Oh the Seasons of your Biz!

I can teach you. Hello and good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Happy Thursday, everyone. I am so excited to talk about this topic this evening. I have been talking to a lot of my clients who are in different seasons of their business. And I, whenever I bring this up, it helps them just kind of put in into perspective that what they're working on and what they're going through in their business in this moment is not going to last forever. Because if there's one thing that we know about seasons is that they change. And it gives them some. Some very specific things to focus on to give themselves credit for the wins that they are seeing. Because each season has ups and it's downs. Okay, so I'm going to go through the four different seasons that you can see in your business and I'm going to talk through basically what, what this can look like, what it feels like when you're there, and something that you need to keep yourself focused on while you're in this season. So let's start at the beginning. Let's start with spring. So spring I like to refer to as idea fest. Okay. In spring, you are so inspired by everything that is out there. You are like, you're imagining all the programs that you could roll out. You're imagining products you're wanting to get on a million different social media platforms. Like, you just see the possibilities everywhere. Now, one of the things that can happen when you have this many ideas and you still only have a certain amount of hours in the day is that idea inspiration. It can actually turn into overwhelm and overload so really quickly. Okay? So for my clients who are going through a spring season, it's really important to remember that not all that sparkles is gold and to stay committed to the things that you have decided on. Okay. I want you to imagine you have a little garden. Okay. And like last season or last year, you decided, okay, well, string beans did really well. The zucchinis did really well, and our tomatoes did really well. The corn didn't really thrive. You know, it just wasn't the right soil type. Maybe it didn't get enough light. Also, eggplants, eggplants just weren't, weren't really successful here. You know, they like sandier soil or something, I think. I happen to know that I'm not a gardener. And so you map it out and you're like, okay, I'm going to really, I'm going to really hone in on string beans, zucchini, and tomatoes. But Then you get excited. You know spring is coming. You see all of the different seedlings and, you know, baby plants in the n and you're like, oh, my God, like, I could just try this again. I'm going to try to plant everything that I want. This is going to be so awesome. And you start getting excited. You forget that you had three things that you really wanted to plant that you were going to double down on and just focus on those. In spring, it can feel like you are missing out on opportunities. There's a shit ton of fomo. Okay. And so if you're experiencing this, if you're currently in a spring, spring season, know that those ideas and Highlander out welcome. Know that those, those ideas, like, yes, they're visiting you now. If they're good ideas, they will stay with you. Okay? Any business ideas you have in a spring season, if it's not the thing that you're focusing on right in that moment, if it's willing to hang around for a bit, then you can get to it later. But in your spring season, you have to focus in, in on the things that you've decided on previously. The other thing to remember about in your spring season is that in spring, you don't see a ton of growth, okay? You're, you're putting a lot of work in, you're moving things around, you're promoting your services, you're, you know, checking on your seedlings. You're not going to see what works right away. Okay? So this is where there take. It requires a great deal of faith, faith and patience, okay? Have faith and have patience and keep the momentum going. Keep doing the work, okay? Because if you stop doing the work in spring, if you, if you plant a bunch of seedlings in the ground and you don't water them, that's it, it's done. It's done. You don't have a garden. You will not have anything growing over the summer, and you'll have nothing to harvest come fall. Okay? In spring, it is so critical to keep up the work and keep letting people know what you're up to and inviting people to book calls and promoting your business. Okay? And the momentum here is key. Okay? Every day you should be visible. Okay? All right, so that is spring. Summer, let's just. We're going to go this chronologically. So summer, always follow spring in your business as it does in, in, you know, the world. Hold on one second. So summer, this is where things start getting exciting. So you've done all this, this groundwork. You're starting to see feedback, okay? So in summer, I want you to imagine you have this garden. You have your string beans and your zucchini and your tomatoes. Now, these plants aren't fruiting yet, okay? They don't have the vegetables on the vine yet, but they're growing. They're growing, they're getting bigger, and maybe you see little blossoms, like, starting to sprout, and you can see that things are moving in the right direction, but you don't have anything to eat on your table yet, okay? You don't have anything to cook with, okay? There's knowing. There's nothing that is edible yet. So in your business, this looks like you're gaining traction. People are really enjoying what you're saying. Maybe you're booking sales calls. You might get some maybes, like, not. Not quite sure yet. You might have a couple signups, okay? Spring, I'm sorry, summer is a time where there's still work to be done, but you're kind of letting the momentum of what you did in spring just kind of carry you along, and you're starting to get this feedback. The feedback is so happy. It's like sunlight on your skin, okay? It just makes you glow that much brighter, and it reassures you that you're on the right path. It's like the yellow bricks for the. For the yellow brick road, okay? When you see those yellow bricks, you're in a summer season. You're on the right track. The only trouble with the summer season is that you haven't seen