In today's episode, we're going to be talking about five signs that it's time for you to branch out with your own business.

Now first, I want to say before we talk about the signs that it might be time to start your own business - the motivating factor of wanting to run away from something isn't always enough.

For example, a lot of people would say that if you're peeved with your job and you don't love your boss, then it's a sign that you should branch out with your own business, and I actually think that's often not enough for sustainability.

Running away from something and not having something you're running towards, can be a good motivator to start you off. But it doesn't necessarily help you keep that momentum and sustain what it takes to really grow a thriving business.

However, if you are peeved with your boss, you are on maternity leave, you don't want to go back to work, you've got financial issues, you don't want to be lining the pockets of someone else with your efforts… or any other reason for wanting to start your own business right now, then that's a great motivator to get you started.

But we want to make sure we're also tapping into what's going to sustain you long term, so here are five signs that it might be time for you to branch out with your own business.

1. You have an epic vision.

This was definitely one of the big things for me - my epic vision.  When I first started my business, it was being able to make enough money to live an amazing life of luxury, and have a giant beach house and travel a lot. And also run a not-for-profit that I had a very specific vision about at that particular point in time.

My desires and goals and what my vision is has changed a little, not a lot, but it has changed a little, and that epic vision really motivated me, even when I was first starting out in my business. And it allowed me to really tap into the bigger goals of wanting to start a business.

I didn't want to just start a business and make the same salary I was making in my day job, which was a very handsome six figure salary at the time.  I didn't want to just replace that income. I wanted to have a million dollar business and a multi million dollar a year business from when I first started my business.

Part of the reason was that big epic vision that I had. I had a vision of wanting to change lives, influence people, and really help those who wouldn't otherwise get help and support that they need. And I was sick of relying on the government to do the right thing, to be 100% honest with you.  Young Tash had political aspirations, and business-starting Tash had already decided politics was not the way that I was going to enact the change that I wanted to enact.

I started to see entrepreneurship as a pathway for me to create that change. And so that is what really drove me to get my business off the ground. It drove me in those times when I was feeling like, “well, maybe I could just take my foot off the accelerator and just be happy with $75,000 a year,” and then I’d remember, “no, my big vision is epic."  And I want to make sure that I stay aligned with that vision.

2. You have transferable skills and knowledge.

This one is really interesting because a lot of people assume that the skills and knowledge they've developed through their career or through their job or through university or wherever, would be thrown away in order for them to start a business because it's completely different or in a completely different space.

But if you actually sit down and do an assessment of the transferable skills and knowledge that you have, chances are, there's a lot more that you have to bring to the table than you're giving yourself credit for.

Something that I did before I started my business was use Marcus Buckingham’s Strengths Finder. And I also did a transferable skills assessment when I worked in a consulting firm - we had a recruitment week and we actually had a transferable skills assessment that I did. I looked at some of the skills that I wanted to develop and some of the skills that I already had, and I could see that I actually did have a lot to offer already. Granted, I was working in business consulting at the time, and I was moving into business coaching and consulting, so it wasn't a big jump for me.

A lot of people may think that the skills that they have actually aren't critical to what they're doing. But think about the transferable ones, like maybe you’re someone who's really good at following through on projects, or you’re really good at generating lots of different ideas, or finding creative solutions to things. Maybe you’re tenacious, great with customers, or have really strong empathy.

All of these things will serve you in your business when you start it up.  If you've got a really good understanding of what your transferable skills are, and you are really looking at them through the lens of “oh my gosh, I could do all of these things. I'm really good at all of these things,” then that usually says that you are ready to branch out and have your own business.

So have a look through your experiences, your personal history, your professional history, and look at all of those strengths that you bring to the table. And look at it through this lens of it not necessarily having be applied in exactly the same way.

For example, customer service skills that were normally used in retail can absolutely transfer into the online space. You just need to learn the platforms and the ways that you get to have those sales conversations and those customer service conversations. And it's done quite differently, but the same principles apply. And if you already have those skills, you already have that knowledge, that's going to really hold you in good stead for starting your own business online.

3. You have a nagging and consistent idea.

This was definitely one for me - for a long time I denied the nagging, consistent idea of “you should have your own business Tash” because I had some personal, family-of-origin stories around what it means to have your own business and how unreliable the income is and how unreliable you become, and all of those sorts of things.

But I did have the really nagging consistent idea of having my own business. And once I got into a coaching model working in the consulting world, and I saw what coaching brought into the consulting package, then I really did start to have this nagging idea that I should be doing this on my own.

When I first started my business, I thought I'd be a career coach because I thought that's where I would have the best impact and it would be the easiest transition for me because I'd done quite a lot of career coaching in my in my corporate job, and it was something I really love doing.

But thankfully I was very open to what my business was going to look like, because after working with just three career coaching clients which I did for free - I did target market research interviews with them and then I did a free session in return - I realized that I had left the corporate world for a reason.

I realized I didn’t want to have these conversations about your numpty mansplaining Boss, I really didn’t.  I realized I didn’t want to help people thrive in that environment, I wanted to help them escape that environment.

And so that's where I transitioned into working with entrepreneurs, because I really could see that’s what I was more passionate about - bringing people into this beautiful world, because you don't have to ask for permission from anyone and you get to be your own boss, and you get to create an environment that you will thrive in. You get to reap the rewards of your own work as well, and that's a really beautiful thing for me.

So if you've got this nagging, consistent idea, even if you're not 100% clear on what the business would be, but you've had this nagging, consistent idea of “I really should start my business, oh, I really could do this myself” - pay attention to that. That's usually a good sign that it might be time for you to at least dabble, at least have a little play.

4. People keep telling you to turn something into a business.

I would have had 100 different things that people told me I should turn into a business!

It was - Oh my gosh, you should make novelty cakes as a business.  And - Oh my gosh, you should do career advice as a business.  Or - Oh my gosh, you should be a coach with business.  And - Oh my gosh, you should sell crochet blankets (because I love crochet and I'm into arts and crafts).

And all everyone was really saying is: You should have a business.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily pay attention to what people tell you to have a business in. But if a lot of people are telling you that you should have a business in something or another, listen to that “you should have a business” part of it. Because often that just taps on the on the shoulder of, “Hey, have you thought about having your own business?”

A lot of people won't understand what you actually end up doing. Not one of the people who’d initially told me I should have a business, when they heard the business I was actually launching said, “Oh that’s exactly the business I thought you should have.”  Instead they were all saying, “What do you mean? I don't understand - selling online? What? Social media? Isn’t that just when you share photos of your food?”

