The Dare to Grow Show is BACK for 2021 and this week we’re talking about how to make big decisions + changes in your business!
The beginning of a new year always feels like a good time to make changes, set challenging goals, or finally go after the things we kept saying we wanted to do last year but never got around to.
I made a big change in my own business at the end of 2020 merging most of my courses into one epic membership – The Essentials! This wasn’t an easy decision (even though it probably looked like it on the outside) and it took weeks of planning and questions and figuring things out for me to finally decide to make it happen.
In episode No. 51 I’m sharing the strategies that are helpful when making a significant change or big decision in your business.
If you’re thinking about raising your prices, finally committing to Instagram Stories, creating an online course, or making other big moves, this episode is for YOU!
Resources + Links
2021 Goal Setting + Planning Workshop: xosarah.com/newyearworkshop
Digital Product Coaching Program: xosarah.com/coaching (opens Jan 19th!)
Often when we think about making big biz changes we’re not sitting down, opening a document, making a plan, and crunching numbers. Usually we’re reminded of it thought out the day.
You start thinking about how you should be sending weekly emails when you get someone else’s weekly email. Or you start thinking about raising your prices when you see someone else talking about raising their prices.
And in those moments your brain goes to the most challenging questions – not the positives, but the stuff like…
- What if I raise my prices and my audience can’t afford to work with me?
- What if I actually don’t have enough experience to be charging those prices?
- I’ve been charging the same prices for the past five years what will my clients think?
- I don’t know anybody else who charges this much…
- What if I never get a client again??
In the most inopportune moments, when we are focused elsewhere, our brains run through all the negatives and categorize that decision as being too hard, too much, too risky. We really can’t make decisions from our higher self / best self / next level self when we’re focused elsewhere, we’re tired, we’re hungry, we’re overwhelmed. That’s the worst time to try and shift or commit to something new.
At the end of last year, I started thinking about moving all my courses into a membership. And when did I most often have the time to think about it? When I was trying to fall asleep. I kept finding myself going over the list of issues: What about people who already took a bunch of my courses? Would I like to host coaching calls and a Facebook group? Would it add more or less work to my schedule? Would it add more or less money to my business?
And in that moment it would all sound like a terrible, overwhelming, time consuming idea.
I had to remind myself that, of course, I don’t want to create a membership when I’m lying in bed after a long day and trying to fall asleep. But often that is the only time that it’s quiet enough to think through these challenging decisions.
First – when making a big change or a big decision, you need to set aside time in your workweek to think and plan and strategize.
You need space when you’re not tired or hungry or focused elsewhere. So number 1 – make space in your schedule to work through these decisions.
And second, I’m going to share the advice and the process that I talk my students and clients through because it’s absolutely something that you can do on your own and the catalyst for moving into a mental space where you feel confident making these decisions is a really simple concept.
Essentially you’re going to mentally lean into doing the thing…
Pretend for a week that you have decided to raise your prices, create the course, to go live, send weekly emails. Live in a space where that decision has been made and see what comes up.
And then sit down and make some lists.
If you’re thinking about creating an online course, write a list of all of the questions and challenges and issues and fears that come up for you.
Maybe it’s things like:
- I’m gonna spend all this time to create a course and no one is going to purchase it
- I don’t have enough experience to be teaching this.
- I don’t know when I could find the time to create it
And then see if you can come up with a bunch of solutions for each of those issues. So if it’s the fear that you’re going to create this product and no one is going to purchase it, the solutions could be things like:
- I can start selling to my past clients
- I can go live or create IG Reels to promote it
- I can promote it in Facebook groups
- I can partner with someone and promote to their audience
- I can offer my course for one of those product bundles
- I can do a giveaway to build excitement about the product
It’s not about actually doing all of those things but knowing that there are solutions to every problem that you come up with.
Once you’ve gone through all the negatives, make a list of all of the opportunities or benefits that could come from making that change.
So if you create an online course this could mean things like:
- you’re working fewer hours because you’re taking on the less one-on-one clients
- recurring payments give you a baseline for your monthly income
- you’ll be able to help more people because you’re not doing everything one-on-one
- you can make your expertise accessible to more people cost-wise and time-wise
- you’ll have something that you can sell repeatedly
- you’ll wake up to PayPal notifications every morning – gotta add that one to the list!
Usually, once we start to clear away some of those negatives, the positives have more space to bubble up and that decision starts to feel better and better. The negatives fade or feel more surmountable and you feel more of that tingly-fireworks-excitement replacing it.
And then lastly, make a plan.
What do the logistics look like of sending weekly emails, creating a course, showing up on Instagram stories every day?
This is what I did when I was thinking about combining all of my courses into a membership. I was coming up with all of the negatives I would have to figure out but not taking it a step further and working it out on paper. This means that making that decision felt really challenging and scary. But once I worked through all of the issues and really put some time into figuring out how it would be possible and exactly what I would need to do to make it happen, the decision felt way easier than it first came up on my radar.
One another thing that’s interesting (and you would probably hear from anyone who is doing coaching) is that if you keep thinking about it or if someone who you admire and trust keeps telling you to do it, then you probably should. I can’t tell you how many times my students or clients tell me that they want to do something with such concern over the outcome and I tell them to just do it see what happens.
Most of the time you already know what you should be doing it or that you want to be doing it, and you only need reassurance that it’s not going to go terribly wrong. So here’s your reassurance and permission to try the thing you were thinking about. Especially with online business you can always adjust, there are always solutions, and if the thing sucks then you can stop doing it.
You’re the one in charge which means if your decision doesn’t go the way you hoped, you get to make another decision to do something else or do it in a different way. But you’re not going to find out whether it will work until you take the time to feel it out, to plan it out, and to lean in to making the decision. As always, my recommendation is to go for it and see what happens!
