strategies and sharing my personal journeys along the way. And we'll also be interviewing some incredible guests who are experts in their field. See, it's my little black book of business. Hello, and welcome back to The Jen Lister Podcast, I am in the amazing recording studio of Tom strike at Strike Productions. And I'm actually doing this episode with headphones on which I've never done before. But I think I like it. I mean, it might not sound like a big deal, but it does make the sound really different. And it makes me be able to hear what you as an audience are getting to hear as well. So today, I have got a really exciting episode for you. This episode is going to be launched around Valentine's Day, I was thinking, okay, what can I talk to you about that's really relevant around that time. And love is a massive topic when it comes to February and Valentine's Day in the UK. So my podcast today for you is how you can fall in love with your business again. I've got five top tips for you that I'm going to be sharing that are focused around your business and what you can do and what you can think about to help you fall back in love with your business. Now, as you know, I'm a big fan of practical action steps because I appreciate theories really important. And I love a bit of theory now and again, but my plan and my goal is to help you take action in your business to move you forward. Let me get straight into it. My first tip for you is think about your existing customers, your customers are such a big source of revenue to you, they're so valuable to you, they should be so important to you. And I want you to think about them, I want you to reflect on the customers you've had over the last six months over the last 12 months. Think about what has been the best experience you've had what have you loved most about your customers, what bit of work have you loved doing the most, I want you also to dig through your feedback from your customers. And really use this as a source of insight and growth in your business, one of the best things you can do is read your customer feedback, but ask your customers for constructive feedback. I've got a review form it's a client feedback form that I send to my clients at the end of our working time together. And one of the questions on there is, is there something I could do better? Are there opportunities for improvement? And to be honest, that part and that answer is much more valuable probably than the rest of the form put together because that's what I need to be looking at. That's how I need to be moving forward. And just a little story on that actually one of my clients that I worked with, oh, it was in 2020. While at the end of 2021. I worked with her and we had a really nice experience working together. And it was a very short piece of work that I did with her. And on my feedback form. She said to me that she felt that she didn't really know what the next step was. And I hadn't been particularly clear about how she could continue working with me and what she could do in the future and how she could build on the strategy work that we've done together. And honestly, that was one of the biggest and most helpful pieces of feedback I could possibly hear because I felt like if I'd have followed up with her so quickly, I'd been too pushy. And too salesy, which we all talk about from time to time, we all feel like maybe we shouldn't put ourselves out there and we shouldn't push forward that sale. So that was a massive learning for me. And that helped me to fall back in love with my business and have mapped out that customer journey not just for a short period of time, but to think about the longevity of my clients. And it's something that I talk to my clients a lot about now, funnily enough, but it's funny how the stuff that we coach our clients on and focus on with our clients is sometimes when we reflect and look back at our own businesses, it's something that we get wrong sometimes. So yeah, completely hold my hands up. And that experience taught me so much. And I'm not afraid to follow up with people and to ask people what the next step is, if I want to keep working together because you never know give people that opportunity. So your customers, your existing customers and fully valuing them and reflecting on what you've loved about working with them is one of the best ways that you can fall in love with your business again, because you want to bring in more of the stuff you love and you want to let go of the stuff that you perhaps haven't enjoyed as much. Okay, so the second tip for you is prioritise your tough conversations in your business, get rid of the stuff that isn't potentially serving you and isn't feeling aligned in your business. We all have challenges in our business. So this could be anything this could be something like social media, perhaps you feel like social media is draining the life out of you. Well, that tough conversation might have to happen with yourself. You might have to say to yourself, I I need to put some boundaries around social media, I can't be on social media 20 477 days a week, I've spoke to clients before, who get inquiries on like a Friday or Saturday night at nine o'clock at night. And they feel like they need to respond. And they feel like they need to book something, and they need to get that business and secure that business. From my perspective, I would say that isn't the way you need to be, I would say you're better off having healthy boundaries, turning your social media off, having your notifications off all the time, if you can, but definitely on the weekends or when you're not working, and get back to that person within what you consider to be reasonable office hours, they might have gone someone else, they might have got business somewhere else by that time, potentially. But is it healthy for you to have that close contact with your clients? 24/7. Like, I know, for me, I use a really cool messaging app called Voxer with my clients, and it's always a priority for me to be on there and replying to my clients. However, if it's on the weekends, I will not be replying because that is my family time. So think about in order to fall in love with your business. So think about what tough conversations you need to have. There might be clients in your business that you need to walk away from there might be clients that you're not aligned with, because maybe things have changed in your life or in your business. Are there clients that you need to walk away from? Does it scare you to have those tough conversations because I know it is scary and I've been there. But it is definitely worth it. Because what you find is that the stress of any situation it will consume you it will cause those anxiety moments. And it will take over like 80% of your thought capacity. And it will stop you from growing your business because you'll be drained from whatever it is that you're going through with challenging situations. So look across your business, look at what you're doing on a day to day basis. What stuff is not serving you? What is making things difficult, and are