the return on investment of your time, energy, and maybe money. But you can see that it is growing, it is coming, okay? Because people can't be that interested in you and not end up being your client, okay? And also, those plants are gonna, you know, yield something at some point. Let's move on to fall, okay? I love fall. Fall in. In the real world is one of my favorite, favorite seasons. I'm gonna describe it, and you're gonna think, oh, my God, I want a fall in my business. And yes, you do. But also, no, you don't. You want to controlled fall, okay? Because fall is harvest time, okay? Fall is harvest time. So in your garden, it means, like, everything has, you know, kind of exploded. And you have zucchini, and you have tomatoes, and you have string beans. And I'm just realizing I'm not sure if all of these are fall vegetables. They might be summer vegetables. I'm not sure. We're just going to pretend that they all get harvested at fall. Fall. For the. For the metaphor's Sake. So. So you have all of these vegetables that you're able to harvest. You're so excited. But you do have to keep up with it, okay? Because if you go a couple days, you know, the slugs are going to get the zucchinis and the birds may get the tomatoes, and whatever goes after string beans is going to get them. And so it is a lot of work. Now, in your business, this comes after a really strong spring season and summer season where you have kept the momentum going, you have kept working at your business and maintaining that momentum. And what happens is you basically get crap ton of clients all at once. You get a bunch of people in the door, you're serving them, you're busy, you know, you're on calls with them, you're providing value, you're doing all of the things for all of the clients. The downside about a really busy fall season is that you tend to let up on your marketing, okay? Now if you let up on your marketing, this leads to a longer winter season, okay? And we don't like winter seasons very much in the business cycle, okay? And I'm going to explain why. So when you let up on your marketing and because you're serving all these clients, all the people who are paying attention to you, who are noticing you on social media, who are getting your newsletter, who are like, consistently like, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more, they're gonna start forgetting about you because you're not posting all the time and you're not emailing them and you're not hosting workshops and you're not inviting them to things. And you know, they're just gonna. They're gonna miss that. They're going to stop expecting to see stuff from you. And then all of a sudden they see your name, they're like, oh, yeah, I thought, I know that person. Who are they again? When? Just like three months later or earlier, they were like, oh, my God, this person gives such good value. I really, I might want to work with them, okay? So in our fall seasons, it is so critical to not let up on your marketing, okay? When you let up on your marketing, you actually prolong winter. I want you to think it's like, this is the thing that makes the game of thr winter so long is like, they just stopped marketing. Okay? Okay? We do not want a Game of Thrones winter, okay? We do not want the, like, frozen dead people coming down from beyond the wall and, you know, chopping us all up or whatever, whatever it is that they do, okay? So that is the Downside of fall. If you're in a fall season right now, have so much fun with it, but do not let up on your marketing. This is a, honestly, a great time to look to see how much time you have, what you're spending time on, and start outsourcing things when you're busy and when you have this money coming in. Okay, now a winter season, I listed this as, like, cold, hard misery, mainly because this is where our imposter syndrome, like, really gets to take hold and come in and be like, yeah, you thought you were something, but you weren't that great. Okay? In the garden metaphor, basically, the ground is frozen, the plants are dead. There's nothing growing here right now. You know, like, even if, like, you can barely even, you know, dig a hole in the ground because the ground is frozen in your business, this looks like, you know, you've been so busy, you haven't been marketing. You have a dip in how many new clients you're. You're taking on. And because you have that dip, you're actually starting to get a little fearful. You're worried that, like, the clients aren't going to come back. You start marketing again a little bit, but you're not really inspired by it. You're not really inspired by anything because you're feeling kind of down on your business. You've also noticed that this, this fall season, you fell into that trap of the kind of artist boom and bust cycle, which, if I, if you haven't heard me talk about this before, so artists are very well known for creating a ton of inventory, right? But they're broke. You know they're broke. You know, they have no money, but they have all this inventory. So then they start selling all the inventory. So their inventory is going down, they're making more money, but then they have no inventory to keep selling. So then they create more inventory, eating through their savings, and they have more inventory, but they're broken. Whenever you have a really, really strong fall season and you're not maintaining your marketing, you're basically ensuring that you're gonna have that kind of setup with your, your winter. So you're gonna run out of inventory and you're gonna all the things. So anyway, we want to avoid that, okay? So the thing to remember is if you're in a winter season, you cannot power through it, okay? You just can't. You cannot power through it. When you're in a winter season, the best thing you can do is stay visible in a light but human way and go inward, do some work on Yourself, Recharge. Now, winter seasons in your business can last anywhere from a week to four months or longer, all right? You have to really tend to what your needs are. You have to invest your time and energy in things that inspire you, okay? No matter what time of year this is happening, it doesn't have to be like a rainy. A rainy season or a snowy season. It could be in