Ep 362: When your business is taking over you life, this saves you

Welcome And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Well, hello friends. This is Kimberly to episode 362, and I'm so glad you're here because we're talking about why your business may be taking over your life. This needs to stop. It cannot take over your entire life. But if it is, I've got a solution for you today. I I am feeling this because I've been going through it as I've been building out the new gift boutique. She's just getting started.com. Y'all have heard about this. And it's just fresh on my mind. And I've just realized that your business can take over your entire life. And we cannot let that happen because we have other parts of our life that are very important. So we're going to talk about that today. If you're new here, welcome, whether you're starting a business, growing one, or dreaming about starting a business, or even just dreaming about your next chapter. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome. There's all kinds of resources down below. You can join our Facebook group, which I'm personally inviting you in right now. We'd love to have you in the She's Just Getting Started group. There's a link down below. If you're building a business, I've got apps and tools that I use in a master spreadsheet. I've got checklists for starting your business. So make sure you get all of that down below because it's there for you. Always check the show notes because that's where the important links are. So that is it. Thank you all to my loyal listeners. Y'all are wonderful and amazing. And on to the episode. Well, hello, friends. I'm so glad that you're here today because this is really key to you running a successful business and actually loving your life. Running a business. Okay. The last thing I want is for you to be overrun by so much of business thinking, business doing, business management, everything that you lose who you are along the way. Today we're talking about this, okay? Many of you complain that it's taking over your life. And in coaching,

Signs Business Is Taking Over

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if I was sitting with you, we would look at why it's taking over your life. And usually there's one big answer, which I'm going to reveal here in a minute. But I want you to think about right now, just kind of get in the headspace of you and asking yourself, why is everything so hard? Like if you've been in that moment, I want you to just sit with that for a minute because it's heavy and it's probably putting a lot of stress on you. If you have said that to yourself, you are probably stressed out. You have probably, you know, had to stop doing the things outside of business that you still love to do. Maybe you love to work out every day and you're not getting to do that. Or maybe you're not getting to hang out with your friends as much and play mahjong or pickleball or whatever it is. Maybe you haven't been able to cook dinner as much. Maybe you took pride in making homemade dinners for your family and you just you're not able to do that. Or maybe you haven't been able to make commitments that you've been wanting to make. Maybe you're volunteering, doing stuff with your church, whatever it is. And I think the moment when you realize that something is taking over your life, you have to stop for a minute. And maybe you have been. Okay. Maybe you've been like, okay, this needs attention. I need to figure this out. Maybe you've been kind of adjusting. I don't know if this is you. I've done this before. Maybe you work kind of longer hours, or maybe you work at night when everyone goes to bed, or you get up early and you're trying to do things. Maybe you're even paying some people to do some of your work for you, which is great. I think that's a great solution. But still there's a problem, which we're going to get to. It's that you keep trying to actually do what you're doing in the way that you're doing it, but maybe get some help, but still it's taking over your life. You can't seem to catch up. Maybe you can't process all the orders. Maybe you can't make the new products. You can't get your website right. And, you know, you're doing some things that are helping, but they're not actually fixing the problem, right? Maybe you're putting a band-aid over some of the things, or maybe you've just said, okay, I'm going to stop doing XYZ and I'm not, you know, maybe I don't have time to do social media or the videos I wanted to do, or you just don't have time to do the parts of your business to actually grow it. Maybe you're just maintaining your business, right? This is hard. This is hard when you get to this point where you have to do that. I know years and years ago, I can't even remember exactly when it was when we lived in Colorado. I mean, I remember my husband saying, you know, you're working way too much. And yes, my business was super busy at the time. And I was juggling three kids and I was doing all these things. So no wonder I was working. It probably seemed like I was working too much, but I was doing other things during the day too, dealing with my children and trying to live my life the way that I wanted to, be present with my children and cook dinner and do all the things. And I caught myself doing this and feeling overwhelmed and like this is taking over my life and feeling a lot of pressure. Like I remember almost having a panic attack one time because I was like, so many people are depending on me to get these orders out and do all of this. And it just feels like I

A Hard Lesson From Colorado

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can't escape it, right? I can't escape. And it's hard, but I caught myself. My husband was like, it can't keep going like this, right? So I started making changes in my business. And I want to talk about that today because I'm reminded again, starting a product business and having the She's Just Getting Started boutique now that's online. What this has taken to get it built up and how I've had to manage my life so that it doesn't take over my life. And my husband mentioned it literally the other day. Is like, I remember when you were working so hard on this very room and I felt like I lost you for a while. Like you were just off doing that. And I just don't want that ever to happen again. And so today I want to talk about what I've done now, even in this new business, right? We're in a new era and things are different, but and things are more efficient, right? I can't even get over it with Shopify and everything. But I've learned a lot in the past and I'm putting boundaries in place, and I'm doing the one thing that I probably didn't do years and years ago when my husband said, you know, you're working too much. And this is what I've realized. It wasn't because I didn't have help. I actually did have my sister-in-law working for me. So shout out to Courtney. She was absolutely amazing, had her working for me. And then I ended up getting another fulfillment warehouse, and I was putting apps on my, you know, apps on my Shopify website and trying to do things that that sped things up, right? We didn't have AI, we didn't have all the stuff we have now at all. It was having to take pictures of every product by myself, editing every single picture, all the things, right? What I was really missing, and and by the way, this goes for your everyday work and your financials and everything.