there people that maybe are not aligned to you. We know that we need to surround ourselves by people that serve us and that encouraged us and cheerlead us, especially when we're business owners because it is really tough. So think about who you're surrounding yourself by and make sure that you've got a tribe of people that really support you and cheerlead you and help you grow and help you move forward with your business. Okay, I want to tell you a personal story when it comes to the next point. So my third point when it comes to falling in love with your business is focus in 2022. I did way too much in my business. If you want to hear about my reflections, there is a personal and business reflection podcast episode, which is my most listened to one and it's one of my favourite episodes. By far, I'll list it all out, I feel like very briefly, but in 2022, I launched my podcast, I also launched my strategy Growth Hub, which is my group coaching programme, I got married and went on a month honeymoon, I did way too much. I mean, even that stuff is quite a lot of stuff, let alone just running the business, as usual with my existing clients, and giving that my all I'm really focusing on that and growing my business, which I absolutely did in 2022. So my advice for you to fall in love with your business is to focus. And in order to do that, you need to ask yourself some questions like what does success look like to you in your business? That What does make you happy and bring you joy in your business? And what are your goals in your life? And how can you set up your business so that you're aligned to those and you're achieving those goals. So I don't want you to do too much like I did last year, I want you to be really focused. And I want you to give yourself a maximum of three big goals for the year. And I want you to spend the year working towards them. Yes, we can have lots and lots of little goals and hopes and things we want to be doing hobbies and ways we want to be spending our time. But in terms of big game, changing things that you're doing three is a really good and a really magic number if you ask me and also I will have an episode. By the time this one comes out there will be an episode on my goals, my personal goals for 2023. So if you want to have a listen to my three big goals for the year, then please do and that might inspire you as well. So yeah, my point number three is focus. In order to fall in love with your business. You need to consider how much time you've got and how much capacity you've got. And you need to be focused and not trying to do too much all at once. I'm definitely guilty of this sometimes. So I know it can be a really hard thing to get right. Okay, my number four top tip when it comes to falling in love with your business is I want you to think about what is non negotiable for you in your business each day. And when I'm talking about non negotiables ultimately, I assume that you're in business to make a profit you're there to support your lifestyle to support paying your bills to support the hobby. is that you want to do. So ultimately, let's not pretend that we're just doing it for fun, but we want to be making profit, we want to be growing our wealth. We want to be having fun enjoying ourselves, achieving what we want to achieve and fulfilling our values in life. So in order to do that, we need to consistently be focused on what is revenue generating activities. So we need to be focused on what are revenue generating activities. And when I say revenue generating activities, I mean, what is going to get that money in your business bank accounts. So that might be sales conversations with potential clients, that might be marketing strategies, executing on marketing strategies, planning launches, that might be putting something new out there into the world and engaging with your audience in some way that's going to lead to sales. So every single day, I want you to think about what are the tasks that are not negotiable? What are the tasks that are going to bring in some revenue and profit. Because there's so many tasks that we have to do as business owners, there's so many different hats that we have to wear, we have to be doing admin, one minute we have to be doing our financials, we have to think about what people we've got in our business, how we're going to be growing our business, we need to think about the strategy, we need to think about literally everything, the sales team with a marketing team, where the HR team with everything, but at the end of the day, we need to be closing those sales, bringing in the clients and closing this out. So what are the activities that you can do every day that are focused around that? Because you're not going to love your business if you're not generating a profit? And it's really easy to procrastinate, what is the first thing you do? I want you to even stop the podcast now and think about this and write it down? What is the first thing you do normally, when you sit at your desk or you get to work each day? So the answer might be you open your emails, and you check your emails and you reply to your emails, or you go on social media and you look at everyone's reels, those things aren't necessarily going to be growing your business, they're not going to lead directly or quickly to revenue and money going into your business bank account. So I want you to tear up that bit of paper and write a new list of what would be three amazing things that are very much linked to sales linked to generating sales in your business that you could be doing every single time you sit at your desk. Now I know we have client meetings, we have lots of stuff going on. Some people work really well with allocating one hour a day at a particular time to have a power hour where you really focus on this stuff. Me personally, I know that that doesn't really work for me, because I love a plan. But when it comes down to this kind of stuff, I feel like I have to be in the right vibe. And I have to be in the right mindset. So I like to commit to it and make sure I do it regularly. But it's not necessarily an hour that allocated there's exactly the same time every single day. I love this part of my business. Whenever I'm doing my non negotiable tasks, I always put on really good music that's really motivational. That really gets me in the mood for that sales, that marketing activity. One of my favourite bands is a band called Jungle. I don't know if anyone's heard of them, but my favourite song on there is keep moving. And I just think it's brilliant. Because the whole thing is about like keep moving, keep moving. Let's keep moving forward. And it's really motivational. The sound is just amazing. So check out jungle if you haven't already. Those of you that were on my workshop over the last few months that has always been playing at the start, because I just love it. I just love it so much. So yeah, that's my number four, to fall in love with your business, we need to be generating that revenue. So what are your non negotiables that you need to be doing every day that is actually doing