They weren't necessarily across what it was that I was going to do. But they all thought I should start a business. They definitely saw that coming.  So if people keep telling you, you should have a business, maybe it's time.

5. You've already taken some action.

So do you hoard URL addresses? Have you already set up a faux website, but you've never sent it live? Do you own a bunch of different Facebook pages or you've got a bunch of things that you've been playing with in the background?

Chances are your entrepreneurial brain is already fast at work, and if that's a sign, then you are definitely ready to start going deeper and start your own business.

Now I've given you five signs that it's time to branch out with your own business. But I see a lot of people when they first start a business get all wrapped up in comparing their beginning with someone else's middle or end point, or with someone else's mature business model.

It can be very easy to believe that the pathway from startup to there is not a treacherous or rocky one and that it's just simply going straight into working in this space.

Yes, when you come behind people who have already gone before you and they've already paved the way, there are some things that you can leapfrog.  For example, things that I did that you would never have to do when you started a business.

Back when I started my business, we didn't have prolific numbers of Facebook groups. We didn't have Zoom – it didn't exist.  We didn't have opportunities to run webinars without using $200 to $300 a month platforms. We didn't have platforms like Kartra, an all-in-one.  We had to tie a bunch of different technology platforms together.  You don't have to do all that stuff, you get to make the leap frog.

But there are certain parts of the startup journey that you really want to nail effectively, so that you can get to profitability quickly and you can get to the point where you've proven this is a sustainable business model as quickly and easily as possible.

In today's episode, we're going to talk about where to go to learn the best business strategy. And I've got some juicy options for you. So let's dive right in.

When it comes to finding advice on how to grow your business and where to focus your energy first, you have so many options.  Oh my goodness, if another internet marketing expert jumps into the pond, it doesn't even make a ripple.

There are so many people out there who want to give you their advice. They want to teach you their special methodology. They believe they've found the juiciest secret, and you have so many options available to you.

Now if you were to listen to the advice from some of these online marketers, you would be led to believe that every single person is able to be helped specifically by just one person. But that is never actually the case. What works for someone might not work for someone else.  What works in one market doesn't necessarily work in another.

• We need different business strategies for different people.
• We need different business strategies for different target markets.
• We need different business strategies for different products, different services, different countries, different cultures.

So when it comes to selecting someone to tell you what to do with your business, to help guide you to grow your business, here are a few things to look out for.

1. Check Alignment.

Does their sales process, ie the way they are trying to sell to you, align with your values? Have a look from an external perspective and take a step back when you're going through this sales process. Look at the steps that they take you through.

Does that feel aligned? Would you be comfortable taking people through those steps yourself?

How do they make you feel when you sign up for their free training?  Does it make you feel positive and excited and thinking about possibilities, or does it really make you feel panicked and worried and freaking out that you're not going to succeed without them?

Chances are if they are using feelings-based and emotions-based strategies on you, when you learn business and marketing from them, they are going to tell you to do exactly the same to your potential customers.  Does that feel like something you would want to be doing for other people?  Is that the way that you want to show up?

2. Examine the Sales Process.

Specifically, are there certain things that happen in the sales process that you would never do as part of your sales process?  For example, do they tell you that it's a limited time, once-off offer? And then you see it in several other places online?

Are they using misleading information in this sales process?  Are you made to jump through hoops for seemingly impossible reasons?

Do they force you to make early commitments when you're not really sure you're ready for it?  Look at that sales process through the lens of whether you would be willing to do that to someone else. Because if you're not, then chances are when you start to work with that person, you're going to feel like it's misaligned. And you're not necessarily going to embrace all of their process in your own business and marketing techniques.

A lot of these sales processes require an “all or nothing” approach. I once had a business coach say to me if I was not willing to tell people that my pre-recorded webinars were actually live, then he would not work with me, because that's where his conversion rates and confidence came from. So that was a really big alarm bell for me, and I didn't end up signing up - (surprise, surprise) - but have a think about these things.

You don't need to have that kind of confrontational conversation with someone to really get a feel for what the sales process is that they use and whether that feels like something you would be willing to do as well.

3. Listen to your gut; listen to your heart.

You are very smart person and often your body and your intuition is telling you to run in the other direction, but we make it mean that maybe we're just not cut out for this stuff.  You think, “Maybe this is exactly what I need because it's really pushing my buttons. Maybe this is what I just need to suck it up and do in order to be successful.”

But if you have a gut feeling that this person isn't for you, or that this process isn't for you, or that you're not 100% comfortable with what's just happened, then listen to yourself.  Listen to your intuition. Listen to those gut feelings. Only you know how aligned you feel with a business mentor and a marketing mentor.  Only you are able to really tap into whether it feels right, or whether it feels completely misaligned.

4. Review Stage of Business.

Are the strategies that they are teaching appropriate for your stage of business?  Now, this is a really interesting one, because a lot of people jump into programs and courses and business strategy they're not ready for yet, thinking they are leap-frogging into a stage that's really aspirational for them. But if you're missing some of those solid business foundations, you end up playing in advanced marketing and strategies that rely on things you don't actually have yet.

For example, if you are wanting to leverage your time and sell online courses and programs, but you don't have an audience, you don't have solid messaging, you haven't proven that people are willing to pay for that outcome yet, then you might just be playing with marketing strategies that are “up here,” when what you really need to do is sort out what's going on in the foundations.

So get really clear about what stage of business you're at, and get really clear about what this particular marketing strategy is targeted towards.

Is it actually targeted towards people in start-up, like you? Or are they just trying to convince you that you can jump in and invest in Facebook ads and get results straightaway?

I was very disappointed a few weeks ago to go to a free webinar, where someone was teaching advanced sales funnel strategies and automations, and they were trying to pitch it as being appropriate for people who are in very early stages of start-up all the way through to having hundreds of people on your mailing list.

Actually, a lot of the strategies that they were talking about would involve you risking a lot of your time and a lot of your money in developing automated and pre-design all sorts of different funnels without actually knowing or having evidence that when people get to the end of the funnel, they'll actually buy what you have to offer. That they're actually interested in investing in this particular outcome.

So have a think about and do some assessments about what stage of business you're at. And then when you're looking for business strategy advice, make sure that it's appropriate for your stage of business, and really listen to what that person is saying about who it's designed for.

If they are saying it’s for start-up and all the way through to advanced, chances are the people in the earliest stages of business will get left behind, and will feel like there's something wrong with them, and won't actually get the results and end up going round in circles, because they haven't got those solid foundations in place.

If the person selling you the marketing strategy isn't clear on what stage of business it's for, reach out and ask them. And if they give you a very broad brush answer, chances are they haven't actually been discerning about whether this strategy is appropriate for all stages of business, because there are very few strategies that can be applied to all stages of business, carte blanche.

In particular, look for where they talk about investment in advertising, or other functionality, technology, and platforms. Because if they are expecting a significant investment, then you really want to make sure you've got proof of concept before you go down that pathway. A great question to ask before you join any course or program is: “What am I expected to invest beyond the purchase of this course or program?”

For example, in the Takeoff program, on the sales page, I say that all of the tools and strategies we use require less than $100 in investment beyond purchasing the Takeoff program.

I'm very upfront and very clear that you don't need an additional budget in order to get the results.

Many years ago, when I was looking at purchasing a Facebook ads program, I reached out to ask what the expected investment in Facebook ads was. I said, “Look, I only really have around $500 to $600 a month to invest in doing Facebook ads in my business. Will I still be able to get value from this program, or is there an expected investment that's a little higher?”  The person replied back to me and said “No, $500 is enough. Just make sure that you jump into the program.”

However, just before I clicked the “Buy Now” button, I went and read the terms and conditions of the program. This program had a 30-day “no questions asked” money back guarantee, but in the terms and conditions of that course, it said that I needed to show I had invested over $2,000 in Facebook ads within the first 30 days to be eligible for the refund!!  What!

Now I'm sure my legal peeps would say that technically, I would have been able to get out of that refund policy if I had chosen to invest, but you want to make sure that you're going in with your eyes open.

So review the marketing advice and the potential investment that you're making through the lens of whether this is appropriate for your stage of business.

5. Ask around.

Don't just ask people their opinion but ask for their results - what the process was and what their return on investment was as well.

The other little trick I like is to ask for opinions from people who invested in the program over a year ago. If they are still feeling the love for the program, then chances are it is a good fit and it is a great opportunity.  What I find is when I ask for opinions on programs, the only opinions and advice I get back in public spaces are from people who've just joined. So they've just joined in the last four to six weeks, and they're really excited about their investment, and they want other people to join them as well.

One of the things in buyer psychology is that “if other people are coming in behind me, it helps me to justify my decision.”  You might see this with people who are with certain telephone providers, they always recommend the one that they went with, because that's the one that they went with, and they want to justify their own decision by making sure that other people see it's a great opportunity as well.

So whenever someone offers to give me feedback on a program or share their experiences, I'll always ask “How long have you been in the program?”  And if they haven't been in the program for more than a year, then usually I won't necessarily take their feedback on board as strongly as I would if someone has been in the program longer.

It's a really good way to just see what kinds of results people are getting and really dig into whether it could be a good program for you or whether this is a great person to follow.

Now, the other thing I like to talk about is not just people's opinions on the program, but to ask them what their results are, and ask them what it feels like - what's the process inside the program. Ask them, “How long did it take for you to get return on investment from this particular program?”

They are really juicy questions to ask, and give you way more information, versus, “Is it a nice program? Is this a nice person? Is this worth my money?”  People can't make those decisions for you, and people can't tell you whether it's worth your money because everyone has unique circumstances and situations.

6. Try out their free stuff first.

Often what we find in online marketing circles is that there is a push to get you to invest as quickly as possible. Other online marketers will say that the first 30 days when someone joins your list is the most critical time and you need to really bombard them with all the information and make sure that you get them to commit to the investment because if they don't purchase within that 30 days, then the chances of them investing over time will go down and down.

But for myself, the opposite of that is actually true.  The longer someone has been in Tash Corbin world, the more likely they are to eventually invest in something with me.

And I think this is because I give people a really good indicator and experience of what it's like to work with me through my freebies, and through podcast episodes like this, and the Facebook Lives that I do.

Over time, I'm actually growing people's trust in me and what I offer, rather than diminishing their trust in what I offer.

In today's episode, we're going to be talking about how to build your credibility as a business owner and entrepreneur.  I understand that in times gone by, your credibility was measured by the size of the shoulder pads in your jacket, but those days are gone.

I absolutely adore talking about this topic. And I'm really excited about this podcast episode as well because it allows me to be talking about something that we see online, and we "kind of" think we need to do it and we're not 100% sure. And I have some very specific advice in this space.

More and more these days online, we hear about this need for credibility and creating "expert status" for yourself.

We talk here about social proof and all of the things that help people to make a decision to invest with you.

And people want to work with leaders.

They want to work with experts.

They want to work with people they trust and who are really credible.

I totally understand that this can be something that we think is very important when we first start our business. But in today's episode, I want to actually talk about decreasing the need for projecting credibility and expert status and also creating a sense of expert credibility in an authentic, heart centred way.

So first of all, let's talk about why we think we need to have this expert status or credibility.

Why do people crave it?

I find that, particularly for women in the online business world, it's because we don't want to have to sell ourselves.

So we actually look to external validation in order to make us feel like we are a trusted source, we are an expert, we are valuable, we are worthy.  But by trying so hard to keep seeking out all of this expert status and proof of credibility, we are often devaluing what we are actually worth.

We are devaluing what we have to offer.

We are saying to ourselves, the universe, and potential customers and clients: “I'm only valuable and reliable and a valid source for you because I've got this expert status, because of something that's outside of me.”

You might feel that same resistance to selling yourself, you might feel that same resistance to just standing in your power, and being yourself and saying: This is who I am and this is what I have to offer you.

I understand why that feels like a real safety net to have that expert status, to have that external validation, to have that credibility, and to say, I've got the certificate, or I've got this or I've got that - I totally understand. And there are better ways that you can create that credibility.

But I want us to cover that off at the end of this podcast episode, once we have actually reduced the need for it, after we recognize that our desire for that expert status or credibility is just a crutch. It's a sense that because this trusted source says “I'm good,” or because all of these people give you social proof that it means "I'm good."

So we're going to actually reduce the need for it first, and then we're going to build your credibility and expert status in a heart centred, very authentic, very connected way.

So first of all, let's reduce the need for it.

All that I've just explained to you may have worked in the past.  For most people, after they've heard all that they think, "Oh my gosh, I'm totally trying to hide behind my 17 certificates."

Or "Oh my gosh, I'm totally trying to use 45 testimonials in my webinars, because I don't want to say that I'm good. I want other people to say that I'm good."

So even just knowing what's going on for yourself can often reduce that desire to have all of this external validation.

People trust it less these days.

You know yourself when you go to a sales page and you read the 25th testimonial, you're thinking to yourself, "Okay, I get it - other people like you, can we just move on? And can you just tell me what you're going to do? Can you just tell me what I'm going to get out of this? Can you just tell me what the value is of this?"

Because that's what we really want to know when we are buying something, particularly when we're buying from a personal brand.

We want to know that this person understands us, this person has something that can help us, this person is deeply committed to helping us get that outcome. And this person knows how to get us that outcome.

We can get all of that reassurance and all of that information from you just speaking about what it is that you have to offer. We don't need to hear other people talking about you. And also, that external validation does not have as big an impact on our ability to decide whether you're good or not, whether you're going to have a good service or not, as a sense of connection to you.

For example, when you go to a barbecue and you meet an electrician, and they say, "Oh, yeah, I'm an electrician." You don't then go and Google to find five other electricians. You don't ask them, "Do you have external references?"  No - You met that person, you've created a connection with them. Often you've met them through someone that you already know. And so that creates that initial connection, but you trust them because you've had a conversation with them. And you choose them because you've got a connection with them. Not because they tell you, "Oh, yes, Jen over here actually had some lights installed by me a few weeks ago. Would you like Jen to tell you how amazing my light installation was?" That's not why we make these choices!

So we want to make sure that in our business, we're not actually costing ourselves sales by focusing so much on the external validation that we're not actually talking straight about our products and services.

It's not as big of an impact as we think it is.

Actually our connection strategies will help us create higher conversion and get the results we're looking for and make the sale wayyyy more than testimonials, social proof, trusted recommendations, being seen as an expert, 45 different certificates, or that “as seen in” bar across the bottom of your website that has 14 publications that are no longer in print.

So how can we increase connection to get that conversion happening rather than increasing your social proof, external validation credibility, or expert status?

1. Connect via humans!

Humans love buying from humans. You now have ads for banks on television saying, when you call our call centre, you'll speak to a real live human being - that is a selling point.

So if you are a human who is selling services to humans, guess what, you already have a competitive advantage. Just connect and be human, allow people to ask you questions.

When I'm in the mood to buy something, I am much more swayed by the ability to type an email to someone and ask for some clarification on something and getting an answer from them than I am swayed by the 45 fake testimonials that they've got on the sales page.

Allow people to connect with you, be human, show your human side, and you might just find that you get way more results than you ever will get with any of that external stuff.

2. Get good at talking to your outcomes.

Instead of relying on other people to tell your ideal clients that you're good at what you do, instead of relying on other people or certificates to speak for your work, learn to speak for your work well.

• Learn to speak about the outcomes that you are able to create for your ideal clients.
• Learn to speak about the value proposition of your products and services.
• Learn to speak about the transformation that you are facilitating.

Because all of that time you're spending on getting that external stuff, if you were to invest that on really nailing your messaging and your value proposition, you'll get way faster results anyway.

3. Be transparent.

I find it so connecting and so engaging when someone says, "You know what, I haven't got all of that figured out. But I'm really good at this, and if you need this, this is what I'm going to help you with." Or people saying things like, "This is this is my first year in business."

I actually find that I'm more drawn to people who are in start-up.  It might be because I love helping people in start-up and I love investing in working with people who are in start-up and helping them get their business moving really quickly. I'm very passionate about Women in Business, but often the things that you are hiding are actually part of your value proposition.

For example, I was working with someone and she was in her early 20s, and she didn't have any photos of herself on her social media, or on her website. And when I asked her about getting some photos onto her socials and website, she said, "Oh, no, people are gonna judge me because I'm too young." She was worried that older people wouldn't buy from her because she thought they would perceive her as too young. And when we worked out who her ideal client was, it was actually women in their 20s and 30s. She wanted to work with young, vibrant, vivacious women. So the thing that she was trying to hide - her young age - was actually a value proposition in her work.

I see this happen for a lot of people who say, "Oh, well, I'm not really qualified." They're trying to hide the fact that they're not necessarily qualified. But they actually could be highlighting that all of their abilities come from practical, grounded experience.

So often the thing that we're trying to hide or the thing that we're worried about, or the thing that we don't really want to bring attention to is actually the full, transparent, authentic self.

Another great example was when I was working with someone who has a chronic illness. And she said, "Well, I don't want to tell too many people about this illness, because then they might think that I'm going to be unreliable." But in talking about it we realized, "If your ideal clients also are dealing with a chronic illness or something that stops them from showing up fully, wouldn't it demonstrate to people that you deeply understand what's going on for them?"  If you start the relationship with people knowing your situation, then those people who choose to buy from you will be more understanding, and you'll be able to create safety nets and systems because you've been transparent about it. And once she started to embrace that, her business boomed.

So connect to the human, talk to the outcome, and be more transparent in your business.

Now, with all of that in mind, now that we've dialed down your need for this expert status and credibility, and dialed down your need for external validation, you can see that credibility doesn't come from externals, it comes from internals...

So here are three things you can do that will give you that extra edge of credibility.

Focusing

And when I say focusing, I mean focusing on a very specific niche.  A. Very. Specific. Niche.

When you focus down on a very specific niche, you are instantly telling people you specialize in solving this particular problem for this particular group of people.

So by creating that focus, what you're actually doing is putting yourself in the specialist category, very quickly, almost instantaneously, just by choosing to focus.

Consistency

And this is a really interesting one because so many people struggle with consistency, particularly when they first start in their businesses. But actually, the number one driver of trust in a relationship is that I can accurately predict how you are going to behave.

Let me say that again: The number one driver of trust in a relationship is that I can accurately predict how you're going to behave.

So if you say "I put out a new video every Tuesday," and then you don't put a video out every Tuesday, you don't do what you say you're going to do, you are eroding the trust that you are creating with that audience.

And that is derailing your credibility way faster than you can rebuild it up with expert testimonials.

So be really mindful about how you can ensure consistency in your business. That includes consistency in delivering what you say you're going to deliver to your clients - when you tell clients that you'll do something for them by a particular deadline, you hit those deadlines and exceed them. When you say you're going to do something for someone, you actually do it, you show up consistently, you provide value consistently. You send your newsletter consistently.  All of those things actually give you way more credibility than a bunch of testimonials on your website.

Pricing

For so many women in business when they first start out, they price themselves so low that people see their prices and do a double take, like - Is this a trick? There must be something wrong with it.

So by focusing on pricing that is appropriate, and consistently reviewing your pricing to ensure that it reflects the level of experience and qualification and the time that you've been in business, you can actually be insuring the credibility of your business as well.

A lot of coaches have taken this message and run with it so far that they will say things like, "If you're charging under $3,000, you're wasting your time."  And I actually do not subscribe to that model.

When you're first starting out in business, you need to charge a price point that feels really comfortable for you. Because the early phases of your business are when your confidence is the lowest, and your worries and wobbles are most likely to come to the fore.  And if you are also charging a huge price that you've never charged before, you have no idea if people will ever pay you for it, so when you don't make sales, it can create some really big wobbles for you.

But something that I've seen happen that's even worse is: If someone gets convinced that they should be charging $3,000 or $5,000, and they put their price up from $1,000 to $4,000, and they make a sale - they're celebrating, they're going, Oh my god, this is so amazing. And then months pass before they make another sale.

And they can't put their prices back down because someone has paid the full price. So then they start doing secret offers to people behind the scenes, or they're rocking in the fetal position in the corner because they don't know what to do – they’re stuck at an impasse.

Because of that, I am a big fan of incremental price increases and consistently reviewing your prices.

When I first started my business, I charged $97 for an hour. I'm now charging $2,000 for an hour, but I've gotten to that over incremental price increases over a period of time. And when I first started my business, it was very aggressive. It was consistent that I increased my prices as I developed my confidence and as demand for my products and services went up, and I was developing online courses and all sorts of things.

But honestly, if I had jumped into it being $5,000 or nothing to work with me when I first started my business, I know that all the mindset stuff and all the money blocks that would have come up would have been very difficult for me to overcome.

I also know that that predictability of income for me would have been so low that I wouldn't have been able to make some of the moves that I did in my business.

Related to this, the higher you go with your prices when you're first starting out, the less people you're working with.  When I first started my business, I wanted to work with as many people as possible. I needed to practice, I needed to work out my processes. I wanted to understand people really deeply and understand what their challenges were, what wobbles they had, who did their homework, who didn't do their homework.

I needed to work with a wide range of people within my very specific niche, so that I could get really clear, really calm and really confident.

If I'd gone straight to the $5,000 or nothing model, I wouldn't have got all of the experience that I got in the first six months, and the first year, and the first two years of my business, which is now the foundation of this rock solid business that I have today.

So yes, pricing does give a reflection of your experience and your expertise and your credibility. But I don't want you to drive yourself up to a price point that puts you in wobble mode, robs you of the opportunity to work with a bunch of clients and build your confidence, and achieving that real deep knowing within that you know your stuff, you can get the outcomes, and you are here to stay with a sustainable business.

In this episode, I'm going to take you through lean startup business basics.

Even if you already have an existing business, it's a great episode for you to check in on whether you've achieved some of the key things that prove your business is going to scale and still be profitable.

And if you're just starting out, it's a really sexy, really effective business model. That means you can save time and money and also build your business with less risk.

Sounds pretty juicy, right?

So what exactly is lean startup?

In a nutshell, lean startup is proving your business and your model before you significantly invest time and money.

Lean startup, in particular, is focused on saving money. But as a model, it also saves you a lot of time in your business development journey.

What we're talking about here is making sure that people are actually going to pay for the thing that you want to sell, and making sure you've got the messaging, the price point, and all of the other parts of your advertising and marketing strategy sorted before you scale to large audiences.

So by doing things like small scale testing and getting proof of concept, you are able to ensure that when you do invest money to get large scale reach, for example, that you're giving yourself the best opportunity for that investment to provide a return.

This is particularly sexy for online channels because these days, we have access to larger scale audiences organically without having to invest lots of money.

We have access to test audiences through social media and other online platforms so we have an amazing opportunity to build lean businesses like never before.

Why would you want to build your business using a Lean Startup model?

1. First of all, it is a really smart way of doing business.

I actually started my business as a Lean Startup out of necessity, rather than by design. When I first started my business, and I've told this story hundreds of times, I actually quit my job. And then we went overseas for three and a half weeks, and then we came back, we'd maxed out our credit cards, I had no money to invest in my business, and I was sitting at my desk and it was like, Okay, here's day one. Now start a business.

And because of that, I needed to learn how to get my products and services in front of audiences without investing significant money. I had to learn what was working really quickly and what wasn't so that I could pivot and adjust and make sure that I was getting profit - scaled profit - as quickly as possible.

So I really do believe that I was blessed to have no money to start my business. I am very lucky that that was my journey. I know that if I had a spare $15,000 lying around, I would have bought a a fancy pantsy website that would have been probably quite pretty but not really say anything. And I would have done a lot of work on all of the bells and whistles in my business before I'd actually proven people were going to pay for my services.

And actually, on that first day, when I sat down to start my business, I thought I was going to be a career coach for ambitious women in the corporate world. So if I hadn't started my business lean, I would have invested all of that money that I didn't have into a business that ultimately I didn't follow through on. It was after speaking to just three people who were in that target market - about how I could help them and the types of strategies that I could help them with and what the problems were that they were facing - that I realized I had left the corporate world for a reason. I realized I didn't want to have those conversations anymore. That was not the ideal model of business for me, and it definitely wasn't the right target market.  

Because my business was a lean startup, I wasn't attached to keeping on with that particular focus. But if I had built a website on career coaching, had gotten photos taken and graphic design done and invested in ads, all focused on career coaching for women in corporate, it would have been much harder for me to let go of that business. In hindsight, moving into working with entrepreneurs was the smartest and most aligned way that I could have grown my business.

But you can imagine if you've invested a lot of money and a lot of time in a business idea, but it's still not proven, you have a “sunk cost.”

Research has shown that sunk cost is actually perceived by us psychologically as higher than actual cost.  So having a lessening of that sunk cost is another great reason for Lean Startup, because you don't have to stay attached to a particular pathway.

2. Lessening of "sunk costs" means you don't stay attached to a specific pathway.

There was this awesome experiment where they got people into a room, and they gave half of the room a coffee cup. And the people who had the coffee cup had to decide what would they be willing to sell the coffee cup for. And the people who didn't have a coffee cup needed to decide what would they be willing to pay for the coffee cup, and it ended up that the people who had the coffee cup valued at $5.50 and the people who didn't have on valued at around $2.50. 

We can see that when we actually have something already, we value it way higher than what we would buy it for, or what would we put into it if we were starting from scratch. This is one reason why I think that lean business and lean startup is critical for women who are moving into the online space. Because we can get so attached to that business we've been working on, we can get so attached to all that we've put in before and we feel like we're throwing that all out, in order to move into alignment with the business that is the right fit for us.

