EPISODE 86:
4 things I HATE to see in business
Show Notes
I can't bite my tongue anymore!
There are four things I repeatedly see in business, and today I'm going to have a little rant about them.
I hate them, so let's get right into it!
#1. People choosing the wrong business model for their personality.
It's time to set up your business so that it works for you and your personality, not the other way around.
We need to give ourselves permission to be who we truly are. And permission to design our businesses in a way that's easy for us. Often that's such a big taboo. You may have been told that you must do business a certain way or work really hard to make money.
And it's not true!
#2. People thinking there's one way to do business.
Even if everyone in your industry is doing it a particular way, it doesn't mean you have to.
If the last few years showed us anything, it was that businesses that we thought could only be one way could pivot on a dime.
Listen, you can negotiate anything!
#3. People quitting their businesses because of perceived failure.
Being in business is tough sometimes, right? You're going to have some failures. You'll have unhappy customers and copycats. You'll have broken links and unsubscribes.
These are just customary rites of passage. If you release a book, eventually, you'll get a bad review.
Embarrassing experiences might be part of business, but there are no real failures in business.
#4. People resisting ease in their business.
Listen, I've done this too. Heck, I still do it. I pride myself on being a hard worker and having a strong work ethic.
But it's okay for you to make money doing things that you love and that are easy for you. So you need to shift your mindset around hard work and money because it's allowed to feel good. Business is allowed to be easy and profitable.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why there are no real failures in business
- How to design a business that fits your personality EXACTLY
- The mindset work you need to do around refunds
- How you can allow things to be easy
- How to take the positives from a failed launch
Links
Transcript
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Denise Duffield...: Hey, lovely. Welcome to another episode of Chill and Prosper. I am your host, Denise Duffield-Thomas, if you didn't hear that from the jingle, which by the way, I don't sing. I don't know if people know that. It's a lovely lady called Faraday Danger and she's a professional singer. She's a ukulele player, she's in bands and things like that. And I've known her for a while online. And so I reached out, I don't know, two years ago now, I said, "Hey, can you write me a jingle? And can you sound a little bit like me?" And so people always think it's me singing, but it's not because this is how I would sing it (singing). And I can't play the ukulele. I did take lessons and I sucked so bad at it. Anyway, that's Faraday Danger. She's lovely.
Today we are talking about ... oh God, things that I have to bite my tongue over in business. I don't usually like to complain so much about things that I see in the industry because it feels a bit mean, but there's things I've seen recently I cannot bite my tongue over. And so I have to talk about it. And there's four things that I want to share with you that I sometimes just go, I'd love to write a rant post about this, but I'm not going to, I'd love to tell people that they're wrong, but I'm not going to, instead I'm going to use my podcast to share them with you, and let's just jump straight into it.
So the first thing that I really have to just go, ah, is I'm seeing people do the wrong business model for their business or their target market or their personality. Now, I have a podcast called Chill and Prosper. I've written a book called Chill and Prosper, by the way, if go to denisedt.com/prosper to find out about the book, get all your juicy bonuses, all those things. So chill and prosper as a philosophy, being a chillpreneur as a philosophy is not what you might think it is.
It's not about doing business on the beach in a hammock. It's not about having to move to Bali and being a particular type of person. It's not about being me. I still stress about my business all the time. I don't get things right. So being a chillpreneur is about finding the path of least resistance for you and for your business and your personality. It's finding what works for you. And that is so different. And it took me a long time to figure this out because I was a good student.
I would join courses. I would join programs and I would think, "Well, I have to do business like them," or you just come into business and go, "Oh, I have to do it like my industry does it, or this is the way to do it." And I see people who unwittingly do the wrong business model for their personality. So a business model just means how you do your business, how you deliver what you do, what your products and services are. And if you know about the money archetypes, for example, sacred money archetypes, then there are business models that work better for different personalities. It's not an exact science, for sure, but if you don't know that and know who you are, then you can quite easily go into the wrong business model or you just don't know the pitfalls. So by the way, if you go to denisedt.com/quiz, you can do a quiz. You can find out which of the eight money personalities you are.