The Real Fix: Repeatable Systems

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I was missing clear, repeatable systems. Systems that were running, that I had so well planned out and implemented that I could hand them off to someone else. I was lacking systems. I didn't have a flow, like a good workflow. And what I want you to realize today is that may be the problem. Even if you're handing off stuff to other people, or you're, you know, working late at night, or you put software on your Shopify store to make it run faster, or whatever you're doing, like you need to think about your specific business. Because I know so many of you have all different kinds of businesses, right? From service businesses, stores, mobile businesses, all kinds of things, right? You have to have systems in place. Okay. So, like if you got sick tomorrow and something tragic happened and someone had to run your business, are there clear steps for what people need to do on a daily basis so your business can run? Does it even have a simple checklist? Does it have something written down in a Google Doc? Do you know simple flows that you have in place, whether some of them are electronic flows that are working now with AI behind the scenes? What? Like if you don't have systems in place, your business is running inefficiently, it's causing you extra brain power and extra time every day. And it's slowing your sales. It actually is slowing your sales because if you had systems running smoothly, you could be working on the things when you had time that were actually growing the business. Because that's what I see. A lot of business owners aren't actually doing the things to grow their business. They're just maintaining, they're just like hurrying and try to keep trying to keep up. I have seen a small percentage that it's a reverse where they're marketing their business, but they actually don't have the systems in place to run it efficiently. And now they're overworked, they're tired, they're grumpy, they're griping at their family, they're not getting to do all the personal things they wanted to do. And it's making their life really hard. So here's the honest truth, too. Setting up systems in your business can feel very hard, and you'll be bad at it. It will be very frustrating. This has just happened to me because I've been trying to figure out how to get certain listings for my products on Shopify up in my software program that help with personalization and everything, and then how that's going to flow into Shopify and get the order and we're going to get notified and we're going to get, you know, double check things and make sure personalization looks good and all that stuff and get things out the door. And then all the email systems and the pop-up windows and uh the things that go in all the packaging. How are we packaging it when we're shipping it from here? My goal is to have it all at a warehouse. So I don't have to be doing it. My journals that are coming in in November are going to be going to a warehouse. So I'm going to start with just those journals, those guided journals, which I can't wait to tell you about later. But y'all, all of these things are systems. You don't realize how many systems you may actually need. Not to mention your bookkeeping systems and your financials, which is a whole nother conversation. But it has to be a system. You have to have a flow of like what you do. I've heard some people too, when they work, they actually have a system. Mondays and Tuesdays, they do certain things, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. For me, I have certain days that I work on my podcast, I record it, I take a break, I go back, quickly edit it, upload now. Things are super fast for me. There is a system and it's awesome. And it saved me so much angst and time. But for the new boutique, it is evident, massively evident when you sell products, whether you have good systems or not. Because you have the systems for how you post items on your shop, or maybe your service provider, how you post it online and your forms for contacting you, right? How it gets fulfilled, meaning what happens once someone, you know, orders, then what happens? How does it get shipped? All that good stuff. Do they get emails? How are they notified? And then the systems for post-sale. What marketing are you doing? Uh, can you ask them to leave a review? Can you have a form for them to do returns? Like you have to have all these systems. Otherwise, everything's just getting fired at you all the time. It can feel very hard. I think that has been the most frustrating thing for me, building up spatique is like I'm so frustrated because I don't already have systems in place and I know what it feels like to have good systems. I know what it feels like. Things are working when I'm not around. And then when I am working, it's a complete system. There is software on my computer that is helping with certain things, and I'm doing them, but I have them planned out. There's a master plan for those types of systems.