that? Okay, and my final number five is thinking about how you could invest in your business, investing in your business is really, really scary. I know, because I've been there. When I started my first business, I put in everything I'd got in my pension in Australia, I used to live in Australia. For those of you that don't know, I had quite a big pension pot there. And when I moved over to the UK, I spent 10s of 1000s of pounds on my first business investing in that to grow my first business. And that was really scary. And then when I started this business, I also invested I didn't invest quite so much. It was more like a couple of 1000 pounds. But I still invested significant amount of money, to grow my business to figure out my business to start my business and I continue to invest in my business today. So this is my final piece for you to think about how you could fall in love with your business by investing in your business. Because what I want you to think about when you think about money, money is simply an energy exchange. And when we exchange that there is a flow of energy so you invest in your business and then There's a flow of energy to your business, which lights up your business and lights up you, and it helps you grow your business. So I'm gonna give you some personal examples and experiences where I've invested, but also give you some ideas of what you could do first and foremost, like, how do you feel about your branding and your website? Do you feel like it's where you want it to be? Is it not where you want it to be? Could you invest in that in some way, I know that personally, I invested in my website and my branding relatively early on in my business. And it definitely gave me this new level of professionalism, that I felt this passion, this love of my business, because I really loved the colours that I was using, the way I felt about my business. Like it all felt like it was coming together. And it really represented me. And also you can do some of this stuff yourself. Like you could do courses yourself to learn how to develop your website. Not everyone's got the time. But there are ways to do this to facilitate different budgets, could you invest in somebody else being in your business with you. Now, that's something I did in February 2022. I wasn't planning on doing it quite so early, I was actually planning on doing it a lot later in my business, but by investing in a VA, and I've got an amazing VA, Dean Broderick, who is also my brother. That has given me headspace to not focus on the stuff that causes me, I'll say stress, but it doesn't necessarily cause me stress. It took me so much longer to do various tasks compared to what it takes my VA to do. So one of the examples that I often use is sending out my client contracts, because for some reason found that really emotionally draining to do. And now that is done by Dean. The other thing you could think about outsourcing is your social media. Because I hear so often that people feel like they've had the life drained out of them from social media, even in January this year. I know I've been talking to people and they're saying that they're just really struggling to be consistent and show up and just find the time for it. It can be so draining like there is such a kind of keeping up appearances vibe when it comes to social media. So in order to take some of the stress out, what can you do? What can you plan? What can you invest in? Could you outsource to a social media manager or a VA that does social media for you as well. So think about what you could invest in, in your business? What is it that you struggle with when it comes to business? So have a think about that question like what are the tasks that you don't enjoy? I know one of the things for me is the accounts. So I've very much outsourced my annual accounts. And I know a lot of people do do that there might be other things that you don't enjoy in your business. And you could think about what you could outsource. And then the other area is what do you struggle with? Do you struggle with accountability and motivation? Do you need some help with that? So could you think about working with a mentor or a coach? Or even could you find yourself ana accountability buddy, do you know someone else has got a business, and they might struggle with the same kind of thing. So could you hold each other to account and have like a private chat together and support each other. So as you can see, you don't have to spend loads of money to invest in your business. But you do have to spend a little bit of time if you're not willing to spend the money. The other thing I would highly recommend when it comes to investing in your business, is to take out a couple of hours every quarter. So split your year into four quarters, and every quarter at the end of it, take some time out, go to a coffee shop, go somewhere super creative and invest that time, invest that half a day or two hours, at least, in sitting down with some really great music on your headphones, looking at your business plans, scribbling down some ideas, coming up with creativity for the next quarter, coming up with your plans for the next quarter. And just reflecting and giving yourself like a real well done for everything you have achieved in the last three months. So often, we're just on this kind of hamster wheel of like, let's just go go go. Let's keep striving Let's keep doing new things. But actually, there's a lot of value in taking a step back taking the stock taking that deep breath and saying, Yeah, absolutely. I'm really proud of what I've done. And actually, this is something that I'm doing in my business more and more. And I'm opening it out to my clients that have worked with me for a period of time to be part of this process, where we will be doing this in a group setting quarterly. So I'm really excited about that, as you can see. So there's my five top tips for you to fall in love with your business again, this Valentine's season. I'll just run through them again for you. So the first one was all around your customers and loving your customers. The second one was prioritising your difficult conversations. The third one was around being super focused in your business and not trying to do too much. The fourth one was your non negotiables what is non negotiable, what is going to create that revenue in your business? And the fifth one was thinking about how you could invest in your business. So thank you so much for listening to the Jen Lister podcast today. I would really love you to download and follow my podcast. And then you'll get notifications because they all get released on a Monday every fortnight so I would love, love, love to have your support and for you to be one of my loyal, loyal listeners. Thank you so much and have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to the Jen Lister Podcast. I truly appreciate every single one of you. If you'd like to leave me a review on your podcast app, I would love that. And if you'd like to follow me on social media, it's@jenlistercoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn