3 Things to Leverage In Business Sales With Chronic Illness

my body was out to get me. Like, it's out to get me. There's no good. There's no silver lining. There's nothing here. I just have to kind of like stay put. I have to stay in this controlled, connived place in order to keep whatever control I thought I needed to have. And when I learned to heal through that and I was able to accept that there's good and there's bad, there's dark and there's light, there's pain, and then there's exquisite pleasure. I realize that it's okay to experience every part of those human parts of us. Welcome to Crafted to Thrive, the globally ranked podcast for entrepreneurs living with chronic illness. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and after being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses myself, I figured out the surprisingly simple missing link to growing a profitable business without compromising my health. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to own your story and create a thriving business that aligns with your health and wellbeing, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for entrepreneurs with chronic illness. This is Crafted to Thrive. What if I told you you only had to do 3 things in order to make a livable income while living with chronic illness? Yep, that's right. This episode I want to share with you the 3 things that I did when I first initially started my business as a coach, more specifically, to create my first handful of clients. The reason why I wanted to go back is because as we go into 2024, you're gonna hear lots of advice, especially from coaches and gurus who are looking back over their year and they're thinking about all the things they wanna pivot and change and do differently or do the same or let go of or embrace and all of that jazz. And no matter the year, I have found that The things that always help you make money are the things that you are uniquely qualified to share. And there's only 3 things that, that could be. And as chronic illness warriors, I find that this is really important because it's actually something that I learned living with chronic illness that I had to realize no one else could have really told me. They could have created the environment for me to understand these things, but until I really embraced these 3 things, was I only able to find my footing, if you will, find my acceptance, find my step into my groove of living with chronic illness for the rest of my life, right? And so the 3 things and that definitely apply to me in my life and business. So I want to share with you the only 3 things you really need to keep in mind going into 2024 to make sales in your business. And if you guys hear my cat and my dog, I'm in my new apartment. Let me give you— before I go into all of this stuff, let me give you a little bit of an update on my life as we are in 2023, just about to go into the new year of 2024. I have— my husband and I have sold our house. We had a whole plan. We were going to sell our house, um, rent for a couple of months, and then move into a home. And then the market did some weird stuff, and then You know, life took us in a different direction. So now we're living in an apartment, which can I say is just a little bit interesting after you haven't lived in an apartment for several years. It's very different. We're older. We have one more pet, which is a dog, which is very different being an apartment person living with a dog. And we still have our two cats. And so the things that we're positive and grateful for is that there is some levity to not having to like maintain a house and do all of those different kinds of things that come with a house. And we're keeping our eyes open for future opportunities of where we may go. We both are currently like, we're in Georgia, but we kind of really want to not be in this area specifically where we're living. And we want to potentially leave the state or just go somewhere different in the state. And this year I did a lot of travel that was very, very intentional. Most things that I do, if you know me, is very intentional. This year wanted to be able to travel. I love traveling. I think I talked about this in a past episode, and for years living with chronic illness, I kind of gave up that being something that I could like really do, one, by myself, or two, as consistently as I would like to. And this year I have traveled quite a bit. Two of those trips were by myself, and That's huge for me, living with chronic illness. Literally, for all of you who are new, I recommend you going back to some of the earlier podcast episodes because you kind of hear a little bit more about my story. But before I got married, I had a relatively normal-ish life. I had some health issues, but nothing like that I would feel or I would characterize as chronic. And then when I got married, Literally a couple of weeks later, I was dealing with some chronic stuff that I didn't get diagnosis for, for a couple of months to a couple of years. And ever since that moment, I really haven't traveled anywhere by myself. And before I got married, I used to do it all of the time, all of the time. New York, Vermont, California, cruises with friends. Like, I did travel a lot and I really did miss that. And then obviously the pandemic really gave me the itch to want to travel again. And so this year we definitely did that. We're just coming back from an amazing— I want to say it was a 10 or 12-day vacation with my husband. 8 of those days was on a cruise boat to the Caribbean, and it was beautiful. I cannot tell you how many times I cried, how many times my breath literally was taken out of my body. Like, I couldn't catch my breath on some occasions, and I'm just so grateful for those moments. But what I'm most grateful for, y'all, is kind of going back to what I was talking about. The 3 things that I had to learn about myself living with chronic illness was that even though I was chronically ill, there are parts of me that was not attached to my chronic illness. I'm going to say that again. There are 3 things that I'm going to share with you. And the 3 things first are going to kind of land on you about chronic illness, and then I'm going to tie that into like how you make sales in your business today, tomorrow, 10 years, 20 years from now. Okay. I had to realize that even though I was living, and I still am, I deal with ups and downs just like all of you do, that my chronic illness was just, and I know I say this all the time, was only a part of me. It wasn't the reason why I couldn't be the rest of me. Okay, I'm gonna say that again. It was a part of me, but it wasn't a reason that I couldn't be the rest of me. The rest of me is, as my husband and my friends will probably tell you, is boho Nikita Williams. I like walking barefoot. I love the sea. I love the ocean. I love rustic, rich kind of things, like very elegant, but also very real and down to earth. I love bright colors. If you ask me what my favorite color is, I cannot tell you. It changes every day. I love all the colors, right? And this one thing was so important in order for me to embrace what I believe was possible living with chronic illness. And it took me some years. It definitely took a lot of soul searching and being around the right people, having some resources and tools available to me to help tap into realizing that, that even though chronic illness is a part of me, it does not define all of me. It doesn't mean that I can't be the rest of me, right? And so I really have found that that's the truth in business. There are so many people doing so many of the same things, right? We see so many people doing so many of the same things in business. There's tons of coaches. There's tons of photographers. There's tons of wedding photographers. There's tons of artists. There's nothing new under the sun, as the proverb says in the Bible. So if there's nothing new under the sun, when it comes to all of these things and things we decide to do, what makes anything worth living, right? What makes anything exciting, and it's us. It's our beautiful essence, our personality. It's who we are, who we're becoming, who we're transforming, who we're shedding sometimes, who we're healing, who we're growing into, who we're growing back to. It's so beautiful in so many different ways, and that's really what allows us to be in this world and not be bored. We are so gifted with the option of having so many varieties of options and varieties of ways of seeing things, perspectives of seeing things. And so it doesn't matter what industry you are in, if you have not accepted that your chronic illness is just a part of you, and even that part of you can and will 100% be okay with being the rest of you, it will be really hard to show up in this world that's quote unquote oversaturated with other people doing what you do. So those two things are very much linked like that in business and in your personal life and how you view yourself. Really what we're talking about is how you view yourself as a chronic illness warrior in this world is that that's just a small yet pretty profound aspect in our life, right? It affects every day. It affects how we sleep. It affects how we eat. It affects how we move and see the world to an extent, but that is just an aspect of us, right? So many parts of our bodies and our minds and our thoughts and our experiences and our dreams are well elevated beyond just how we feel and what's going on, right? And it's so important to remember that and to carry that in your business, because when you can do that, you can set goals, you can set numbers, you can Look at all of the population of, you know, people who are doing what you do and see how you stand out and be confident in that. So that leads to my number 2 thing that I believe is going to help you make sales in 2024, right? Don't discount the pain or the pleasures. Oftentimes as chronic illness warriors, this is something I did as a long time, a very long time and didn't even realize it when I was really going through things. And this like goes even before I was diagnosed with my chronic illnesses, before I had the challenges that I have now. And I honestly do believe they're a big part of the root cause that I experienced, like how, why I have the things that I have. Is because I was a really good pusher througher. I still am. Like, I'm not even— I'm not even gonna lie, that's a very good— like, that has its pros and cons of it, right? And I definitely pushed through at the— at the expense of acknowledging what is and what is good and what is not so good, right? And I would try to just focus on how to get through the hard stuff