And just a really quick example on that. So accumulators, for example, I see sometimes that they are suppressing some of their natural critique ability because they've been told that it's not polite to point out people's mistakes and flaws, but that's something they're really good at. So, I always say to accumulators is like, just enhance that in your business model somehow. If you're a celebrity in money archetypes, you need to be in the spotlight. And so sometimes there's some unlearning of going, well, I'm not allowed to be in the spotlight because nobody likes a show off. And so you have to unlearn that part of yourself. So you can go, actually, I don't want to share the stage with other people. I don't want to have co-hosts of my podcast. I want to be the star of the show. And then it gives you permission to do your business the way you want to do your business.
Here's another example, the maverick. Mavericks need a lot of freedom, a lot of flexibility because mavericks often change their mind. Mavericks though, are extremely charismatic and can sell anything. So something I have to bite my tongue over, I see charismatic mavericks pop up every now and again and they sell something that is totally, in my opinion, not going to work for their personality. Like for example, a longterm mastermind, a longterm membership, because I know they'll get to month three and they'll get bored. It's not wrong that they get bored, it's just that the membership model might not be the best model for them, unless they can find a way for it to be lots full of variety for them, which people have done.
You can have a membership where each month it's a slightly different topic. It gives you that freedom. But I just know that they are really good at selling it and then they'll get bored and they'll close it down eventually. So I'm always biting my tongue. Ah! Another example is the connectors, connectors need a lot of human interaction. They need that connection with people. They can be introverts or extroverts, but they need that. And so sometimes they'll go, "Oh, but my mentor says I have to have a completely passive business," but they're not going to feel fulfilled just with that.
They need some parts of their business where they connect with others, even if it doesn't make sense for someone else. So again, if you don't know your money personality, this is a really crucial part of setting up your business to work for you to be a chillpreneur. So just go to denisedt.com/quiz, and you can do the quiz. It's quite a lengthy quiz, but it will give you then some information after that about what your personality is. And it's so crucial because I'm a ruler. I know that I try and do everything myself. I try and do too many things and I need to build in those structures in my business so I don't break it and I don't burn out. And there's eight personalities in total.
Oh, I'll give you one more example because I know ... If you're an alchemist, there are a lot of alchemists in business and they have a lot of ideas, they can do a lot of everything, and a big mistake I see them make is going into done-for-you work. And alchemists are best in the moment, having those divine downloads.
So if you're an alchemist and you have a session, a brainstorming session with somebody, I always see alchemists who go, "Oh, I'll send you the notes afterwards. I'll type you up a report." And I go, "No, you will never do that. So just take that off. Just don't promise it. Just say to people, 'Hey, you can take notes and you can record it, but it's in the moment.'" And you might have been told, "Oh, you're such a flake. You never finish anything," but that's not what you're here to do. You're here to ignite other people. You're here to start things for other people. You're here to have a lot of variety and come up with ideas for people.
Some people can't come up with ideas for their business. That's what you're here to do. But there's a lot of blame. Can you hear already how sometimes we go into the wrong business model because we don't know who we are or we think that's a weakness instead of being our greatest strength, we think that we have to dim the thing that ... dim our light, and every single archetype has something that they have to unlearn to firstly, give themselves permission to be who they are. But secondly, so they give themselves permission to design their business in a way that's easy for them. And that's just such a big taboo, isn't it? It's not allowed to be easy. It's not allowed to be easy. You have to work really hard to make money.
So that's my big thing that I kind of have to bite my tongue over is just seeing people go into the wrong business model, knowing that it's not going to work for them. It's going to cause pain and stress. And you might think, "Why don't you tell them?" It's hard. It's hard to give unsolicited advice, but for you, you don't have to make that mistake because you can go and find out what your archetype is at denisedt.com/quiz.
Second thing before the break that I want to say is the thing that gets on my [inaudible], that annoys me and I have to bite my tongue over is seeing people think there is one way to do business. And it's really related to that first thing. But again, we're good students. We want to please our mentors. We want to have a system to follow, but there's no one way to do business. Even if everyone in your industry is doing it a particular way, it doesn't mean that you have to do that.
And the global pandemic showed us that businesses that we thought could only be one way had to pivot. A lot of people who did in person coaching sessions or PT or even dance classes, they learnt to pivot to an online model. They could do Zoom calls. They could do it in a group setting, things that you might have thought no one will pay for this, people found that was more convenient.