Build Workflows You Can Hand Off

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So you have to think about do I actually have workflows? And is my workflow lacking? Like if someone were to come in right now, or if I were to come to you and you were to tell me what you were working on, I'm like, okay, tell me the workflow of how you do it. And a lot of times people will be like, okay, so an order comes in and then, well, this, this, this, and there's all these things. And then they're like, well, let me think about it. Okay, then we usually go and do this. I'm like, oh my goodness, you need to have certain times that you're like shipping, maybe it's certain days, maybe it's certain times a day. You know, if you ship every day, are you doing it at a certain time? Are you doing it every other day? Do you do it in the morning? Do you do it in the afternoon? Like things should be blocked and you should have a system and how you work, but also a system and how your website is working, how you're accepting forms, all of the things. Because if someone comes in to work for you and like be an assistant, say you got really, really sick and you could only do like one job of your whole business, but someone else could come in and help you every day, then you need to choose what the workflow is for them. You need to set it out. Again, this can be a written list. This can be a Google Doc. This can be something that you create very easily with AI. You can start telling it about your systems and get you organized and create a system for you on Chat GBT or Claude and have it mapped out. It stinks. It's almost like when you have to like purge a house and like get everything out if you're replacing floors or you had a flood or something. It's very hard to go through all that and it's very frustrating. Even just cleaning my closet is hard because I have to go through different clothes and do all that stuff, right? So a business is even harder. Okay. It's way harder because there's so many things that only you know that other people don't know. And that's the hardest part. That is the hardest part because you have stuff in your brain that other people don't know about and you've got to have systems in place. So I want you to think about what is painful in your business right now. Is it order management? Is it getting stuff up on the website? Is it social media? Is it your podcast? Is it YouTube? Is it shipping products? Is it email? What is it? And I guarantee you don't have a great system. I would almost guarantee. Maybe you do have a great system and it's just not a good system. But you've got to have a workflow. So I would challenge you today, the thing that's most painful in your business, come up with a workflow of how you're going to deal with it, whether it's one day a week, every day a week. And then what are the steps that you go through to complete this and have that list out? I have certain pieces of paper that are out on my desk because I can't remember to do certain things right. And you have to either have something on your desk or on Google Docs or somewhere so that it is front and center. Because sometimes when things are out of sight, they are out of mind, which is not good when it comes to your systems and workflows in your business. It's really good if you're like me and you're a snacker and you hide desserts from yourself because then you forget and it's out of sight, out of mind. You forget that you even bought the dessert and later you find it and it's ruined, and you're like, I totally forgot I bought that. Okay, but in our business, we can't do that. In our business, we need things front and center. Maybe you have a booklet, maybe you have a journal that has your listed out system workflow. Okay, you need to have systems so that your brain can function, so that if you hire help, things can row run smoother, but also so that you can have a life outside of this business. Because if you don't have a life outside of this business, this will become your life. And later you will look back and go, I missed out on so much because I wasn't able to get organized. I mean, that's really it, what it is. It's a system of organization. And nobody really wants to do it unless you love, love, love, love, love organization. And here's the thing: I've met people who love, love, love, love, love organization and still don't have systems very clear in their business. Okay. So if your business is feeling overwhelming right now, you feel like it's taking over your life. Let's start with the first thing that is most painful. You can also list out all the things that are really painful so that you know and you can get to those later. But let's start with the first one. Look at it, and what can you do to make this a better system? It may include hiring out, but you still have to sit have a system for how you work with the person that you hire out. So the systems never will escape you. They will never escape. You cannot run from them, you cannot hide. You will need a system. So, what I challenge you to do today is if you were doing the task yourself, and maybe you are, write out exactly what you need to do. And when you look at that list to complete a workflow for whatever it is, posting on Instagram, posting a product on your Shopify store, creating videos. I don't know what it is for you, shipping products, contacting clients, whatever it is, write it all out step by step. It's kind of like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You get two pieces of bread out, you get a knife, you get the peanut butter, you get the jelly out, you dip the knife in the peanut butter, you spread it on one side of the bread, then you get the knife and put it in the jelly. Although some people may not want you to do that. Maybe clean off the knife, put it in the jelly, put it on the other piece of bread, and then put the same much together. Right. It's like a basic, basic step flow. That's what you're doing for your business in each of the areas that are functions of your business, including your bookkeeping. What are you doing for that? Are you outsourcing all of it to someone else? Do you need to provide them with something every month? Or

Reach Out, Shop, And Wrap Up

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are they doing it themselves, which would be great? Then you don't even have to have a workflow. The workflow is to make sure that they can get into everything and access your books, right? So, y'all, this will save you. It will save your business. It will save your happiness. It will save your marriage. It will save your friendships, it will save your health. You need to have systems and workflows. Today is just a warning to you. I know we didn't get very specific about your task, but this is how you're going to run your business better. And that's what it takes. If you really want to be a successful business owner and a CEO, you got to have systems in place. I'm so reminded of this right now because of building out this store. And I knew that I needed to tell you today because it's very important. So that's it. Y'all are amazing. If you need any help with your business andor podcast and you want to just share what you're working on, I would love to see if I can help you. And you can reach out at Kimberlybrock.com. The link is down below. And also if you want to cheer yourself on while you are building this business or you know someone that you want to cheer on and give a gift to, make sure you check out the She's Just Getting Started Boutique, it's all at She's Just Getting Started.com. And until next time, bye now.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Now this episode may be over, but our relationship does not have to end here. Head on over to Kimberlybrock.com, and yes, you can get more valuable information for your journey. And you know what? You don't need to go through this alone. I would love to help. Thank you so much and have a great day. Bye.