091. How to Deal with Challenges to Finish Strong

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Well, hello there. How are you? So glad you're here with me today. As you all are joining in, I just want to say happy Friday, Happy September. Here we are on September 1st. And this is what I really wanted to be talking about today because I think this month is such an interesting and pivotal month in the year. And it's the last month of the third quarter. I have to keep looking because I feel like this year is just flying by. Right. And so this is the last month of the core of the third quarter and the last month before, obviously, the fourth quarter rolls around. So it really can be such a pivotal month, I think, where we can really lean in to finishing out this year strong and finishing this quarter strong. Right. And so I wanted to talk about that today. I have just, I wanted to just share, like, some of what I have been hearing and experiencing and what I think about all of it, because I think this has been, for many of us as entrepreneurs and women building businesses, this has been a challenging year for us. Right. Not for all of us and not in all ways. Right. Everything, life, business, it's all 50, 50. Right. So there's always going to be tough parts. There's always going to be easy parts. But I know for a lot of us, these past few years have been quite interesting, to say the least. Right. In terms of our, our journey and how we've had to grow and change and pivot and all of those things to address what has, what has been going on in our culture, in our economy, in our country. And so it's all part of life. Yes. But I know for many entrepreneurs, business has felt harder this year or clients seem fewer, or money and spending has been tighter. And so I want to just acknowledge that that has been an experience for many. Right. And then there's also many that are having a great year. Right. But regardless of what your experience is, I think this discussion will be very helpful. And I want you to know that if you're feeling like it's been a challenging year, you're not alone. I work with a lot of folks in real estate, and, you know, it's been a tough year for many people in real estate. Some people it's been a great year. Right. But you're not alone. And so usually what I see happen in myself and with people, women I work with, women I talk to. When we are in these tough times, when we. I see two things happen. Number one, we either will over dramatize or, or exaggerate. And it's like everything is going wrong, Nothing is working. It's very all or nothing type thinking. And, and it's all very dramatic and tragic, right? And that's kind of one end of the spectrum, then on the other end of the spectrum, and this is what I do a lot of times, is I will just hide or ignore those things or resist those feelings of disappointment or, you know, just feeling down or disappointed. Right? Okay. So you kind of see those two sides happen, but what they both have in common is that both of those can paralyze us, right? When we're dramatizing things and everything is wrong, nothing is going right that will paralyze us. Or if we're hiding or ignoring what's going on, that will paralyze us as well. And so just have some awareness of how you react in these situations. And, and I think what's really beneficial is just starting with the awareness of being able to kind of step outside yourself and see these things happening. And then the first step is really to tell the truth, like really get the facts of what is happening. So oftentimes I will hear women say, oh, well, you know, I'm not getting any clients or the, you know, people aren't spending any money or whatever it is. It's very dramatic, right? So the first question I will always ask is, what do your actual numbers say? Let's actually look at the numbers and figure out what's actually happening. And so I think when we bring some neutrality to how the reactions are happening, bring some neutrality to the situation, that can be super powerful. So we can actually look at the numbers, not to diminish the feelings, but it's to say, okay, because when we're paralyzed and we're in this very dramatic or hiding type of situation, there's no power, there's no way to go forward from there, right? So looking at the truth, getting the facts allows us to begin to accept what is, what is actually happening, right? What is the truth of the situation? So then when we have the truth of the situation, then we can get curious, right? We can say, okay, why is this happening? And one thing I like to explore is what are all the stre stories that you're telling yourself about this situation, right? So if maybe you're feeling like you're not getting as many client bookings as normal. What are the stories you're telling yourself about that? Well, maybe the stories you're telling are nobody, you know, nobody wants what I am offering. You know, my industry is probably going down the drain or there's too much competition or whatever it might be like. And, and there's no way I can compete with all these other people that are much better at me or I don't know how to do business or I'm bad at marketing, or I don't know this or I'm bad at that, right? There's all these stories that we begin to tell ourselves and there's a lot of personalizing these, these, these things which isn't always helpful, right? In terms of helping us to find solutions and solve problems. So once we identify what are all the stories we're telling, then you can ask and look at all the stories. And I like to write them all down because that's how I roll write them all down. And then I ask myself will any single one of these stories help me to get better or help me to improve? And then ask how each one of them is true, right? And there might be some shred of truth to them. Like if one of them is like, no one wants what I have to offer, maybe it's true, you know, what is the truth in that statement? It's true that less people have shown interest in what I'm offering, right? So that could be true. But if we find the truth in there and then we also get to decide what we want to think about that, right? So less people might be interested in what I'm selling, but it might be because of what, right? Like, might be because I haven't been showing up like I used to, or it might be, you know, where is the truth in there? And you can start to problem solve from that place and you get to decide what you want to think about that, right? Like my sales are, you know, 40% of what they were at this time last year. That's a fact. That could be a fact. And so we just get to decide what we want to think about it. We could look at it and say, yes, it's because I suck and I don't know what I'm doing or, or because that's not going to help us problem solve and that's not going to help us to improve or get better, right? So maybe we want to think about how, or ask ourselves how we want to actually