without acknowledging the good stuff. And in business, if you can't acknowledge the good things, if you can't operate in the dual capacity of being like, it's going to take time to see this strategy that you're trying to see if it works, to test it out, and you have to get comfortable with that, right? And you have to also live in the good of like, I am experiencing something new. I'm trying something new. I'm learning something new. I'm experiencing so many different perspective shifts, things I've never saw before, things I've never thought before. I'm getting introduced to people that I never thought I would. If you cannot learn the skill of being excited about the lessons you're learning from the challenges and from the quote unquote, you know, winds, however you want to call them, the winds, the blessings, whatever you want to call them. And you only live in like the pushing through mode. You miss the most important lesson of all is that you cannot in this system, in this world, really have those beautiful rainbows and those beautiful blessings without the rainstorm, right? They don't always have to, um, correlate. That's something else I had to realize that's connected to the same thought, which is you don't always have to suffer to have good. You can walk into good and it's just good, and then you can be thankful for that. But if you're not in a habit of seeking or looking or being aware or even being able to acknowledge that good is happening, how can you do it in a storm, right? How can you do it in a storm when you need it the most, when you need to be able to see the light or the rainbow that's starting to appear through those clouds? You have to be able to. That's the hope that we need. And in your business, you're going to have things that you're thinking, you're trying, you're doing, you're doing all the things on top of trying new things with your body. Like this year for me, it literally has been an interesting experience with my body. I have had serious highs and serious lows and all at the same time and through them all, just been so presently grateful for every moment, the good, the bad, and the— I'm just grateful. I'm grateful for all of the things that I had to go through or the things that I did go through that allowed me to be the person I am today in this moment. So I'll give you an example. So remember I was talking about travel. My last travel that I did by myself was to a business trip, and I don't know if I actually told you guys about this. It's been so long since I've done a solo episode, but I went to one of my coach's trainings that she was doing in person, and I was so excited, like so excited, you guys, so excited. And I got there. The first part of the day and a half was great. First morning was great. Then had lunch, and then about 45 minutes in, something happened. I think it was something that I ate. I had some kind of food something. I believe it was food poisoning. It was horrendous, okay? Food poisoning for anyone who lives with endometriosis, IBS, and IC, which is chronic bladder disease, You know, that's like the perfect not so beautiful storm of things, right? And so here I was in my hotel room because the conference was up there and in my conference room. And I called my husband and I'm like, this is happening. It's a horrible thing that's happening. And as sad and as like just worried as I was about like being in such agony and like worry, I also had so many tools with me that I learned through some of the hardest emotional, mental, and physical storms of my life. And as sick as I was, y'all, both ends, maybe TMI, I wasn't deathly afraid of the context of— when I say that, I wasn't deathly afraid of like being alone, or like, this means that I'm never traveling again. I didn't have those extremes of thoughts. I just was in the moment of like, this sucks really bad. I hope I make it through this, and I'm thankful that I have all these tools right now. It did not land on me to think anything other than that because of all the good that came to me before. All of the challenges that I had gotten through before. And those things have helped me to be present in that moment. And I just booked my next trip by myself for another trip, for another business thing. We have another vacation coming up in the new year. And all of those things, I just remember myself years ago having like what I would call the visceral back-to-back cycle of always seeing how no matter what I did in my brain at that time, my body was out to get me. Like, it's out to get me. There's no good. There's no silver lining. There's nothing here. I just have to kind of like stay put. I have to stay in this controlled, connived place in order to keep whatever control I thought I needed to have. And when I learned to heal through that, and I was able to accept that there's good and there's bad, there's dark and there's light, there's pain and then there's exquisite pleasure, I realized that it's OK to experience every part of those human parts of us and for them not to mean that every moment of my life is going to be one or the other, right? And allow that to keep me in this fear place. And in our businesses, y'all, there is a lot of unknown. There is a lot of unknown and there's a lot of known, right? And in order for you to get really good at business, there's this thing you have to be able to be at a skill with, you have to have skill with, which is being able to hold the bad with the good, being able to see that time and however long it takes doesn't mean always that it's bad or that you should stop or that you should give up. Oftentimes it just means you need more patience. Oftentimes it, it means that you may be missing some silver lining in this time that you feel like it's taking too long. And if you just believe that there's a slight hope or glimmer, you'll be surprised at what comes your way. And you remove the pressure of it happening right now. You remove the pressure of trying to get your business to do this thing that you want it to do because you need it to happen. It just happens. And that's how you make money in this business. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I think about it in a lot of different ways. Like, some of my clients and myself have been at times so, like, tied to something having to work that you beat it down to death. Like, you try to be perfect at it. And sometimes when you just take a break and you relax and you're still doing the thing, but you relax the thoughts or the pressure behind it, you see the results and it's kind of like the thing, what is it that they say? You hold onto something too hard, you might just lose it, right? That's the same thing in a lot of different ways, I think, in, in business. And I'm seeing that with some of my clients. Some of my clients are trying to hold dear to some of the ways that they feel like they have control, but the moment they let go, they realize, oh my gosh, I feel more free. I can do this thing. And there's still going to be challenges, right? There's still going to be this growing pain. There's still going to be opportunities to learn. But how much more are they experiencing life and growing in their business? So much more because they were willing to see both the good and the bad. You have to have both. It's not either or. It's kind of a package. And being okay with the package helps you to grow. It helps you to make sales. It's also the thing that helps you to have the hard conversations and sales calls. The year before I started working with my coach, DL, who's a sales coach, I used to avoid the hard questions because I already felt like chronic illness warriors already had too many hard things to think about, and I didn't want to talk about money. I didn't want to talk about how are you going to be able to— how are you you know, financially taking care of yourself? Is there someone else who's going to support you in this? I didn't want to ask those hard questions because I personally felt uncomfortable with someone asking me those questions for a while. And I also felt like that's the elephant in the room for us chronic illness warriors is that it's expensive to be living with chronic illness. It's not an easy thing financially. And so when I freed myself of being like, yes, and, I have clients who have chronic illness and are able to afford this, and they're open with me, sharing with me how they're able to afford this or what they're doing in order to take care of their financial situation. And we're working together to make that financial situation even better. Boy, did the world open up. Boy, was I able to make $10K in a couple of weeks, something I had never done in a couple of weeks before, like doubling my investment from some of my coaches. I'd never done anything like that within a 6-month period. It took me sometimes years to make a return of investment on things. And this wasn't the case for me when I let go, when I was able to not just let go, but to embrace, yeah, this is kind of uncomfortable, but it's a needed thing in order to— for helping them to embrace this other piece. And so what I want you to think about when it comes to sales in 2024 as a chronic illness warrior is how can you get more upfront and no fluffiness in your sales calls? How can you embrace the hard and embrace the good for your clients? How can you stand for both for your clients? How can you do that? To me, that's the only way we can honestly show up for them, and we can show up as our best coach or as our best service provider. If you don't ask them the hard questions, you end up hurting yourself and them. And so that's just something to help, especially my coaches, my service providers out there. Sometimes we don't like to ask the questions that we feel like are salesy or pushing. Let me tell you a little story real quick about salesy. You know, for all my folks out here who feeling salesy. So on this cruise that I just went to, if you want to get the clip to this that I'm talking to you about, DM me because you will, you will laugh hysterically and then feel like, okay, have a reality check with yourself. So a lot of my clients and myself in the past, especially in the past, have had this feeling of being like, I don't want to be too salesy in a call. I don't want to sound too pushy in the call. I don't want to ask those uncomfortable questions. I don't want to acknowledge the pain that they might be experiencing because I just want them to get what they want and all of these different kind of things, right? And so we were in, I think it was Dominican Republic. We're in Puerto Plata. We were at this fort. And what was interesting in the Dominican Republic at Puerto