And so if there's one way that people go, "Oh, you can only do it like this or it's not going to work," don't listen to that person because you can negotiate anything and you can find different ways to do it. Even for my SMA course, for example, once you go do that quiz, there's I think three or four videos and people are like, "Oh, no one watches long videos anymore." And I thought, "I'm going to do a half hour video, but I'm going to make it like a TV show. So then it holds people's attention." And now with launches, I kind of go, where am I just copying what I think everyone is doing? And where can I do it in a way that feels good for me? Even a sales webinar, I hated doing sales webinars. And finally I said, "I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to follow a system like anyone else, I'm going to do it in my way, which is I'm going to tell people some information and I'm going to get ..." And right at the start, I always go, "Hey, I've got something to sell after this. So don't be surprised. And here's the link."
And if you follow like this is what it has to be, they go, don't reveal the price until right at the end. You can have your prices on your website. You cannot have your price on your website. You can do Zoom. You can do Voxer. You can do chat. There are no rules. You can do it how you want it. So don't feel like you have to copy someone else's model who you perceive to be successful because they might have a completely different money archetype than you do. And it's not going to work. It's not going to work. You need to understand yourself, know thy self and prosper is what you need to do. I've got two more things that annoy me, and I will see you right after this break.
Tracy: Hi, everybody. My name is Tracy and I am an Australian girl from Perth, but I currently live in Northern Italy, just outside of Torrance. I was not surprised in the slightest when mine came back as a nurturer. I'm also a cancer sun sign or a cancer star sign. And so it was just like, well, obviously. And of course, but what was really good about it though, was that looking at the trades of putting everybody else first to the detriment of yourself. And I was like, "Oh, this is why I keep repeating these patterns over and over and over again."
Denise Duffield...: Hi there. Welcome back to Chill and Prosper. We're talking about things that annoy me in business and things I have to bite my tongue over. The first thing was seeing people do the wrong business model for their personality. Second one is people teaching that there's only one way to do business.
Now the third thing that, oh, just annoys me so much is seeing people quit over a failure or a perceived failure. Now, this could be lots of things. Being in business is tough sometimes. I don't think I've ever been in business where I've just gone, "Wow. I'm doing so great," even when I've made millions of dollars, which I do. I'm always like, "Oh, I could be better. Oh, I didn't do that enough." I just don't think we ever get to a place where we go, "Wow, I'm so amazing."
So you're going to have a lot of failures. You are going to send out important emails with the wrong date or a broken link. You will have customers who will not be happy with you. You will have people who tell you're too expensive. You will have people who join a program or buy something from you and they copy it. You'll have copycats. You will have people who try and sue you. You will have people who say you're amazing and then they're your biggest fan and then they turn a bit horrible and bad mouth you.
You'll have people asking for refunds who loved your program and they just want their money back. You will have broken things that don't work. You'll have people who aren't happy with you. There's just so many things that go wrong in business. And they are just normal rights of passage. If you release a book, eventually you'll get a bad review. You'll get someone who doesn't like it. You'll have embarrassing things happen.
But I don't want to see you quit over any of those because there's no real failures in business. I know it's a cliche, but you can learn from anything but only if you keep going. It doesn't mean it's going to feel good. So a couple of examples for this, failed launches.
Everyone has disappointing launches at some point in their career, especially at the start. Not always, but especially at the start. So if you've launched something and nobody bought it, it's painful. I'm not going to lie. Of course, it's painful, but don't quit because you might have stories about, oh, people didn't like it. It wasn't the right thing. It wasn't the right price. Most of the time it's that not enough people saw it. And so sometimes you can go back and have a look at the stats, go have a look at how many people visited the sales page and how many people bought. And it's usually a one to 2% conversion, but I've had launches that converted at half a percent. Half a percent. And so not enough people saw it.
So you can come up with so many reasons. "Oh, people didn't like it." "Oh, I knew that logo color wasn't the right color." All of that [inaudible] branding that we get caught up in, or you can just go, "Wow, I actually didn't tell enough people about this. What can I do next time to get more people to see it?" Because that's really, that's the only piece of information that is relevant because you get enough people, enough people, it will be useful for them and they'll buy it.
