The real reason you’re exhausted as a solopreneur and stuck

You can choose to tune in to my energy as you read this.

I know the drill. 

As solopreneurs, we’re wearing A LOT of hats. 

We’re the visionary with the mission.

We’re the marketer that puts together content & marketing assets.

We’re the sales representative that talks on the phone with potential clients.

We’re the administrative assistant that answers emails, organizes your schedule.

We’re the client success manager working on a  great client experience.

We’re the HR business partner hiring subcontractors.

We’re the finance officer paying bills, checking cash flow. 

It’s a lot. 

Most of all, we’re the ones with the stress on our shoulders to make sure we bring in enough new revenue to keep the lights on. Am I right!?

I think it’s fair to say that one of the biggest challenges (and frankly the biggest priority) as a solopreneur is to sell. You can’t escape it.

Yes of course client satisfaction is SUPER important and helps tremendously with bringing in referrals. That’s the truth. If you’re not good at what you do, and you don’t care about your clients being happy, then I highly recommend getting a job.

But if you do care, making sure you nail down your selling process is ultimately what any solopreneur should focus on first, because it’s what allows every other department to thrive.

Most importantly, with revenue in you can start outsourcing the things that are out of your zone of genius. 

The sales process is also where I see the most self-sabotaging patterns showing up. 

It’s kind of wild what our subconscious mind will make us do to keep us “safe” or should I say to keep us in our “smallness”.

Here’s the breakdown of one of my most epic self-sabotaging experiences to date: 

Business challenge:

In December 2020, I hit a plateau. I felt like things weren’t growing fast enough, I was working long hours, over-delivering for my clients, always building more value for them, coaching, and taking discovery calls. I was also the one behind the scenes operating the business systems, uploading videos, sending email newsletters, posting my content, hosting masterclasses, etc.

You get the point, I was exhausted and very much operating as an employee in my business.

Surface level hypothesis: 

I was clearly tired, and drained and it was about time I started outsourcing, yet I was scared to do so because sales were not growing fast enough to justify more business expenses. Plus, I had a mortgage to pay and lived in the most expensive city in Canada. 

Initial solution (aka the self-sabotage): 

Here’s where it gets interesting. I asked myself, what takes up the most time in my week? When I looked at my calendar, running discovery calls was one of the most time-consuming tasks in my calendar.

So I told myself, let’s figure out a way to continue selling without discovery calls.

Rookie mistake #1:

When you nail down a way to sell that works for you and your business, work on optimizing it, not breaking it down apart.

What I did:

I found a mentor that was teaching a strategy to sell high-ticket coaching programs without sales calls. Paid $20,000 USD to enter her program, which she sold me without a sales call. Clever, I was sold on the whole thing. 

What were the results:

I spent hours (weeks) building this process, highly based on having conversations with my potential clients via direct messages instead of calls. It ended up being pretty much the same amount of work as running calls, just a different way of selling.

My sales initially dropped significantly, then they went back to a similar level than when I was running the calls. 

I lost touch and proximity with my potential customers and didn’t have the same constant fuel for inspiration for my content because of not having conversations with them.

*Important note: it wasn’t my mentor’s fault. She actually had a really great strategy to teach me. The problem was that my issue wasn’t about strategy, it was about my capacity to step into the identity of the leader of a bigger business. I wasn’t ready to hold higher leadership and power.

What was actually going on subconsciously:

I was deeply afraid of success. What would it mean to grow a team, to be supported while the business continued growing more and more!? What was the flip side of success? Could I handle leading other humans?

Where was this fear coming from?

Drumrolls… 

You guessed it: childhood and generational patterns.

Now that I’ve basically revealed to you my entire family tree here, you can pretty much guess it, but as a reminder here are my mom’s subconscious operating principles:

• In order to be recognized, you need to work hard for others.
• In order to be loved, you must do everything yourself and be independent.

It was so ingrained in me to work hard and do everything myself, that I just couldn’t even imagine what it would mean to not operate that way. It was a complete blindspot that could have been identified with the tools I now possess. 

 What would have been a better solution:

As I was already generating around 30 discovery calls per month, the solution was not to change this winning recipe, but to outsource other parts of the process that weren’t my zone of genius and get better at closing higher conversion rates on those calls.

In order to do so, I would have needed some coaching from a subconscious mind-trained coach to help me identify and release my blocks. 

Then, instead of investing $20,000 USD in a strategy program, hiring an Operation Business Manager to take charge of the operations: operating the business systems, uploading videos, sending email newsletters, posting my content, the logistics of my masterclasses, etc. Basically, everything that isn’t client-facing could have been outsourced.

But do you see that I just couldn’t see the patterns running the show subconsciously!?

And that’s what led me to that self-sabotage spiral.

I’m curious, does any of this shed light on what might be going on in your business?

Am I making you think more deeply about what might be getting in the way of your success?

Hit reply and let me know.

And if you’re ready for a breakthrough…

I have something for you.

I’m opening my calendar for 5 breakthrough calls next week, completely free of charge.

On this call, we’ll dive deep to figure out THE thing that’s holding you back the most.

Spoiler alert: I’m not afraid to ask the real questions.

You’ll come out of this with certainty about what you need to work on to unlock everything for yourself.

Then, if it makes sense to both of us, we’ll explore how we could work together to get you where you truly want to be. 

Here’s where you book your call with me now.

Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. If you're looking for help aligning your identity to the version of you who gets the results you desire:

• The Rebirth Masterclass ($99): An activation where you are guided into the death of your old self and the exciting birth of your new self. 

2. If you're looking to improve your visibility as a business owner online

• The Seen Masterclass ($44): An activation where you are invited to unleash the most visible and magnetic version of yourself. 

3. Work with me to grow your business (I'm currently booking for the start of 2023)