Plata is like everywhere we went, there was salespeople. Like they were like literally everywhere, y'all, like everywhere. You couldn't get off a boat. You couldn't go to like a popular place, like a touristy place without being sold to at every corner, every corner, right? But the fort was even more interesting. So you drive up on the fort. We're in this like really decked out van that has been, you know, beautifully decorated as DR people would decorated travel bus for tours. And we roll up onto the fort and I cannot tell you, I can hear like 10 men and women like, um, no push, no push. Would you like this? Would you like this? Like, like they have these like jewelry and cakes and empanadas and all these things like before you're even out of the bus. Okay. And they're selling to us from outside of the bus. We're not— the bus has not stopped. The bus is just getting around to get to the spot where we have to get out. And it's not one person. It's not two people. It's like literally 10 at each bus. And you can hear them. You hear them before you even get out. And talk about hustle, like legit hustlers, hustle, hustle, right? And so I could not— like my husband gets out and he's being talked to. And then I get out the bus and I have not even put one foot down before someone's like, hi, hi, would you like this? No push, no push. And they're like showing me like all this stuff. I can't even see it because literally I'm just breathtaking by the view that I'm looking at at this fort in the ocean. And I'm trying not to be rude because they're like talking to me, but there's multiple people talking. And when I say talking, they're literally selling me on whatever the things that they have. I couldn't even see all the things that they have. And so finally my husband grabs my hand and we're like talking. We're like, thank you. We might come by. Thank you. Right. And I think about this from the context of being like, we, we think we're too salesy on social media where people sell and they can decide to turn it off. Literally, I couldn't turn them off. I couldn't even stay in the bus and not be sold to, right. That's being salesy. And I have no qualms against them because they are making a living doing that. Right. They're very polite-ish for the most part of that, but that's really salesy, right? None of us are doing this on social media. People have an option to do this. When people book a sales call with us, they're making a decision that they wanna be on a sales call cuz they booked the call. So, us asking the hard questions, us being open to having the good and the bad. And when I say the good and the bad, like, I mean the harder questions, like, how would you like to pay for this? When you believe you are enough, when you believe and you don't discount your experience, your expertise, your past experience, the things you did back in the day, right? That you feel like are like, you feel like they're failures. Like you straight up feel like that. For example, I had my real estate license for a while, and some of you may or may not know this, but I have always had some kind of background in real estate since I was in high school. I used to work for a real estate paralegal office. I've been assistant to real estate agents. I had my license here in Georgia and I felt like I wasn't that great. I really feel like in a lot of different ways, like it was like a failure of an option. That's how I used to view it is like I was really not a good real estate agent. Like I didn't stick to it long enough. I also felt like my chronic illness destroyed that for me. I also have so many, had so many, and it's still kind of do have some thoughts about it because of That was during a time of really unknowing what's going on with my body. And when I look back at it now, I think about— it's so funny. I have literally coached clients in this past year about the real estate market. And I'm a coach for businesses like photographers and like coaches for holistic nutrition and dietitians and lactation specialists and coaches and stuff like this. We're talking about nothing quote unquote related to real estate, but my knowledge of real estate, for some people, that's a part of their life right now. They're trying to decide, are they gonna sell? What do they need to know? Where do they need to go? And all of that has fueled me and helped me support my clients in their life and in their businesses. But if I had thought that, if I continue, and I should say, if I continue to believe that that part of me was a complete failure and it was not useful and it did nothing and I ended it, I would never be able to use I can use that to support my clients. It truly was a lie that I thought it was a failure. It's just something I decided not to do at the time. And so when we live with chronic illness, sometimes we make a lot of different decisions at different points of our life. And because they didn't work out or because we felt like our chronic illness took over, or we feel like it happened before we had a chronic illness, or we feel like we had to quit because of our chronic illness, We consider all those things failure, but in reality, they're evidence to build on your confidence and road and path to success, because it is what helps you get to today. It's also the thing that some of the things your clients will need