So if you had no one buy it, you still put so much work into it and you might go, "Oh, it's all for nothing." But the first launch isn't necessarily to make money. The first launch is to do all of the million and one things that have to go into a launch, you did a sales page, you might have done a sales video. You did the tech, you overcame so many obstacles and all of that's there for next time.
You had a deadline. That was the purpose of the launch is to have a deadline to get some of this done. If anyone buys it, that is icing on the cake. You might have had two people join and you go, "I have to give them a refund." I see that happen all the time. I go, "Don't you dare." Because the amount that you'll learn from delivering to those two people, you'll find mistakes. You'll find broken links. You'll get feedback. You'll get two testimonials. You will love on those people. You will do the handouts. You will make things happen. You will do it. And you might think, "Oh, people are going to be so judgey," or you could flip it around and go, "Wow. These people are basically getting so much of my attention and love and then it'll be better next time."
So my very first course that I ever did, it was in 2009. It was called the Raw Brides Transformation Plan. It was for women who wanted to lose weight using raw food for their wedding. Nothing that I'm qualified in or anything like that. But it was a business that I ... a season of life business. One person joined, one person, and I was thrilled. I was like, "Oh my God, someone has given me money just to talk and teach and help them." And it was amazing. Amazing.
And then I only ran that course one time. But then I was like, it's so much quicker the next time to do a sales page, to do the tech, so much easier. So the next course I ran, I had five people join. And then I think it was like 25 and then 42 and then, whatever. And so now we'll have hundreds of people join in a launch. And sometimes it's that you set yourself and you think, "Oh wow, well, I've had 100 people say that they're interested, so 100 people will join." No, they won't, but it doesn't mean you're a failure. It just means you have to just do it again.
And sometimes, I mean, I have had launches where I thought the results would be bigger because I thought I had the numbers, but I wasn't clear on what the offer was. But I did it again and I learned from it again. But most of the time it's literally eyeballs. It's not enough people saw what you have to offer. You didn't tell enough people about it.
Same things, like a perceived failure of going, "Oh, someone asked for a refund. I'm such a failure." People are going to ask for refunds. And I've heard people say, they go, "I've never had a refund. I've prided myself on never having a refund." At some point, they're going to hold themselves back a little bit because they'll be like, "Oh, I've got to keep that streak alive." And it's not a failure to have a refund. It's not, it's just going to be a part of doing business. And it's not a failure to have an unfair refund request. I know that sometimes they feel unfair, and they are, but if you can just go, that's my refund policy. They're within their rights. It's nothing about me. It's fine.
So refunds are an inevitable part of business. It's a money mindset thing of going the layer behind that is, "Oh, people don't like me." It might even be related to a feeling of rejection from when you're a kid. And so it's like, cool, it's just a refund request, whatever. But the real healing that you need to do is going, wow, when you know that person didn't invite me to their birthday party when I was eight and it felt horrible. And I made a decision in that moment that I was never going to feel rejected ever again, that I would never hope for something different. And so that's the stuff you've got to heal, that's the thing you've got to heal. And obviously I can help you with that. If you're in my money boot camp, these are the conversations we have all the time.
People go, "Hey, I've got this problem with my business," and we go, "No, that's not the problem. Let's go deeper." And there's always something in your background, in your childhood, a belief that you have about money that is making those things seem more catastrophic than they really are. So make sure you come and join us in money bootcamp if you know that you have stuff that you just can't fix with the logistics you go, "Oh, everything's there. Where am I holding myself back?" Come and join us in money bootcamp. And all the details for that, by the way, denisedt.com/bootcamp. If you've been meaning to join for a while, sooner is always better. Today is always the better time to join than in the past. So that's a big, big mistake I see. And I just want to say to people, oh my God, it's just part of being in business. It really is.
You are going to get rejection a lot. 98% of people won't buy from you in a launch. Not everyone's going to like what you do, even if it's amazing. So don't quit over a perceived failure, or a real failure. Don't quit. Just keep on going. Keep going, keep going, just keep swimming.
The last thing that I see people do, which annoys the crap out of me, and I do it as well is resisting ease in their business, resisting ease. And the reason I can say this is because I did that too. And I still do it. I prided myself on just being a hard worker, of having a good work ethic, of working harder than anyone else, of being able to do all the things myself, of wearing all the hats, of being a Jack of all trades, helping everyone with everything.