But as they say, just because you're running a marathon in the wrong direction, doesn't mean that if you keep running, you're going to get there faster. You need to stop and pivot and actually realign.

So if you are reading this and thinking, I wish I had done lean startup, just because you have invested time and money, it doesn't mean that you should keep going in that direction. And using the principles of lean startup, even if you've already started, you can work out what your most appropriate pivot is from here and start playing with what it is that you're working on. So that you can ensure that you have got proof of concept, proof of business model, proof of profitability before you then start to scale.

3. Thirdly, it allows you to get to profit earlier.

In order to create that proof of concept using lean startup, what we do is we actually go out and start making sales.

So the people who embrace lean startup and use this as part of their model, often will get to profitability way faster than their counterparts, because what you're doing is nailing it first through making money, and then scaling your business.

And especially for women, the Lean Startup model is particularly effective because it doesn't rely on high pressure sales or convincing styles of marketing.

Think about it. If you've invested $50,000 and two years of your heart and your soul into creating a business before you've even got sales coming in, when you then embark on the sales and marketing process, it's not just about inviting people to purchase from you. You really need them to purchase from you.

You need to recoup those startup costs, you need to recoup all that time and energy that you've invested. And so what you end up doing is feeling this pressure to make the sale and that pressure can be reflected in the sales and marketing tactics that you use.

So for women who find those pressure based sales and marketing tactics particularly abhorrent, the Lean Startup model is a really beautiful way for you to ensure that you aren't feeling the pressure and therefore feeling like you need to convince anyone and everyone that they should be working with you.

There's also none of this “fake it till you make it”stuff either.

When you embrace a Lean Startup model, it can be a little bit confronting, because you're not embarking on and engaging in those behaviours such as trying to convince everyone you're already successful when you haven't even started.

The Lean Startup model of business can be quite vulnerable, because you need to be open with people that you are just starting.  You actually make that proof of concept by designing and testing what it is that you're selling, and letting people know that it's in the early stages of business.

So on the one hand, it can be a little bit hard because you don't want to come across as human. You want to keep up that front of “I don't want you to look at me trying, I want you to look at me succeeding.”

But on the other hand, it's a huge sigh of relief because you don't need to fake it till you make it. You don't need to put up that front. You don't have to get all those perfectly manicured photos taken and have that perfectly amazing website and all of that sort of stuff before you're allowed to earn money in your business.

You can start making sales immediately, simply by reaching out and connecting with people in the platforms that you're already on.

So what are the steps to a Lean Startup?

1. Step number one is design.

So you need to come up with some form of concept or idea or service that you want to get out there and start selling and serving people with. So you need to start with your theories and your ideas around what it is that you want to exchange for money. You might come up with an idea that you want to use your modality.

Let's say you've studied kinesiology, or you're a graphic designer or you know that you're really passionate about life coaching. So you need to come up with some initial designs on what your business is going to look like, what services and products you're going to offer, and what your pricing and your niching will be, and what your messaging will be. You need to start with something. But a lot of people invest months and months and months in this phase of business. No great business is built on theory. 

The way that you actually create momentum in your business and start refining this and pivoting it to be able to get to the point where you can scale quickly is by getting it out in front of other people.

2. Step two is to actually test it.

In lean startup, you don't test it by doing focus groups and asking people would you pay X amount dollars for this thing, or saying I'm thinking about offering this thing? How much do you think it's worth? That's actually crowdsourcing, it's not testing at all. 

The way that you test whether that's valuable to people, and what's working and what's not working and whether you've got that proof of concept is by putting the minimum viable product together, and then getting out there and starting to sell it. So if you're selling one to one services, your minimum viable product is simply your time. You can offer up a six week VIP intensive, and it's $1,000, and this is what we're going to cover in that six weeks. Who wants it?

By actually getting out there and making the offer seeing if people would be willing to invest in your process, in your product, in your service, you are proving whether people will pay for the product or service or not way more than any theoretical focus group or test or free pilot will ever prove. So get out there and test and test as quickly and as early as you can.

3. Step three is to then start making consistent sales.

Build a sales system and a marketing process that will allow you to bring in more and more people. Now, in this stage of lean startup, I also recommend reviewing your prices regularly.

For the women that I work with, in most cases, when they first start their business and they get out there and start testing, their pricing is actually a little under the mark. We want to make sure that you're consistently moving your price point and reviewing your price point to really reflect your skills experience and the transformation that you're facilitating.

So in stage three, which is to make sales on repeat and start to systemise the way that you do that, that's where I recommend that you consistently review your prices. If you need to do a price increase, I actually have a podcast episode just for you, tashcorbin.com/194.

But that stage of business is a really good time for you to be consistently reviewing your prices and really making sure that you've got all the things in place to prove: I've got the messaging right. I know how to market my services, I know how to reach my audience, and people are willing and able to pay for that service.

4. Step four is then going into scale.

Once you've been able to make sales with organic strategies, and with these high connection strategies, then I would recommend starting to look at how can you scale to larger and larger audiences. This is where you start investing money.  This is where you start investing time in getting yourself out in front of as many of your ideal clients as possible.

Now for many people, when they first start a business, they do the design part, and then they do the scale part. I have worked with people before who've paid thousands and thousands of dollars to online influencers to promote their products and services, and then had zero return on investment for that advertising and marketing strategy. And they thought the reason it didn't work was because they'd selected the wrong influencer, or they needed to tweak their sales page or there was something going on there. But they'd never made a sale before. 

All of those foundations of their business weren't actually there for them to know what to change, what to work on, whether the issue was the influencer, they had no proof that anyone would ever pay for this product and especially at the price point that they were going for.

Rather than playing at the surface of the different marketing strategies, rather than making the assumption that you just need to get in front of hundreds of thousands more people, instead, what we did was go back and review and create some proof of concept through Lean Startup processes.

So we went into existing online communities like my Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs group on Facebook. And we started to pitch the offer there. There's an existing audience, it's free for people to access. And you can get in front of a bunch of people and see if people will buy it. We also used some high connection strategies because these people had access to a bunch of people who we would have assumed would have been their ideal client for these products and services, but even they hadn't purchased anything.

So we went right back to stage one, we looked at the design, we then started to test really quickly with different price points, with different products with different messaging, and what we discovered is that the critical issue they had misunderstood about this product and service was their niche.