to know because they never experienced it before. They have no perspective on it. So don't discount your story in any way. That will make you money. When you show up confidently and able to support people in ways that they couldn't even fathom, that they only came to you for this one specific thing and then you blow their mind with more, it will make you money. But it only will make you money as a chronic illness warrior. It will only help you make a livable income when you don't discount it. Even if you don't want to be doing that thing anymore, even if you don't want to be an occupational therapist. I have a friend who follows me on social media. I've never met her in person, but there's thoughts like, this doesn't apply to my business. But what if it did? What if there's nuggets of gold that are like awesome pieces of gold that you worked hard for, that you persevered through, that you don't have to use it in the same way like you did in that business, but you could use it in this business now to serve you and your clients. It only happens when you stop discounting and devaluing your story. And we can do that even with AI. AI cannot be you. They cannot have your lived experiences. They cannot even have your trauma or the things you've experienced. They cannot be you. So yes, they might be able to help with, um, like for me, they can help me with like clarifying what I'm trying to say or give me ideas for this or even write my emails or even do all those things. Do not forget to sprinkle and bring back and share your story and carry it with confidence because it will make you money. And I don't mean just make you money, it will also just make you feel happier because you will embrace all of you instead of condemning parts of you. We all have things we have to work on. We all have weaknesses and dark shadows and whatever you want to call them, but we're all works in progress. And we're all growing in whatever way that may be. And so if you give yourself permission not to discount and devalue your journey, and you use it as leverage, you use it as a proud statement to say, I'm a work in progress and I'm proud for being who I am and growing and continuing to change where I want to change in whatever ways, you can show up and sell for your business and for yourself and, and just advocate for yourself in a much more higher esteem than if you didn't. So those 3 things to me forever will be things that will help you grow and as a person, grow in your business, have greater sales in your business going into 2024. And I hope that serves you. I hope you think about that. I hope you lean into these things and we'll talk more about some of these things coming into 2024. What I want you to know about 2024 is that the podcast is going to have a little upgrade again. I am also thinking about changing the name. I know I just did it this year and I didn't really change it. I just added a tagline, but I think we might be changing the name in 2024. So keep tuned for that. But the next couple episodes are, oh, so many good episodes featuring guests. We're going to be talking about imposter syndrome. We're going to be talking about how to make sales when you are feeling down for the count, or you are down for the count with chronic illness, how not to feel overwhelmed about your business model living with chronic illness. We're going to be talking about how to increase your sales without overwhelm as an entrepreneur. We're going to talk about how to stay committed to your business while you're living with your chronic illness. We're going to talk about so many different topics. We're going to talk about how your why is really the key to how you will continue to grow and show up even when it's kind of hard or really hard. We're going to talk about fear of financial instability when you're living with chronic illness, how to grow a business that helps you find that stability. We're going to talk about this perceived thought that you may have, or people around you might have, about being lazy because you have a chronic illness and how to overcome that and how to deal with those thoughts. We're going to talk about so many different things. I'm going to be doing more solo episodes, and we're also, like I said, we're going to just have some amazing guests on the show. So a lot more about sales, a lot more about business models as chronic illness warriors, and also just mindset and health. How do you manage that while you're lifing? So, so many things coming in 2024. I'm looking forward to hearing from all of you. You know, you can always DM me with any questions or thoughts on Instagram at Thrive with Nikita Williams. But in the meantime, as you know, I always say, you need to remember and just hold this so close to you: you have been crafted and you are crafted to thrive. That's a wrap, y'all. Thanks for tuning in to Crafted to Thrive, the podcast that helps entrepreneurs with chronic illness to thrive and build a holistic business and life. Check out our website at craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and all the gifts and goodies. Connect with me on Instagram @thrive_with_nikita for more tips and behind the scenes and more. Tag me to share what you loved about this episode and I'll feature you on an upcoming episode. So until next time, remember, yes, you You are crafted to thrive.