And I still pride myself on my work ethic. I do feel like I have an amazing capacity for work, but it doesn't mean that it's not allowed to be easy. And we have to break that mindset issue that you can only make money from hard work. A hard day's work equals a hard day's pay, another day, another dollar, whatever you heard growing up, you might think it's cheating to do Facebook ads. You might think it's cheating to buy a course to learn something. You might think it's cheating to buy a template. You might think it's cheating to do something that feels really good and easy to you, or that feels very obvious. Or you might think it's cheating to sell something that you think, oh, people can find this online for free. No, it's okay for you to curate things for people.
It's okay for you to work in your zone of genius. It's okay for you to make money doing things that you love and things that are easy for you. So don't resist easy in your business because you think, I don't know, you're going to get a medal for it or it justifies making money or you feel guilty making money. That is absolutely a mindset shift that you have to make around hard work and money. It's allowed to be easy. It's allowed to feel good. It's allowed to be easy and profitable.
So it just sounds like if that's you and it's me too, as I said, we all need to do ongoing money mindset work around resisting ease, resisting ease. And of course, I've got a ton of tips for you in my book, Chill and Prosper. Go to denisedt.com/prosper to see all the links. But I mean, it's available anyway. You can get it on Kindle, audio, paperback, hardback, all the things. But if you go to denisedt.com/prosper, put in your receipt from where you bought it, and I've got a ton of bonuses for you there, just little resources on making your life easy. And it's allowed to be easy for you. It's okay for you to chill and prosper. All right. I am going to have a quick sip of tea and I will see you after this last break for my final thought.
Deirdre: Hey, I'm Deirdre. I'm a Kiwi, but I now live in Brisbane, Australia. I'm a connector, ruler, accumulator. Well, I'll just be completely open and honest and say, I was pissed off when I discovered I was a connector, because I wanted to be a maverick or a ruler or something like that. One of the cool ones, but really, it's me to a T. There's a couple of things that are probably very subtle with me, but I'm a connector through and through and like Carrie, I'm the same. I don't enjoy networking. So I was like, how can that be me? I hold back and I read the room and then I go for the connections that feel right.
Denise Duffield...: Welcome back to my final thought. It's an affirmation that I share all the time, but I want you to hear it in a different way today. You might have heard me say, it's your time and you're ready for the next step. It's your time and you're ready for the next step. And this isn't a one and done affirmation because every time we get to a new level in business, you might have new or old stories about what you're allowed to be, do, and have.
And so I use this affirmation myself all the time, even though I make millions of dollars because it wherever you're at, there's something in it for you. So you could say, it's my time because you might have a story that no, it's about my kids now or it's other people's time to shine. It's my time. Because you might think, "Oh, maybe when the stars align." You have to remind yourself, no, it's my time and I'm ready.
Instead of thinking, "I'll wait for someone else to tell me I'm ready." It's like, no, I'm ready for the next step, because you might be going, I need to know the whole journey before I even get started. So that's why it's such a versatile affirmation that I've been sharing for years and years is, it's my time and I'm ready for the next step. And I've been using it myself because I felt like, oh no, but I've made my money. It would be selfish to make even more, I'm already rich. And I was like, it's okay. It's also my time and I'm ready for the next step.
You could say, it's my time and I'm ready for the next level of business. It's my time and I'm ready for the next level of ease. It's my time and I'm ready to create a business that works for me. It's very, very versatile. Write it down, play around with it. Send me a message. Let me know how it's resonating for you. Or even, I love it when people create graphics, please put my name on it too, attribute it to me on the graphic, not just in the thing. I hate when people do that, but tag me in it because ... tell me what you got out of that. It is your time and you are ready for the next step. All right, gorgeous. Well, have a great week, have an amazing abundant week and I'll see you on next week's episode of Chill and Prosper. Bye.
About the Show
Chill and Prosper is your weekly dose of money mindset, marketing and humour from best-selling author and entrepreneur Denise Duffield-Thomas.
Denise's philosophy is that there is ALWAYS an easier way to make money and that's what she's here to help you do. Each week, you'll get actionable advice to help you make more money, with less work. There's no need to hustle - let Denise show you how to embrace the Chillpreneur way.
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