the middle of summer, you know, so if you're going through a winter season in actual summer, like going to the beach, if that inspires you, go and do that. Spending time with people who inspire you, touching base with old clients and just checking to see where they're at and how successful they've been. Like, that's a really great thing to do in a winter season. But you also just need a fucking break, okay? You just need a break. You need to take a breather. You just worked really hard all spring, all summer, and all fall, okay? The more dedicated you are to recharging and. Hi, Sam. Howdy. Right back. Hello. The more dedicated you are to recharging in your winter season, the sooner spring will come, okay? So unlike. Unlike the world seasons, when we have seasons in our business, we actually do have ways of manipulating and. And controlling them. All right? Some things that I love to do in my. I'll just go through. We'll start with winter. In my winter seasons, I'm a firm believer that there are two different hobbies. There's reading books and then buying books, and I'm really good at the latter. So if you. I mean, I'll probably do some different backgrounds at some point when I am, you know, my tailbone's fixed and I can. I can sit someplace other than my couch, but I have books all over this house, and there are so many that I haven't read. And in my winter season, like, I love just, you know, picking five books that I'm going to just, like, bang through and get some inspiration. You know, any online learning that you want to do, it's also a really great option here. New certifications. If you're planning on doing that and you're in your service. You know, vacation is also a really great thing for you to do in a winter season, because vacations are really hard to take when you're in the middle of a spring, a summer, or a fall. Okay. You want to think. Fill the cup. Fill the cup. Rest the body, rest the mind, and really light that flame of inspiration, okay? So anything that fills your cup and. And lights that flame of inspiration and gives the rest of You a break is gonna be a great setup for an amazing spring. In springtime, I honestly, I, I just kind of let myself go full throttle. Um, I let, I give myself full permission to not plan stuff. Um, I also like to plan one day off a week where one day that's like completely off. I don't check anything. And that's the day where I plan to like either sleep all day or see friends and have a life, you know, because it's really easy in springtime to like, just want to work, work, work, work, work. Because you have so many ideas. All right. In my summertime, in my summertime. Oh my gosh. In this time, I like going through what is working, working in my marketing and doubling down on it. Right? Because you're seeing the results in real time. You're seeing. Okay, cool. This, this kind of post got this much engagement or this post got this many appointments booked for new clients. Great. I'm going to double down on this messaging and I really like, like to take it, you know, to the nth degree there and just have fun with it. I also, in a summer season, I like doing cross promotional stuff with other people. It's just a great way to promote other people and get in front of new audiences. And in my fall season, this is where I lean very heavily on my team is I, I really do prioritize my marketing because I don't want to have long winter seasons. I lean into my team so they can keep me organized and scheduled and honest with my marketing. And I also just so enjoy working with my clients in a good fall season. It just, I don't. If you're doing the right work. If you're doing the right work, and if you are, you'll know what I'm talking about. I finish my days when I'm working with clients feeling like I have more energy than I started with. Okay. There's this high I get from the work I do with clients and it's unlike anything I've ever experienced. Especially when they're successful and they're, you know, getting their own clients and they're building their businesses. Like, there's just nothing like seeing that impact that you can have. And if you're doing whatever your work is and whatever like lights your fire in that way, you know what I'm talking about? If this is the thing for you. In my fall season, I, I like keeping an eye on stuff that I'm going to need for my winter, you know, so like, if my clients are all having. And this has actually been happening. So in the last year, I've been in a pretty good fall season. A lot of my clients are talking about deeper money, not troubles, but money, stories, relationships, money than I have been equipped to deal with. And I'm, you know, good at coaching on money relationships. It's one of the things that I do with most of my clients. But I wanted to take it a step further. So for my winter season, I really invested in these two programs where I'm going to get certified in two different modalities of coaching on money. And I'm so excited for it. And I'm kind of blending my, my fall and my winter and my spring and layering them. It's going to be a very muddy affair. But I just want you to know, wherever you are in your business, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, none of it lasts. Okay? So if you're in a slow period right now, it's not going to last. Okay. If you're doing the work, it's going to start picking up. You're going to start seeing some results. If you're crazy, crazy busy and you're like, I can't handle this, that's not going to last either. Right? Momentum, steady momentum is the way to do it. All right? It's the way to ensure that you have more even seasons in your business. And that's pretty much it. Anyway, I have a very cranky dog who hasn't been feeling well, who has been eyeing me because she thinks it's bedtime at 8:46. Anyway, Sam Leandro, thank you so much for joining. For anyone else who's been watching and hasn't commented or maybe your comment didn't come through, thank you for being here. I'll be going live tomorrow. I think I'm going to be pulling some cards and doing something kind of fun. Why not? Anyway, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Thank you for joining. I cannot wait to talk to you tomorrow and have a great night. Bye.