They had assumed that the only people who would invest in this product or certain service were successful corporate women, because everyone makes this assumption successful corporate women have lots of disposable income, so therefore, they will make these luxurious, amazing purchases. But actually, the products and services didn't meet the needs of women in corporate roles. And the messaging didn't really speak to that particular audience.

We started to look at re-targeting into working with women entrepreneurs, and all of a sudden we could speak to a much clearer value proposition. People were actually looking for this particular solution, and they started to see their sales roll in. And once that started to work, then we could look at creating sales coming in consistently, and then we could scale. They selected different influencers to do the advertising with after that, and they also started doing advertising through Facebook ads, which previously that assumed wouldn't work because they were trying to target women in corporate roles.

So you see that by getting really clear in the early stages, testing early, and proving that you've got something that people in your target market will be willing to pay for, then you're taking away a whole heap of risk.

If these people had done this before they had invested in trying to get all of that ginormous reach, they would have saved themselves time, money, and energy and heartache trying to tweak and change their marketing strategies, and still seeing no results.

If the Lean Startup model is something that sounds particularly appealing to you, I've got a beautiful free resource for you.

It's called Fast Track Your Start Up. And in that I go into the details of how you can get that design phase and that testing phase working really effectively, really quickly in your business, and start making more money more quickly.

Doesn't that sound amazing?

In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about taking time off from your business.

But I want to warn you, I’m not going to talk about it the same way that other people talk about it!

Before I talk about how to take more time off from your business, let’s talk about why.

Of course, there are all the usual reasons “why” that are touted by so many people, and yet we still don’t listen to them – such as giving yourself an opportunity to refresh, to re-energise, and to get new perspective.

Also, we didn’t start this business so that we could work 16-hour days, seven days a week…and totally burn ourselves out.

We created these businesses so that we could also achieve our life goals and our lifestyle goals.

And there are all of those “normal reasons” for wanting to take time off from your business…

It’s really great for your health and well-being.

It’s really great for your relationships.

It’s really great for those craft projects or that reading project that you never got around to finishing.

There are so many great benefits for you personally, in taking that time out from your business, but also it’s taking out time taking time out for your business, because ultimately you are your business’ greatest asset, and in taking time out from your business, you are actually nurturing its most valuable asset.

We don’t often think about the bottom line of not taking time out…

What is the cost to your business?

What is the cost of you continuing this cycle of working long days, not taking breaks, not getting a rest, losing motivation and finding it harder and harder to get back on the bandwagon when something maybe goes awry in your business as well?

Hopefully you understand why it’s so valuable to your business, to yourself, and all the other facets of your life, to take time out from your business.

So first I will give you all of the “normal steps and strategies” to taking time out.

1. Schedule the time in.

Pick a time, pick a date into the future, maybe it’s three months from now or six months from now, book a week off or two weeks off – schedule it into the calendar and make sure that everyone knows it’s coming and prepare yourself for it. Prepare your business for it.

2. Systemise things.

Make sure that you have the team members in place to keep things going for you.  Prepare for it by preparing your potential customers and existing customers by telling them “I am closed between this date and this date.”

Now that is something that I will be doing for my wedding (some of my team members are coming to my wedding!) so there will be an extended period of time this year when I will be taking time out for my business.  Things will pretty much shut down and that is totally okay as well – we will be prepared for that.

3. Take the leap.

Just trust that everything’s going to be okay and act “as if” you’re already living that successful multimillionaire lifestyle.  And this is just your “normal” so just act as if it is totally normal and take that leap.

But I also want to talk about taking time off from your business through a different lens:

It’s not all or nothing.

It doesn’t have to be this big “all or nothing” decision all of the time.

There are other ways to take time out in your business, and for your business, in ways that don’t necessarily require that ginormous commitment, and all of those other things that I just said would be great things to set you up for that success.

So if taking two weeks out of your business right now feels like it would be total agony for you, or it’s just not possible… Start to think about other ways you can take time out without it being an all or nothing proposition.

For example, maybe it’s about setting a new routine, maybe what you need to do is actually reduce your work hours from now.

So instead of working 40 or 50 hours a week right now, reduce that back, aim for 30 hours a week for the next five weeks, measure the time that you’ve put into your business and start bringing those hours down.

It’s Parkinson’s Law: A project or task will expand to take up the time that you give it.

Let’s start bringing those boundaries back in and have a hard finish time, every single day.

That’s something that I do quite meticulously, and I’m very conscious of it.

My partner David is also involved in that and makes sure that I stop when I say I’m going to stop each day.

And that really helps me to get that reset and refresh that I need on a daily basis, rather than waiting till I go on holidays for three weeks – in November.

So I think that this can sometimes happen when we come from a corporate background, or we’ve seen what happens in the corporate world.

You get four weeks off a year in Australia – I’ve just discovered so many countries don’t do even four weeks off.  They might do two weeks off in the summer, or something like that.  Oh my goodness!

We’re used to just consistently working 40-hour weeks, with “you have your weekends.”  And you might have a couple of public holidays, and then you get your four weeks off per year.

We don’t have to subscribe to that model when we are self-employed.

We don’t have to do that anymore.  Something that’s been a goal of mine, and I’ve hit it many times, (and I’ve also not hit it many times), is to work less than 20 hours a week.

And I had a little period, where I was doing less than 15 hours a week, and I felt like it wasn’t actually the right balance for me.  I wanted more work time.

When I got down to 15 hours in a week, I was starting to feel was like I was missing it – I had FOMO for my business – whereas when I was at 20 hours, it felt like that was really the right fit.

So 20 hours a week is my normal work week now.

And I would say 50% of the time I’m under or around 20 hours, and 50% of the time, I might creep up to 25.  Maybe in a tough week it’s 30, but it’s definitely never above 30.

So that’s a really good feeling for me, and that means I don’t feel this compelling need to always have extended periods of time off in my business.

Another way you can create that “time out” in your business without necessarily making it an all or nothing proposition is to take time off from parts of your business.

I do this really regularly – I will block out weeks where I don’t have any client sessions.

And I would say probably one week per month, I have one of these weeks where I have got it blocked out.

I might still do things behind the scenes of my business, I still meet with my team, I’m still doing Facebook things, but I’m just not having client sessions in that time, or group calls in that particular week.

And I actually have three days a week where I have no external facing time, most days.

Now, there are exceptions to that.

For example, when I’m doing a daily Facebook Live for something like Tashmas, or if I’m doing a challenge, or I’m doing something in the lead up to a launch, I might still do some Facebook Lives.