be thinking about those facts. And then I want to just point out that whatever Circumstances that you're facing, whether this year in your business or this quarter or in August or whatever, whether it's been tough for you or whether it's been easy. I would imagine for most of us, it's been tough and easy. There's probably different colors on that spectrum, right? We are always being called to that next level version, right? We are always being called to challenge ourselves to rise to the occasion. As entrepreneurs, we have chosen this path to challenge ourselves to create something that never existed before, to serve people and serve our specific people in ways that they have never been served before, to do things that much differently, to step out in a way that we've never stepped out before. And so whatever you're experiencing in your business right now, this is a calling for that next level also. It's that next level of creativity, that next level of inventiveness, that next level of client service, that next level of understanding exactly the results that your clients want and how you can help them get that 100% of the time. There's always this call to rise to the occasion, and this is no different. Right? And so do you accept this call? Right. And every day we have to accept the call. I have a mentor that says you can quit on a dream, but you can't quit on a calling. Right? If you are called to this work, it's going to be with you. Right? And so are you going to accept the call? Because life and business is always 50 50. It's always going to be partially hard and partially easy, partially wonderful and partially awful. So we get to choose our hard, right? Because not answering the call can also be just as hard as answering the call, right? And so we have to decide. We get to decide at any moment, every day, every week, every month. Here we are at the beginning of a month. We get to decide if we're going to answer this call, answer our calling and follow it. Right? And so if you want to accept the call, you get to make a decision. And deciding is incredibly powerful. When you decide, then you are in the driver's seat, you are back in power. The circumstances don't have a hold over you. They're just circumstances. And they're going to be good and they're going to be bad, right? They're going to be both. So if you're in, you got to decide and say, I'm in. Right? And if you're in, it's time to take radical responsibility for the results that you have. Right? And I suggest this because it's so incredibly powerful to Take responsibility. Yes. If you, for example, are in Maui and there was a fire that you had no control over, that fire, right? But you get to decide what you do next. All right? And we all are going to have awful circumstances and wonderful circumstances in our lives and then our journeys, and we always get to decide. And specifically in regards to our business, we always are invited to take radical responsibility for what we are creating in our business. And what that means is, okay, my sales are 40% of what they were last year or whatever is the fact, right? We take that fact, and then we can ask ourselves, why? What are all the circumstances? Not all the circumstances, but what are all the things that are in my control? How was I thinking? How have I been feeling? What have I been doing that has created or not created the results that I have? And an example of this was a couple years back. I went through this period where I had like 12, I think it was 12 consultation calls with potential clients all in a row. Like in the span of, I don't know, a month, a month and a half, Like, I was getting tons of interest in my work, right? And that was wonderful. And then I had these consults, and every single one of them said no. And of course, you know, there's all varying reasons that people were giving me, whether it's the they couldn't afford it or they're, you know, whatever. The whole gamut of reasons that people didn't buy in, they weren't ready, whatever they were, right? And so my coach said to me, because, of course, I was very disappointed in these results. And it would have been easy for me to say, oh, well, it's just due to, you know, people not having enough money or not wanting coaching or they would rather spend their money here or there, right? And putting it all on the people, the potential clients. But my coach said to me, she said, okay, well, how much money would you have made if every single one of those would have been a yes? And I said, I don't know, $50,000 or whatever it was? And she's like, okay, what is the $50,000 worth of lessons that you learned from all those nos? And so you know that I have control over changing, fixing, improving, learning, growing, Right? Where are all the places within every one of those that I could improve, that I could change, that I could grow, that I have control over? Right? And that's what I mean by taking radical responsibility. So I evaluate every consultation that I have, and so I was able to go back and, like, look and look through all those evaluations and pull out all the lessons. And by the end of that next year or the end of that year, I was fully booked. Right. Because it does take, and it takes time and effort, but it does take us accepting and owning up to that radical responsibility. Yes, I might not be able to change circumstances that are beyond my control, but I'm going to examine every single thing that's in my control and I'm going to improve it, change it, learn from it, grow from it, and give myself a better shot next time around. Right. So I would say, thinking about, you know, say, for example, that your results for this calendar year have not been what you wanted them to be. Right? And you still have plenty of year left. Right. We still have four full months of this year, so remember that. But you're not where you thought you would be at this time in the year. So I want you to examine why. What is in my control that are answers to why I haven't created what I wanted to create so far this year. What have I been thinking? What have been some of my predominant thoughts? What have been some predominant feelings? What about my actions? So how are those thoughts and feelings coloring what I'm doing? Right. An example from my own business is a couple of years ago, I was having a couple really slow months and I was feeling very, you know, full of lack and full of scarcity. And that's all I could focus on was all the money I wasn't making. And, you know, I was thinking, oh, nobody wants what I have to offer. I have nothing important to say. I have nothing important to give. And so those were kind of some predominant thoughts. So anytime I was going out into the marketplace and marketing or communicating or talking to people, that odor, it's like bo, right? That odor colored everything I was doing and saying. Right? So I want you to think about what are those, some of those predominant