But I still have those three days a week where I have no client facing time. And if I can, no public facing time as well.  It’s a really great balanced way of doing business.

So when people are working with me one-on-one, and even in my group programs, most calls are done on a Tuesday or Thursday, while Monday, Wednesday and Friday aren’t necessarily client facing times.

I’m allowed to break that rule if I want to, and it’s totally up to me. But by having that loose boundary on things, it makes my life so much easier. And it means again, that I’m consistently feeling like I’ve got time to work on my business instead of constantly being in my business.

Now you can think about ways to take time off from certain parts of your business.

One way is no client facing time, but you can also do the opposite where you only do client facing time.

Often this is what I will do – I will have my team meeting on Monday, and I will say, “Look, I’m feeling a bit burnt out at the moment, so I’m just going to do the client facing time this week, and all the other stuff is going to have to be delayed until next week,” and my team works around that.

So there are some really cool ways that you can take time out from parts of your business.

And that is giving you that sense of spaciousness, and all of those benefits of taking time off your business, without necessarily having to do it as all or nothing.

Then we think sometimes that we need to go away overseas, to go on these long breaks and all those sorts of things.

“Honest Dave” and I will often just take two days off in the middle of a week, and we will go somewhere locally, or we’ll stay at home or we’ll work on other projects, or we’ll just have a Netflix day.

And those short breaks and being able to have them makes me really, really grateful for the days when I am working my business.

So as I said before, when I got down to 15 hour weeks, I was actually really missing my business.

And that was such an amazing feeling.

It was so nice to know that my business was still such a big driver for me, I was still so passionate about it. And I wanted to be in my business.  I wasn’t just doing it because I had to.

And so by just starting with some shorter breaks more regularly, then you can start to build up to more consistent longer breaks if you need.

I would recommend that you take a long weekend as a minimum at least once a month.

Give yourself a Friday or a Monday off and actually take that break.

Those shorter breaks are great practice, and it’s great to see where you feel those feelings of guilt or worry or you’re anxious or you need to keep checking things.

Sometimes it’s just a habit as well, and you’ll be able to pay attention to those habits, and start to shift those and change them in your mini-break practices, so that when you do book in that longer period of time off, you’ll know what your triggers are, what your worries are, and where you need to be prepared, and where you need to shift up those habits.

I know some people who completely delete all the business-related apps off their phone whilst they’re on holiday.

So they still have their phone, they can still take photos, but they have no Facebook app. They have no email app there, none of those sorts of things.

And all they can do is call, text message, or take photos, and they really lock down their phone so that it just does the things that they need when they’re on holidays.

Keep your Google Maps on because hashtag Tash gets lost a lot!

Now I don’t go that far.  I don’t have alerts on my phone for those apps. I still do have them.

But sometimes I do notice myself reaching for the phone. I’ll just quickly check my Facebook and it’s so powerful to notice that moment.

That moment gives you that beautiful opportunity to check in, and think about…

What happened just before that?

What was I thinking about just before that?

What were the thoughts creeping into my head?

What were the worries?

A lot of the time for me, it’s that feeling guilty about taking time out.

And I know that actually allowing myself to experience that feeling, and seeing it, and paying attention, and noticing, is the fastest track for me to actually dig into where it’s come from and clear it.

So have a think about shorter breaks so you can take and pay attention to those different things that you, do those habits or those worries that creep in for you in the short breaks – that’s going to be great homework to prepare you for your longer breaks.

And then another way of taking time out is to go on a retreat.

Whether that’s going on a solo retreat on your own, I do that three times a year now and I totally love it. I go away, I leave Davey behind with Munchkin.

I book a hotel for myself or I book an Airbnb somewhere with really fast internet, with great sound and acoustics so I can record a bunch of podcast episodes and get a bunch of work done… Maybe something with a nice walk, great restaurants nearby, whatever it might be. And I book in at least four days for a solo retreat regularly for myself.

And you can also go on retreats with other people.  I’m actually looking for and considering a couple of different one-on-one retreats that I’m going to be doing next year.

I’ve already decided that in two months of next year, I’m going to go on retreats that are facilitated, but there are a couple of amazing ladies who run single day VIP retreat type things where you just go and work together for one day, but you have your accommodation, for two days before and two days after, and the same space. So you’ve got kind of a solo retreat, but with a guest appearance by someone in the middle.

There’s also a group one that I’m considering. And I’m also looking at people to reach out to and say, “hey, I want to go on a retreat here. How much would it cost for me to fly you out for a couple of days to do some work with me on things that I want to work on in my business?”

Now, those types of time out from my business is really stepping me away from being in the business to working on the business, and they’re hyper powerful in the preparation for those retreats. I’m very productive with getting things done before I go.

I recently went on retreat to Bali, and that was a “doing” retreat. And Laura, who’s one of my team members, was sending through all these tasks for me to do whilst I was there, and in the couple of weeks before I was going,

I was so excited for the retreat, just amped up and motivated, that I was doing all my Bali homework before I even got on the plane to go away.

It was such an amazing feeling.

It was so cool to look back and see, in the two weeks before I went away, how much work that I got done – I wrote two books, I created two courses,

I ended up creating half a third course. I caught up a bunch of that admin stuff, I wrote email sequences, I redid sales pages – I totally revamped a bunch of things in my business.

And it was so amazing to see that it all happened not just on the retreat, but in the lead up, and then also in the follow up as well.

Even now, a few weeks later, I’m still feeling like I’m in this hyper productive zone. And I’m really riding that wave of productivity and efficiency that came from going away on a working retreat.

One of the things I do recommend if you go on retreat, is to make sure that you don’t have that client facing time whilst you’re there.

I usually break this rule for one or two people. And every time I do, I think, next time, I won’t do that, I’m actually going to really take that time away and not have any client facing time while so I’m on retreat.

This last time I did that.  And I stayed true to that.  And it was a much different feeling.

So there’s a bunch of different ways that you can take time off from your business and for your business.

And I hope that this has planted the seed for you that it doesn’t need to be all or nothing.

I’m not saying that you need to take four weeks off every quarter, and be totally detached from your business all of the time.

For people like me, sometimes that just doesn’t feel like it’s reasonable. And it’s not something I particularly desire to do.

After two weeks away from my business, I am itching to get back.

I love the balance that it’s created for my business.

I’ve found a way to not only build my lifestyle, but also building these mini-break type approaches as well as the longer term approach approaches.  I hope that you can find something that totally works for you as well.

Now if you have any questions, of course, please do get in touch.

I’d love to hear from you!

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