thoughts and feelings and then how you're taking those into the actions. So at that point I was feeling very scarce. So I just started like, okay, I'm going to offer just anything I can think of, right? I'm just going to start selling anything I could think of. And, you know, those products or those, I can't even remember packages or whatever that came out of that were coming from a place of nobody wants this. So I had a thought, you know, nobody wants what I have to either, or they don't want to pay my prices or whatever the thought was. And then I went out and created something else from that. And when you do that, it's always going to affect the success of that action, right? And so when you're creating from a place of lack and scarcity, you're only going to create more lack and scarcity, right? So just keep that in mind when you are problem solving from a place of, you know, I can figure this out. I believe that people, that I can help people I could. You know, I believe that people want to pay for what I have to offer. I have evidence of people paying for this thing elsewhere. When you come from a place of thought, of more abundant and expansive thoughts and feelings, you will create more of that, right? And it's hard because we have to be onto ourselves. And that's why having a coach can be so powerful, because your coach can sniff out those underlying thoughts and feelings that might be sabotaging what you're doing. So you can always look at the results that you're getting and the actions you're taking. And if those actions in those results don't match up to what you want to be happening, then you've got to go back and look at what are you thinking and feeling, right? And so when you do that, when you really onto yourself and you're really understanding and taking that radical responsibility, all of those pieces of responsibility that you're taking, the, you know, sniffing out the thoughts that you were having, how you were feeling, the actions you are taking, putting those all together and having that awareness then creates the path to you actually correcting that, pivoting, changing course and achieving your goal, right? So if you identify, oh, I was thinking, nobody wants this, nobody wants to pay my prices. No one's buying these things anymore, right? Then, you know, those are thoughts that you have to deal with that you have to shift, right? And when you shift those, it'll shift the energy. So it kind of gives you that roadmap, right? Of, oh, these are all the things and the actions and the feelings that I and the energy that I'm in that all needs to shift in these specific ways, and that becomes your path to success, Right? So. And in doing that, I believe that you can achieve your goal this year. Absolutely. And you also need to remember your why, why you're doing what you're doing, right? Because your calling, your vision has to be bigger than. And I just heard Brendan Burchard say this recently, he said it a little bit differently, but he said that your, Your why your. Your vision, or he calls it your dream, has to be bigger than the drama, the distractions and your disappointment, right? And so when it is, when you are able to connect deeply to why you're doing what you're doing. To connect deeply to the change that you want to see in the world, the change you are making in the world, the people that you are making it for, the people you are serving and helping. When you're deeply connected to that, then all of that drama and distraction falls to the wayside. It doesn't go away, but it becomes much less noisy, right? And so when you're able to do that, when you're able to really focus in on why you're doing what you're doing and be grounded in that why. And for me, I have to ground myself in this every single day. I work on this every single day. I have to reground myself in why I'm doing what I'm doing, right? Because it's not easy, it's hard. But this is the hard that I choose. This is the hard that is my calling, my purpose on this planet, right? So I want to, I want to accept the challenge. And when I connect to that, I create what I like to think of as emotional elasticity, right? Because all of us, none of us are immune to having hard emotions, to feeling disappointed, to feeling like a failure, to feeling shame, to feeling disappointed and upset and angry. And none of us are immune to any of that, to feeling imposter syndrome. We're. None of us are immune to that, right? But when we have that greater connection to our why we have greater emotional elasticity, we can bounce back from those feelings of failure, from those feelings of sadness and disappointment. So I want to just encourage you today that, yeah, you're going to feel that disappointment and distraction and feel down or discouraged. But when you remain grounded in that why, you can bounce back easier. So if you find yourself in a place right now, today, as we start out this new month, if you're finding yourself in a place where you're feeling down and discouraged and like the goal that you have set for the year is never going to happen into possible. I want you to just take some time to reconnect with why you're doing, what you're doing with the person that you can help, the people that you're serving, the work that you are doing in the world. And when we shift that focus, we'll bounce back and you can still make your goal happen for the year. I believe it. I believe in you. Right. I believe in myself too. I have a big goal for the year and I believe it can still happen. But it's not going to come from a place of looking at how far I am away from the goal. It's going to come from a place of looking at how far I've already come. You have already come so, so far. You can do this. You got this. Don't give up. Remember to keep taking those small steps consistently every day towards your vision, your dream. And you will make it happen. I know you will. And it might be by the end of the year. It might be the end of January 2024 or March 2020. Who cares, right? You're gonna get there. If you never give up, you will get there. So that's what I have for you today, my friends. I hope you have a fabulous start to this month, a great rest of the month, rest of the quarter, and of course, I'm going to be here with you all along the way. All right, ladies, I love you so much. You got this and I'm here for you. I'm always available to support, support you, coach you, and just reach out to me. I'd be happy to work with you, walk alongside you as we finish out this year super strong. All right, I'll talk to you soon. Bye. If you like this podcast, then you have got to sign up for my free on demand video training, Grow youw Sales Doing what yout Love. Where I teach you in depth my simple process that you can implement right away to harness your mindset and your skills to grow your sales to whatever level you want. So go grab that now. The link is in the show notes and I'll see you next time.